Trend Taster: millennial hobby energy edition
In this week’s edition of the Trend Taster, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:
Pinterest's enhanced visual search
Visa's Intelligent Commerce "agentic shopping"
Philips' Fixables offers 3D-printable repair
Explainer: millennial hobby energy
Luxury Diapers
Pinterest's enhanced visual search
Pinterest's enhanced visual search now lets you discover styles that truly reflect who you are, without needing the perfect words to describe them. By allowing users to tap directly on images, refine searches visually, and find items with specific elements they love, the platform creates ways to evolve personal style that feels intuitive.
Visa's Intelligent Commerce "agentic shopping"
Visa's Intelligent Commerce "agentic shopping" program isn't just another tech integration. It's creating the trust infrastructure needed for AI to handle purchases by partnering with tech leaders and introducing AI-Ready Cards with spending controls. As AI shopping assistants evolve from novelty to everyday, brands that offer transparency, control and clear guardrails may win the race to automate our daily decisions.
Philips' Fixables offers 3D-printable repair
Philips' Fixables is an initiative that offers open access to 3D-printable repair parts, challenging the throwaway culture that's defined consumer electronics for decades. The collaboration with Prusa Research transforms maintenance from a specialised service into a democratised, on-demand experience. Watch for more companies embracing "right to repair" not as regulatory compliance but as a competitive advantage in winning eco-conscious consumers.
Explainer: millennial hobby energy
'Millennial Hobby Energy' - a phrase coined in an essay by writer Anne Helen Petersen - reveals a generation transforming pastimes into passionate pursuits. Think growing hundreds of dahlias instead of a few, or turning couch to 5k into marathon training. It's a fascinating contradiction: ambitious expansion without monetisation, born from childhoods where activities were valued as achievements rather than joys. They're not just pastimes but psychological counterweights, making life "feel large" when so much feels constrained.
Luxury Diapers
Millie Moon's ascent as Target's fastest-growing diaper brand showcases how "luxury diapers" are being democratised for cost-conscious parents. Their success balances premium attributes (dermatologically tested, soft feel) with strategic pricing: at £0.26 per diaper versus competitors' £0.41. This perfectly captures the consumer shift where one-third of parents now demand non-toxic, eco-friendly options, reflected in "non-toxic diaper" searches rising 230% over two years.