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
I’m heading to Singapore for a few days to facilitate a scenario planning workshop on behalf of the Asia Business Forum. There is something intimately exciting for a futurist to be going to arguably the most future focused of all countries and to spend just a brief time immersed there. There’s no doubt that great…
Read More >Greenwashing is a term used to define marketing actions by organisations, claiming to take an environmental approach to their products or services, when in fact, they are doing nothing or very little. Greenwashing is a form of marketing hype, and in turbulent times, many companies may be contemplating ‘sexing up’ their image by tapping into…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will be the key note speaker at the Australian Computer Society’s annual conference to be held in Adelaide on July 30 at the Adelaide Convention Centre With the theme ‘Survive and Thrive’ Marcus will discuss the likely issues of the near term future and why right now, organisations do not have…
Read More >The next Advanced Strategic Planning one-day workshop being run by The Australian Strategic Planning Institute will take place at Rydges in Adelaide on the 13th of July and bookings are now open The TASPI workshops are jam packed with ideas and processes to ensure that your operational, business and strategic planning efforts deliver the…
Read More >Hands up if you remember the dot com bubble? Or how about the Y2K bubble? Housing bubble? ‘Bubbles’ as they apply to all things economic are little more than an oversupply of positive confidence in a particular area of economic concern. In fact ‘Bubbles’ are caused by the SAME things as ‘Recessions’ just at opposite…
Read More >Just a handful of places are left for The Australian Strategic Planning Institute’s one day Advanced Strategic Planning workshop at Karsten’s in Melbourne on the 26th of May. Please note that there are no places available for the June workshops in both Brisbane or Sydney, and the Adelaide workshop in July is half filled though…
Read More >Richard Pratt has succumbed to a battle with prostate cancer and there’s no doubt that many words will be written on paper destined to end up as recycle materials at his VISY Industries plants. There’s a harmony in that thought – all those words of type and paper discussing Richard Pratt will be recycling through…
Read More >Thousands of Australians are just receiving or are about to receive a pretty handsome cheque from the Federal Government as part of the economic stimulous package. The question then is ‘what do I spend this on?’ Below I offer a futurist’s view on where certain generational types might consider spending the bonus. As a…
Read More >It is almost a year since the Australia 2020 Summit was held in Canberra and it is expected that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will provide feedback on the summit, the ideas it generated as well as the ideas of those not at the summit who provided input and thinking. Of course a lot has changed…
Read More >A few years ago whilst researching and generating ideas for the National Geographic Channel’s futures based TV shows ‘Future Matters’ I discussed the idea of what I then called ‘WEs’ or Wearable Electronics. I mentioned that this was a substantially different approach than portable electronics, which is what most mobile phones and laptop computers were…
Read More >