Nouveau Niche

Providing your customers and clients with status, directly or indirectly, in whatever form or shape. After all, there is little that consumers do that isn't consciously or subconsciously influenced by a desire for recognition from family, friends, and any fellow consumers they come into contact with.
Mature consumer societies in which many consumers have 'out-consumed' themselves, and have started to truly value and promote creativity as a necessary ingredient for innovation and competition on a macro-economic level. Sounds familiar?
Now, translate that value shift to individual consumers (celebrating creativity, instead of passive consumption), and what you may end up with is a trend like GENERATION C (C for Content, for Creativity, for Contributing, for Connecting, for CUSTOMER-MADE and so on), which we’ve spoken about many times in the past.
"In economies that increasingly depend on (and thus value) creative thinking and acting, well-known status symbols tied to owning and consuming goods and services will find worthy competition from 'STATUS SKILLS': those skills that consumers are mastering to make the most of those same goods and services, bringing them status by being good at something, and the story telling that comes with it."
- From wine to whiskey: The Whisky School at Ladybank Distillery lets participants create their own whisky
- Another one to keep a skilled eye on: wikiHoW, the 'How-To Manual That Anyone Can Write or Edit'. Aiming to be the world's largest how-to manual, it already contains more than 11,000 articles written, edited and maintained primarily by volunteers. Topics range from how to bathe a cat to how to create one's own currency converter.
- BMW Performance Driving Schools: BMW offers a wide range of courses designed both for beginners seeking to build confidence and advanced drivers looking to master the art of performance driving. And you don’t have to own a BMW to attend one of their courses.
Skillful consumers
Take any kind of status-heavy industry and you are now guaranteed to spot a number of start-ups that sell STATUS SKILLS instead of status symbols:
skills can only be acquired by doing something yourself first!
“http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/ sept 2006”.