Skip to content

Driving school drives around elderly on their daily commutes

After realizing that, besides the obvious educational purpose, most of their rides were essentially pointless, French driving school network CER wanted to try if they could instead utilize all those kilometres more meaningfully. 

They came up with an idea called ‘The Lost Ride’. Offering to bring people with mobility issues or those who lack money for transportation to their daily commutes like the pharmacy, shops or other destinations. This way their rides are not being wasted and they can help people in need of some daily assistance and/or a small chat.

Some of the best creative ideas follow the formula of ‘we do x anyway (drive around all day), so why not improve it with y (helping elderly people with their daily commutes)’. How can your brand help others by rethinking your daily routines?

Picture of Author

Author

Douwe Knijff

More Signals

Global study on human flourishing

Recently a huge new research project on human flourishing was launched. The study is a result of a new collaboration between some universities (including

Has Gen Z become more conservative?

Since the 1980s, the Netherlands has seen a steady progressive trend, with society becoming increasingly open to progressive values such as same-sex marriage and

The new social rules

In a world where social media often feels performative and overwhelming young people are turning away from big platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat.

Gen Z’s Phone Phobia

Gen Z often shies away from phone calls. Recent research indicates that 60% of Gen Z’ers “dread” receiving phone calls. Another study points out

Four rules – How to better resonate with Gen Z

Complex Society report

Stay relevant.
Sign up for our
bi-weekly Signals.

A bi-weekly newsletter in which we keep track of what’s going on in the world and translate based on our sociocultural knowledge, what this means to brands.

Kim Pillen

Consultant

Before Kim Pillen started as a trend consultant at TrendsActive, she worked for four years as a creative strategist at Dept. For brands such as Philips, bol.com, Beiersdorf, JBL, and the Consumers’ Association, she built (online) campaign, brand, and social media strategies. After four years, she decided that she wanted to better understand people and society in order to advise brands more effectively. That’s how she ended up at TrendsActive. Here, she can do what she loves most: digging into people’s needs and then working with brands to see how and where they can be relevant and meaningful.

Douwe Knijff

Researcher

Douwe is fascinated by how people work. With a background in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences (Bachelor) and Psychology (Master) and an analytical mind he tries figure out how societal shifts manifest themselves through social culture and human behaviour.

Aljan De Boer

Keynote speaker

Aljan has been widely recognized as an inspiring professional speaker on the critical trends that will shape society in the decades to come. He works as the Head of Inspiration at TrendsActive, a trend consultancy from the Netherlands using social science to human-proof business decision for brands like

  • Disney
  • Vodafone
  • Hugo Boss
  • ASR
  • Rabobank

Next to his role at TrendsActive he is the Community Director at the Institute for Real Growth where he inspires and connects a global community of +400 CMOs.  

He has been on the board of the Dutch Platform of Innovative Marketing for almost a decade. Regular speaker and moderator for the Dutch Marketing Awards and 3 times winner of the best of MIE. 

Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees his purpose is to help ambitious leaders and brands to human-proof their business. In 2003 he founded TrendsActive, a trend consultancy enabling brands to become more human centric.

Kees consults global brands like

  • Disney
  • The Coca-Cola Company
  • Asics
  • Discovery Channel
  • Swiss Life
  • Vodafone

and many more.

Next to being the founder of TrendsActive, he is also initiator of the first academic trend master for executives at the University of Utrecht and is initiator of various trend studies and white papers on subjects like trust, meaning, visual culture & generations.

Trendsactive_blau

Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist