There is a cool new consumer trend sweeping the world right now spurring innovation. In today’s “On-Demand” economy consumers are not just demanding innovation, but they want cool exciting products. They want the best; they want it first, and they want an experience with real human connection.
As banks tightened credit restrictions on business lending in 2008, vast changes were made in the way people funded their ideas for startup companies. In response, consumers took control and started this cool new trend called Crowd Sourcing. Crowd Sourcing is a way people can raise capital to launch unique, innovative products that might inspire or change the world. Kickstarter.com provided one of many platforms for consumers to fund the products and services they wanted to see come to life. It has become the hub for meeting consumer demand for exciting innovation while incentivizing crowds to financially support initiatives. It gives them the opportunity to be the first to get the product or service before it ever hits the retail or e-tail market.
So who is responsible for creating a buzz in funding these initiatives?
Introducing…the PRESUMER. The PRESUMER, a type of person coined by TrendWatching.com purchases and supports products and services at the beginning stage of the business cycle. They are major influencers because they try new innovative products and services months or maybe years before they make it to retail. For example, Nano Watches and Smart Watches were successfully introduced through a Kickstarter funded campaign three years ago. Today, if you visit Sony.com you will notice that these watches are now launching at retail. PRESUMERS have been sporting these watches and influencing their peers on the concept for a while now.
The information below shows that PRESUMERS all over the world are passionate about all kinds of products and services.
It’s still possible to draw up a bit of a profile for PRESUMERS. Based on the September 2012 data on Kickstarter users by Quantcast:
- Kickstarer users are predominately ( 62%) male
- 50% are between 18 and 34 and 20% are between 34 and 44.
- Almost half (48%) are college educated. That’s against 30.4% of Americans who are 25 and over and have a college degree.
- 45% earn more than USD 50,000 a year.
In other words, PRESUMERS are mainstream consumers, while most are a little better educated than usual. 😉
Remember, more consumers are becoming PRESUMERS every day. We’ll keep tracking the evolution of the PRESUMER profile, and you should too!
Sources: Quantcast, May 2013, Trendwatching.com, Pretail brief, Kickstarter.com, US Census Bureau, February 2012
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