Emerging Consumers: Fact or Fiction?

As a futurist spending much of my time assessing emerging developments and their implications across an array of industry sectors, I am frequently asked for a view on ‘consumer trends’. Common questions are ‘what will consumers want in the future?’ ‘Does our product (service) have a place?’ ‘What is driving consumer behaviour?’ ‘How can we get ahead of the changing marketplace?’ and so on. But what if they’re the WRONG questions? For anyone who has seen me facilitate a public session, you’ll know that I play part court jester, part voice of conscience to provoke they way people think. So allow me a little provocation for you:

 

Consumers are NOT changing. Instead what we are seeing is the removal of the ‘blinkers’ most organisations are wearing that have hidden from view the hundreds or thousands of potential customers within their sights. Whilst methods of information gathering are shifting for consumers, that is just a tool, not a process. The intended outcome is very much the same – find out what I need to know.

Which means that even though technology is acceleraing the speed at which a consumer can gather information, it is Companies that are emerging out of the woodwork. It is as if the smog is clearing and businesses are finally seeing that there is (and in fact has ALWAYS been) a myriad of potential consumer dynamics in the marketplace. The most significant impact of this new awareness on behalf of companies, is the collapse of the validity of A-B-C consumers, of age based demographic targeting.

These approaches still have a role to play but they are not the be all and end all of marketing activity. Instead Companies are becoming increasingly aware that some consumers prefer fast paced snippets, some in depth commentary,  and others prefer to go their own way. Some need to be guided, others prompted, some provoked. And this happens across age groups and across geographic locations and across income levels.

So are there Emerging Consumers? – kind of. And for the case of playing the Court Jester role, let me suggest that the emergence is on the part of Organisations who are at last, shaking off their delusion that you can ‘cookie cutter’ their marketing and branding. Sure tastes may change and for now Emerging Consumers are probably Faction than Fact

The Future of Sex Part One

Oct 17, 2011

In this chat with Vicki Kerrigan on radio ABC Darwin we discuss the future of sex. This is the first of potentially three conversations where we look at the increasing reach of technology way beyond current online match making sites, the social pressures driving the use of technology as well as the use of technology…

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Soft House Prices or Unrealistic Vendors?

Oct 16, 2011

There’s been a bit of discussion in recent months about a softening housing market around Australia but I wonder how much of it is more indicative of unrealistic expectations on behalf of sellers? In futures work we think in terms of Assumptions and Expectations and aim to test our understanding and so I offer this…

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We’ve Been hit by an email Virus and apologise to everyone impacted

Oct 12, 2011

Unfortunately it looks like my main email address has been hijacked and has been used to send out a series of spam emails. I’d like to apologise to anyone who has received some junk email purporting to come from ‘desiredfutures’ with a series of html links asking you to go and have a look. You…

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The Future of Plastic Bottles

Oct 10, 2011

Given the amount of plastic swimming in our oceans and rivers and the volume littering our land, the NT Government is aiming to introduce compulsory returns legislation on soft-drink bottles (as happens in South Australia), something that has apparently raised the ire of bottler, Coca Cola. Although they’ve recently backed away from their initial statement…

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Is Alcohol or Cannabis more Harmful?

Oct 7, 2011

Deciphering the hype from reality with regard to drug use can be a challenge for most of us. Professor David Nutt in the UK has given me permission to post a link to the paper he has co-authored with Ruth Weissenborn that looks at the reality of a comparison of harm caused by two common…

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The Future of Clothing Part Two

Oct 4, 2011

Vicki Kerrigan and I finished off our discussion about the Future of Clothing on ABC Darwin yesterday. We discussed invisibility style cloaks, singlets that monitor your heart rate and stress levels, runners that capture electricity to power your wearable electronics and a few philosophical questions regarding our ability to deal with stress.   The file…

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The coming age of Robotics in In-Home Healthcare

Sep 12, 2011

I’ll be talking with Vicki Kerrigan again this afternoon, this time discussing robotics as in-home carers. I’m due on at about 4.45pm Darwin time which is around 5.15pm on the eastern seaboard. You can listen to the audio stream via the link below   http://www.abc.net.au/darwin/programs/webcam_radio.htm?ref=listenlive  If all things go well, I’ll record the session and…

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Australia 2030 – a view from Siemens

Aug 30, 2011

I recently attended a session with South East Business Networks where the CEO of Siemens Australasia provided some great ideas as to where Australian Manufacturing was headed and could go, and indeed perhaps needed to go. What I found most useful from Allan Goller’s perspective was the encouragement for businesses to just get on with…

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The Future of clothing

Aug 26, 2011

In this very brief chat with Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Darwin, we kick off the discussion of the future of clothing – not the ‘style’ elements but the functional elements like capturing perspiration to convert for water. You can listen to the audio via the   link available here – cue it up about a…

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Futurist Marcus Barber on Scenarios for Water Industry at World Water Week

Aug 19, 2011

Marcus Barber will present the case study of his work with Central Highlands Water and their use of Scenarios for Strategy setting at World Water Week in Stockholm this Thursday. You can follow the twitter feed via #watermanagement, #rightfuture or #wwweek This case study looks at the flaws in a reliance on forecasting as the…

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