2.6. Rapid Change of Consumption Patterns

Many industries have experienced rapid changes in consumption patterns over the last couple of years: margarine turned from a cheap substitute for butter into a fancy lifestyle product, Adidas footwear and textiles transformed from old-fashioned sportswear to a hip product to be worn in cool clubs on Saturday nights. There are many more examples.

Many of these changes were hardly predictable for the companies concerned. They can radically change a firm’s business environment: all of a sudden, marketing can become crucial etc. But many of these changes are also unpredictable for competition authorities. These changes mean that demand substitutability becomes even more difficult to ascertain: at least some products that used to belong to some sportswear market have become part of some fashionwear market.