FORESIGHT BRANDS 2030: TEN FORECASTS ON THE FUTURE ALLIANCE OF BRANDS AND BRANDING
Foresight Alliance 2014 | All Rights Reserved
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Forecasts in Brands 2030 include:
1. The AI Brand. Intelligent, customizable brands seek out consumers. 2. Ultragamified. Brands and Brands 2030 consumers play well together. 3. Self-Generating Brands. Brands that create themselves … brands Brands create themselves based on automated analysis of that know what you want before you consumer demand. need it … brands that respond to 4. Brands Are Fluid. Though we consumer aspirations … Welcome to think of brands as fairly consistent over time, in 2030 brands and branding in 2030! “always changing” might be the new brand image. Brands 2030 is ten forecasts that provide a provocative look 5. Actualizing Brands. By 2030, at ideas and trends that could shape the future of brands brand evolution is driven and their interactions with consumers over the next 15 bottom-up by consumer years. This report from Foresight Alliance looks at aspirations. everything from “DRM houses”—homes that accept only certain branded products—to a gamified consumer 6. Ethical Spending in Emerging Markets. Personal values steer environment that offers near-continuous brand a rising percentage of consumer touchpoints. In exploring the possible futures of brands and spending in emerging markets. branding our goal is to educate our clients on the opportunities—and risks—that will emerge. 7. Crowd-Defined Brands. In 2030, crowds define brands. Careful readers will note that some of these forecasts and 8. Brand Relationships Won’t ideas are contradictory. The report offers a range of brand Matter. In 2030, brand futures, some positive, some negative, but all possible. awareness, salience, and We would be remiss not to offer a word of thanks to our presence are still what drive friends at Brandimation, a leading design-based brand sales. innovation firm serving consumer packaged goods 9. Post-Retail Brands. The era companies. Brands 2030 grows out of research we of automated logistics changes conducted jointly with Brandimation for a presentation to branding. the BRANDPACKAGING Conference. 10. Brand Ecosystems. In 2030, If you’d like to learn more about this report, or any of our exclusive ecosystems may be ongoing projects, visit www.foresightalliance.com or email delivering benefits to users and us at [email protected] to See What’s Possible. premiums to producers.
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What this means for companies…
Who knows, wins. Analysis of Brands 2030 data around consumer mood, behavior, brand interactions, etc., will require increasingly 1. The AI Brand sophisticated programs to accurately identify user needs. Intelligent, customizable brands seek out Just as delivery companies were consumers. the unsexy backbone of online retail, data analysts will function in With the influx of data analytics about consumer the same way for AI brands. needs, sentiment, and lifestyle choices, by 2030 Whither marketers? As brands brands are seeking out users, rather than users become smarter and seeking brands. Consumers no longer pay attention independently active, traditional to brands because AI brands now know what marketing departments will need consumers need, and present them with to transform or perish. appropriate, individualized choices at the right time, The end of traditional retail. in their preferred way. As a result, brands are able Subscription services and home to reach niche audiences and individuals even as delivery will be boosted by use of media continues to fragment and more information AI brands, resulting in a decline in is delivered on individual devices. traditional retail sales. With brands already knowing what you What’s driving this forecast… need and when you need it, going to a store becomes superfluous. Branding through interaction, not advertising. By 2020 advertising will no longer be the primary tool for Busted! As brands learn more branding, but instead will be a channel for driving about users and respond transactions with consumers. appropriately, users will face The always‐on brand. With the transparency created increased risk of their secrets by social media, the Internet, and mobile, brands are being accidentally revealed by a always‐on—not just tied to one product. brand to their friends or family Consumer/brand interactions are digital. against their wishes. Increasingly, consumer interactions with brands are
digital first; human/personal only second.
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What this means for companies…
Gameplay brand manager. Brand managers will need to expand their skillsets to Brands 2030 encompass expertise in game design and game 2. Ultragamified experiences that enhance brand identity.
Brands and consumers play well together. Branding the world. Smartphones and Fostered by Millennial interests, in 2030 game- augmented reality enable playing is the leading form of entertainment among brand content to be digitally crucial consumer demographics. Brand managers overlaid on any real-world respond by embedding their brands into gaming environment. Any location or experience can be used as a experiences that mix the virtual with the real. platform for brand Ubiquitous adoption of augmented reality has made development. brand-oriented gaming as common as playing Angry From consumer to player. Birds was in 2013. Consumers engage in branded Gamification offers brands scavenger hunts, for instance, competing and the opportunity to turn cooperating with friends and family. Branded games consumers into teammates. have opened up new avenues for consumer-brand Purchase behavior could be influenced by a team interaction, trading entertainment and competition mentality and the for special discounts, promotions, and elite service. competitive urge to win.
What’s driving this forecast… Entertainment and beyond. Gamification already goes . Brands are Augmented reality and brands well beyond entertainment. exploring innovative uses of augmented reality to Companies can use game develop new consumer touchpoints. formats to deliver new Brands in gaming. Gaming is an increasingly dominant experiences, new learning, media form, and offers opportunities for in-game and new opportunities for branding and product promotion. socialization that are relevant to brand identity.
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What this means for companies…
Responsiveness. This approach could allow rapid response to changing market Brands 2030 conditions. Anticipatory brands. By 3. Self-Generating Brands looking outside the immediate product space, Brands create themselves based on new brand ideas could be anticipated, filling a void that analysis of consumer demand. consumers haven’t even By or before 2030, consumer data is so rich and recognized yet. deep that brands essentially create themselves Speed. Self-generating based on detected patterns of consumer need, brands may appear rapidly to rapidly filling an identified brand niche. Systems fill a temporary need, with detect gaps in brands through methods such as many having a relatively social media monitoring, click-through rates, or A/B short shelf-life. A small percentage will have long- testing. They also look outside the immediate term staying power. product space for changes in the broader environment and use this to anticipate need. Complements crowdsourced branding. Self-creating What’s driving this forecast… brands complement approaches that let Big data on consumers. Massive amounts of data are consumers contribute to becoming available on what and how consumers buy, brand creation. Some of the and how they live minute to minute. techniques will overlap. Predictive computing. Improving AI combined with big data is allowing algorithmic prediction of more Monitoring for downsides. aspects of business and consumer life. Algorithmic creation will From passive to active brands. Consumer–brand need to be kept in check to engagement is shifting from passive exposure to brand see that it does not deviate messages to active interaction. too far from core brands, Consumer co-creation. Marketing firms are working company values, or public directly with consumers to build products and brands. standards of taste.
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What this means for companies… Becoming brand-nimble. If brands change more quickly, brand management decisions that were once earth-shaking will become more routine, Brands 2030 and management processes will need to change to 4. Brands Are Fluid provide greater flexibility at lower management levels.
Though we think of brands as fairly From brand-as-asset to…? consistent over time, in 2030 “always Brands have been core changing” might be the new brand image. company assets, often stable for decades. As brands By the end of the next decade, as the pace of become more fluid, companies will need to find consumer change accelerates and social media other ways to measure (and matures, a stronger, deeper linkage between account for) their intangible consumers and brands has driven brands to change assets. more quickly too. For example, brands have shifted Pop-up brands. A “pop-up their messaging or morphed key attributes to brand” could use customized compete effectively in a world of viral memes. Some advertising and finely honed new brands grow über-fast but are ultra-short-lived. social media techniques to go viral with its target audiences. What’s driving this forecast… Dynamic competition. Fluid Brand interactions are conversations. Brand individual brands will create a interaction is evolving past simple message rapidly shifting, even dizzying bombardment to productive interactions. competitive landscape, Big experiences. Brands will leverage big data to challenging companies to design and deliver engaging experiences. navigate complex, ever- shifting terrain. Consumers as co-branders. Consumers are effectively partnering with marketers in establishing and promoting brands.
Consumers set terms. Customers, not brands, will
increasingly direct the consumer-brand interaction.
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What this means for companies…
Engagement is everything. Brand interaction will move past message bombardment Brands 2030 to productive interactions. Deep engagement, both directly with consumers and 5. Actualizing Brands indirectly with their data trails, will be the rule By 2030, brand evolution is driven through 2030. bottom-up by consumer aspirations. Beyond CSR. Companies will need to truly walk their While many brands were already values-driven in talk—going beyond CSR and the early 21st century, by 2030 more brands have embodying their brands’ made consumer values central to their journey values in their own practices toward the future. Brand evolution is directed and policies. Transparency and peer-to-peer bottom-up by their customers’ aspirations, rather communication will reinforce than top-down—co-evolving in sync with this need for values integrity, consumers’ advancing values and dreams. as consumers both seek out brands that understand and What’s driving this forecast… personify their evolving values, and communicate Branding is evolving. Standardized branding is being about them to their circles. replaced by meaningful, socially minded, authentic, and experiential approaches. The great divide. By aligning Emotion is the killer app. Studies reveal that with one set of evolving consumers are downgrading brands to commodity consumer values, brands status if the brand fails to connect emotionally. may have to alienate others. Clean-slate brands. Brands with little or no heritage Chik-fil-a’s association with are finding appeal by infusing aspirational business anti-gay marriage forces in values—fair labor, transparency, co-creation, etc.— 2012 drew legions of deeply into their business models and practices. traditionally minded Values importance varies by generation. customers, but provoked Boomers and Millennials make values-based purchases wrath in many others. more than Gen Xers or Matures.
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What this means for companies…
Rising role for CSR. This trend will extend the reach of corporate social Brands 2030 responsibility (CSR) as it expands in high-growth markets. Brands tied to 6. Ethical Spending in culturally aligned values may Emerging Markets get a boost. Regionally distinct causes. In this forecast, personal values steer a The standard causes of CSR for developed-world rising percentage of consumer spending consumers (such as labor in emerging markets. conditions or rainforest preservation) may not be the Through 2030, values-based consumption rises ones that take precedence in among the increasingly prosperous middle classes of emerging markets. For emerging markets, and they look to brands for cues. instance, corruption might be a more prominent Ethical and ideological concerns carry more weight concern. in brand choice, partially edging out value-for- money and conspicuous consumption as drivers. New tokens of status. “Ethical consumption” offers What’s driving this forecast… new approaches to status that can replace or augment Growing middle classes. Global middle classes are traditional luxury categories. adding hundreds of millions of increasingly wealthy and educated people. Clashing values. Values- Brands as status. Brands convey status for millions in based buying may be at odds the world’s emerging middle classes. across markets, with Ethical consumers. Consumers around the world view consumers in one market themselves as socially responsible and want to reflect wedded to values that upset this in their purchases—and they can afford to do so. those in another, potentially Rising transparency. Companies’ activities are putting companies in the increasingly transparent in a networked world middle. For instance, cultural connected by mobile phones and social media. conservation might clash with animal rights.
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What this means for companies…
Engage consumers early and Brands 2030 often. Traditional research and development will be 7. Crowd-Defined Brands augmented where possible with consumer engagement In 2030, crowds define brands. throughout the lifecycle of brand design and Consumers in this future use a spectrum of venues and development. social media to voice their wants and define spaces that Storytelling. Each brand need new brands. The fastest and most innovative might have a “story” that companies respond to this crowd expression with tailored evolves with the consumers products. This amplifies a trend that began in the early who help define it. 2010s, in which companies used social media to test and Marketing can share the promote new products and marketing (such as Oreo’s continuing story of the Twitter account or H&M’s previews of new fashions). brand.
What’s driving this forecast… Beyond data analytics. Data analytics can help reveal Consumers increasingly Consumers set the terms. where consumers are asking set the terms of consumer–brand interactions. for brands/products in non- Crowdfunded development. Consumers have a traditional venues—helping growing number of avenues to fund the products and to detect consumer “wish- services they want to see developed. lists” in all their forms. Consumers as co-branders. Consumers are effectively becoming partners with marketers in the life Brand evolution. Expect of a brand. brands to change and be Opt-in marketing. Consumers are choosing which refined as consumers marketing messages they want to receive. provide feedback on an ongoing basis. Brand as friend. Social media provides platforms on which consumers can engage with brands as they do Micro brands. Competition with other social media friends. may come from lots of small entrants that can efficiently use social media and digital manufacturing to develop and produce new brand ideas. See What’s Possible
What this means for companies…
Personalization even more important. In this future, brand engagement won’t go Brands 2030 away entirely but will skew toward greater consumer 8. Brand Relationships control over what their products and services look Won’t Matter like and do. Purpose of social media. The In 2030, brand awareness, salience, and best use of social media presence are still what drive sales. channels may be to spread the word about the brand via It’s popular to talk of deepening consumers’ engaging content, rather relationships with a brand. But most consumers just than to build deep relationships with frequent aren’t that into brands. Marketing guru Martin users. Weigel argues that savvy marketers will realize they can best boost sales by extending their brand’s Wide and often. reach—making more consumers more aware of the Communication strategy brand—rather than by building loyal fans. needs to maximize the number of consumers What’s driving this forecast… reached and the frequency of interaction. Everything you know about brands is wrong. Weigel points out that most brand consumers are light Multiply touch points. users, not fans. Fragmenting media channels Consumers long for quiet. After years of being and preferences mean that pummeled by brand messages, consumers are opting for reaching many consumers simpler brand engagement. will require many channels. Pragmatic Millennials. Some studies suggest that Loyalty programs. If most Millennials take a pragmatic approach to brands—or consumers are light users, that they are not brand-loyal at all. loyalty programs should Generics rising. Post-recession consumers know that reward light and first-time generics can offer both quality and savings. users.
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Low-friction transactions. Amazon Prime removes the friction from transactions and locks customers into its Brands 2030 storefronts. Other industries must innovate to remove 9. Post-Retail Brands friction and create customer lock-in.
The era of automated logistics changes Packaging peril. Declining in- branding. store purchasing changes product packaging. Online In 2030, the retail environment sees ubiquitous appeal in images, and the same-day delivery of online goods and autonomous- “unboxing” experience, are vehicle pickup and delivery of store purchases. elevated in importance. Consolidation across e-commerce and retail Brand deal-breakers. The industries has left only a handful of players that can most successful brands are combine logistical sophistication with a national those that motivate footprint. Convenience and availability, not impulse, consumers to make the extra drive consumer purchasing in this future, making effort to avoid the branded goods an exclusive differentiator between convenience of store brands, sales conduits. Strong brand identity is needed to generics, or competing brands. motivate consumers to make purchases beyond their convenience threshold. Clerks become pickers. With the point-of-sale increasingly What’s driving this forecast… disintermediated by app and online purchasing, store staff
It’s not e-commerce, it’s just commerce. The will shift from checking out boundaries between online and physical retail are customers to picking blurring due to online ordering and in-store pickup. products to fulfill orders. Automation advances. Drone, truck, and vehicle technologies are rapidly becoming capable of real-world Big data convenience. autonomous operation. Companies can use Inventory on demand. Stores are giving consumers consumer purchase histories real-time access to product availability in nearby stores. to streamline the purchase of future items.
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DRM products. In this case, companies would Brands 2030 increasingly be able to control the usage rights of 10. Brand Ecosystems their products and charge a premium to use them. For In 2030, exclusive ecosystems may be example, only certain coffee might be used in a particular delivering benefits to users and coffee machine, or one premiums to producers. brand of soap in a dishwasher. Or same- In this future, the “walled garden” approach to branded detergents and product ecosystems, popularized by tech firms such bleach could be formulated as Amazon and Apple, has migrated to non-tech to work best together. sectors. Many brands operate inside closed Rewarding loyalty. A brand ecosystems. For companies, this locks in consumers; ecosystem approach could for consumers, the efficacy or benefits of the support an expanded products they buy are amplified by other brands in customer-loyalty program, in the ecosystem. Some consumers even opt to which the user is rewarded for the number of ecosystem become a company home, using RFID, smart-home products she buys. technologies, and geofencing to “set” or “tune” their homes to accept only specific brands or Better living through brand products, in exchange for significant discounts. partnerships. Increased efficacy is a key benefit to What’s driving this forecast… consumers in a brand ecosystem. For example, The tug of the supply chain. Brands are increasingly food company meal systems responsible for everything that happens in their supply could offer customized meal chains. plans, automatic ordering, Consumers expect more. Consumers want brands to and synergistic nutritional offer better and faster service and more personal benefits across offerings. recognition. They also expect brands to make better use of the personal data they share with them.
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What our clients say:
I’ve had the pleasure of working with Foresight Alliance on two strategic foresights projects in the last few years. The first was for PepsiCo and investigated what would be driving consumers’ food Brands 2030 and beverage choices ten years from now. The second project, About Foresight Alliance IRI2038, was for the Industrial Research Institute and asked what research and technology Foresight Alliance is a rigorous, creative, futures- management might look like 25 oriented consulting company. We help our clients years in the future. In both cases, understand how the future might unfold and what we asked Foresight Alliance to provide us with weak signals of they need to do now to anticipate and shape it. possible emerging trends that Our foresight methodologies deliver: could disrupt the consensus view of the future. In both cases, they Actionable results delivered a wide variety of “off the radar” early signals which, when Potent new organizational opportunities combined with the consensus view, More robust strategies created several provocative yet Wiser decisions plausible views of the future in which we may find ourselves. Both … for our clients at Fortune 500 companies, studies are highly regarded and I government agencies, and nonprofits. would definitely work with Terry and her team again. We excel at making information about the future —Ted Farrington, Sr. Director, relevant to our clients through: PepsiCo Advanced Research Customized services Research and analysis Thank you for your strong interest and enthusiasm during the project. Years of foresight experience Your approach and deliverables And we especially enjoy helping our clients build were exactly what we needed to identify a range of strategic their own internal foresight capability. opportunities. We would welcome the chance to work together again Visit us at www.foresightalliance.com or email us at should the opportunity arise. [email protected]. —Vicky Yobp, CAE, Managing Director, Professional Community, AIHA
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