There are two items that I use nearly every day: a uni-ball Onyx red pen and a Swiss Army knife, built circa 1980, a gift from my late grandfather. The pen I use for work, marking up documents as needed, and the knife I use at home, opening mail and plastic packages, tightening screws, cleaning dirt out of my soccer cleats. Though I love my red pen, it’s limited in its range of operations. The Swiss Army knife, though, can slot in just about anywhere, doing just about anything. That flexible template is one that some brands are now following when creating and marketing their products, giving us a trend centered on all things functional.
The functional trend posits that there can be great benefit to using your product or service as, essentially, an alternate product or service. Any businessperson knows that it’s better to do one thing well than several things unremarkably, but in being functional there is no quantity‚Äìquality correlation. You simply supplement the thing you’re known for with another function, and you’re proving yourself as a jack of all trades, along with already being a master of one.
Brands using this trend are much more likely to get their name in front of customers who might otherwise never come across them.
Clever brands are finding and creating new ways of using a staid, bulky, fifty-year-old device: the ATM. Stanbic, one of Africa’s largest banks, recently rolled out a line of solar-powered ATMs in areas of Ghana prone to power outages. Equipped with air conditioners and CCTVs, the ATMs are safe, reliable and show off the banking behemoth’s engineering (and innovation) muscles.
Another African nation, another ATM innovation. This modified version of the automated teller machine dispenses not just cash but clean water. In a Nairobi neighborhood, four ATMs were installed that provide high-quality H2O to users, who operate the machines by inserting a debit card that can be filled up at kiosks or by cellphone, and then choose, just as a cash amount, a certain amount of water to take away.
And lest you think functional is limited just to ATMs, it’s anything but. We’ve seen a children’s jacket that can diagnose pneumonia, a hat that can track the vital data of infants and even a bra that helps women to check for breast cancer. A Thai nonprofit recently created a fixture that can be attached to a motorbike’s tailpipe that turns exhaust into mosquito repellent. The brands who are acting functional immediately do three things. First, they put their product or service in front of eyes who might never come across them. Second, they put into practice their innovative, creative thinking. And finally, for the brands who use the trend to do good, they show off their humanitarian bona fides.
It’s great to be like my uni-ball pen—it means you’re reliable, you’re consistent, you’re clearly doing something right. But there’s even more potential for your brand if it creates something that can act like a Swiss Army knife. The more reasons customers have to use you, the more top of mind you’ll remain. And if they’re still using you—like that gift from my grandpa—20+ years later, then all the better.
Trends inspired by trendwatching.com/premium