Driving me round the trend ...

 

My trend-weariness was setting in already over three years ago, I see. This year, I’ve even looked at some of the AI summaries of trend reports and, maybe predictably, haven’t seen much to inspire me. It really does seem to be a load of (crystal) balls.

A new-ish genre in the trend oeuvre - in addition to category trends, consumer trends, media trends, tech trends et al - is marketing trends aka The Future of Marketing. One such is the Cap Gemini report I commented on a few weeks back.

Another is McKinsey’s State of Marketing Europe 2026.  In case you’re wondering how McKinsey work out the future of marketing in Europe, they do it by looking in the rearview mirror. Via a survey of 500 senior marketing decision-makers across 5 countries, backed up with a few depth interveiws with CMOs and academics. 

The stunning conclusion is that “marketing leaders are returning to mastering the basics but simultaneously advancing with utilizing modern tools.” Gosh. 

To get on in 2026, marketers must: Be Trusted, Be Effective, Be Bold. As opposed to ...

Golly gosh indeed. Who’d have thought it? 

There’s a rather hectoring tone about the report - in reference to AI: “Unless European marketing leaders rapidly change their attitudes ...”

Yes, tut, tut. Watch out before the cruel VUCA world gobbles you up, or the Burning Platform turns into an inferno.

The 50-page report has no less than 10 named authors (which doesn’t include Claude or ChatGPT), plus a list of industry experts as long as your arm, plus numerous McKinsey experts and colleagues. Not to mention all the others named who offered “editorial support."

There’s something “too many cooks” about this. It’s a report on an opinion poll, where the questionnaire has been designed by McKinsey. The 500 senior marketing decision-makers, I’m sure, work on a fascinating and diverse range of brands. And are, most likely, a varied bunch with some marked differences in character, in experience - and I’m sure in the way they approach marketing. 

Yet they’ve all been reduced to data points to make generalisations of the LCD sort, rather than HCF. Standardised to fit McKinsey’s frameworks, questions, flywheels, playbooks, agenda and whatever else.

The result is a rather bland, self-fulfilling prophecy. Seek and ye will find.

This stuff is all bad enough, as far as I'm concerned, when McKinsey does it.

But where McKinsey sucks, so do many lesser mortals, out to make a quick buck.

The author/s of this “Industry Pulse Report" report will remain nameless. The industry in question is digital media and advertising. 220 UK digital media experts were questioned in the survey that forms the basis of this - ahem - sales pitch.

But just look at this one chart:

The “experts” were asked what was suitable content to be adjacent to their brand. 

Around a quarter of these experts think it’s not just OK but positively “suitable” for your brand to be next to content that contains inaccurate information, mis/disinformation, or hallucinations. Or content that provides an ad-spammy or cluttered user experience. 

With the rise of synthetic respondents, I am beginning to wonder about the “experts” who find time to take part in these surveys. 

RETROWURST: Austria January 2008

Back in January 2008, I had a little slalom through Austria and its brands such as Red Bull, Almdudler, Meinl, Handl, Giesswein and Pez.

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Maybe because I have just come back from my skiing holiday and maybe because it’s one of the host countries for the European Cup this year, I thought I would take a quick look at Austria and a few Austrian brands this month.

 

When most people in the UK think of Austria, they think of Vienna or Salzburg, of skiing or the Sound of Music, of the blue Danube or Apfelstrudel or of Sachertorte or Lederhosen. But when we think further, we see that Austria is a land of contradiction. On the one hand, there are the years of civilization and great culture and philosophy and on the other hand there is the dark period of history last century. This is the land that produced Mozart, Strauss, Schubert and Freud as well as Arnie, DJ Ötzi and Hitler. The population is a multi-ethnic mix, but almost all speak German. 

 

Austria has a total population of 8.2m, just a tenth of that of Germany. A quarter of these live in Vienna or its suburbs. The ethnic mix includes Hungarians, Croatians, Serbians, Bosnians, Czechs, Slovenians, Turkish, Italians and Albanians as well as the “Roma” who are an officially recognized ethnic minority. This reflects Austria’s key position in the centre of Europe and its imperial history.

 

Austria is one of the top 10 richest countries in the world with a very high standard of living. Employment is relatively low at under 5% (c/f Germany at 9%) and the economy shows a positive development above the EU average.

 

Austrian values include love of the beautiful countryside (much of Austria is mountainous), pride in traditions including food and music, love of closeness of family and friends, Gemütlichkeit (unique feeling of “cosiness”) and pride in roots and longevity. Many families in Austria have lived in the same town for generations and family firms are abundant. Although they like to think of themselves as a progressive company, Austria is woefully behind other EU countries regarding the status of women. There are precious few women in senior management or in politics (for all Germany’s backwardness in this area, at least we have “Angie”!) and there is a huge salary gap between men and women in equivalent positions. In a largely catholic country, women are not particularly encouraged to go back to work after having children and childcare facilities are inadequate.

 

Some Austrian Brands

Red Bull: covered in a previous Extrawurst

Some of the Austrian values are reflected in some classic Austrian brands that I have chosen to give just a little snapshot of. 

 

 

ALMDUDLER

www.almdudler.com

If you thought that coffee, or some nasty Schnapps was the national drink of Austria, you would be wrong: it’s Almdudler! Almdudler, for those who have not tried it is a “herbal lemonade” – actually, it tastes a bit like ginger ale. Almdudler the company has been going for over 50 years, and the website has a competition at the moment for the “best traditional costume couple”. In case you’re missing a jaunty feather hat or Edelweiss choker to go with your Dirndl, you can also buy these from the Almdudler site.

 

MEINL

Julius Meinl started roasting coffee on the family stove in Vienna in 1862 and popularized freshly roasted coffee. Since this time, the company has not looked back, despite excursions beyond the core competence into retail, for example. The logo of the “little coffee boy” is very well-known and reflects the history of coffee in Austria: coffee was brought to Vienna by the Turks in 1683.

 

HANDL

www.handltyrol.at

Handl sell dried bacon, ham and sausages in many varieties and make use of Tyrolean imagery on their packaging, reflecting the authentic nature of the products. They had a very interesting media idea to advertise their sausage snack products with posters at ski-lift stations in the winter season: after all, a spicy hard sausage is just the thing for those long rides in the chairlift!

 

GIESSWEIN

www.giesswein.com

Giesswein are based not a million miles from Kitzbühel and are known world-wide for their boiled-wool jackets and slippers which are available in both traditional and fashionable styles for adults and children.

 

PEZ

The name PEZ comes from the German for Peppermint, Pfefferminz. It may surprise you to know that what became part of pop culture in the US was invented in Vienna in 1927. The sweets were introduced to the US in 1952 and, in 1955; the first character dispensers were introduced. These have become cult collectors’ items which are collected with the fevour that some collect Kinder Surprise figures here in Germany. I am sure that Arnie would agree that sometimes you have to get out of Austria and over to the USA to get people to take you seriously!

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While the political situation in Austria has got a little messy in recent years, Austria’s brands all seem to be on Red Bull. This brand is now worth €8.7 billion and is growing by 11%. Generally, Austrian brands are doing better when it comes to growth than those of their German-speaking neighbours. Following Red Bull in 2nd and 3rd position are two banks - Erste bank and Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI). Also notable is the grocery discounter Billa, part of the REWE empire, growing at a whopping 70% in terms of value. 

And maybe the sweetest get-together on the branded front is Almdudler with Haribo - not Gümmibärchen, but Gümmipärchen!