NextGen Trends 2022: Spontaneous Play

After dealing with endless virus variants and long-term inhibitions ruining important life milestones, NextGen is now desperately looking for optimism, relief and freedom. In InSites Consulting new Gen Z study, about 53% of Gen Z and 64% of Millennials in the US state the pandemic makes them want to create new memories with new people.?

NextGens who have been locked up in their bedrooms for too long are craving for spontaneous moments of joy and playful content to let off some steam. In our Trends 2022 Report aiming for spontaneous playful moments as a form of escapism was mapped as an expanding or establishing trend in most regions across the globe.

Nike’s PLAYlab pop-up in the UK features a submission station where children can use their playfulness, imagination and creativity to come up with ideas for alternative sports and games beyond the traditional competitions. A selection will be featured on Nike’s PLAYLAB YouTube series, and some will even be turned into real events.

MSCHF is a Brooklyn-based art collective commenting on the absurdity of society, art and commerce in a playful way. While commenting on fashion’s drops obsession, they use the same technique limiting availability of sold work each second and fourth Monday of the month. Last December MSCHF released the Tanteen game. Each participant had to enter 10 dollars to play and then simply login every day to not be eliminated, the last person remaining wins the pot. Onlybags, one of this year’s drops, is a website where you could buy empty shopping bags – only the bag - of luxury brands for 40 dollars apiece. All bags sold out in under a minute even the IKEA one.

In the beauty industry, Circus is a brand-new beauty magazine re-defining the definition of beauty to: playful, unserious and weird fun. In this post-pandemic era the role of make-up products might shift to creative experiments and playful self-expression rather than just helping us to look good. Goblin core is a fashion and lifestyle trend that rejects the idyllic and embraces the dark, unkempt, and shabby symbols of the natural world beyond fungi and frogs. The hashtag is exploding in popularity on TikTok – with almost 1 billion views?–?and on Etsy searches for goblincore themes increased by 652%?from July 2020 to July 2021.

Even in the serious banking and insurance sector, the spontaneous play trend can be relevant to connect better with a NextGen audience. Scandinavian insurer Hedvig used billboard advertising in Sweden to advise college kids to “go get in trouble”. As an antidote to anxiety about having post-pandemic fun, the brand announced a student insurance of 49 Kronen per month (around 5.5 dollars) to allow them to live careless and wild and free. Hedvig worked together with JC Decaux – the OOH advertising network - to create vandalised billboards - visually embodying the campaign’s headline.

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