Coates & Concannon - Lobsters, Spoons & Hibernating Bears - 2024.pptx
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Thoughts on the pitfalls of traditional futures work and the power of customer-led foresight approaches. Presented to client-side researchers at AURA.
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Coates & Concannon - Lobsters, Spoons & Hibernating Bears - 2024.pptx
- 1. Lobsters, spoons & hibernating bears Foresight@CSpace C Space © 2023 Nick Coates – Global Consultancy Director Amy Concannon – Practice Director, Foresight
- 2. 2 Hi! Intros C Space © 2023 Nick Amy
- 3. C Space © 2023 3 Rise of AI Globalization Permacrisis More data = more confusion It feels like the pace of change has accelerated. It’s difficult to plan for the next few months – let alone years. FORESIGHT: THE PROBLEM
- 4. C Space © 2023 4 So, it’s unsurprising that traditional ways of running Foresight projects are being thrown out. Traditionally Foresight has been done by experts, but there are limitations to this approach. FORESIGHT: THE PROBLEM “The risks, the uncertainty, everything that used to be in a ‘risk matrix file’ is more or less happening . . . We laugh about the time when we were doing one-year budgets, and how we would be right or wrong by 0.3 per cent.” Jasper Brodin, IKEA
- 5. Prediction fail #1 The metaverse will completely transform how we live this year It didn’t because: • The timescale wasn’t right • The use case wasn’t right 6 Click here to watch Imagine you put on your headset and you’re instantly in your home space… And now woah we’re floating in space?!... Now check out this forest room – koi fish that fly… that’s new!” FORESIGHT: THE PROBLEM C Space © 2023
- 6. Now recent adverts show tangible applications for the Metaverse From: The bizarre and fantastical To: Practical, real- life use cases in the workplace 8 FORESIGHT: THE PROBLEM C Space © 2023 Click here to watch
- 7. Prediction fail #2: Voice control will revolutionise how we buy things and how we interact with the world. It didn’t because: • It didn’t focus on the right need • Engineers designed for themselves 9 The technology that is most revolutionary and going to shake brands to their core is Voice. Brands lose as voice based-ordering eliminates the need for packaging & design.” Scott Galloway, 2017 FORESIGHT: THE PROBLEM
- 8. 10 INSIGHT We’re all afraid of the dark ANNA’S GRANDKIDS Monsters ANNA’S GRANDKIDS A broken hip
- 9. 11
- 10. 12 FORESIGHT: THE PROBLEM We spoke with dozens of insight professionals to understand challenges within Foresight
- 11. THE FORESIGHT GAP 13 Customer-led Foresight Futurology (reliant on trends & experts) Reactivity (do nothing and wait) We’ve recognised there’s a gap
- 12. 14 TOOLKIT We’ve created a toolkit to guide you on how to involve customers in Foresight work. Here’s a taster our tips, tools & tricks…
- 13. “What you see is all there is” Egocentrism bias • It’s easy to see the future as an extension of what sounds you • It’s easy to project a Eurocentric lens onto the rest of the world • It’s easy to grab trends & simply make your own story with them. “Don't believe the hype” Techtopian optimism bias • It’s difficult to distinguish between big macro forces that will disrupt the category vs. short-term fads. “It’s all too hard” Status Quo bias • Brands are firefighting and it’s hard to get the business to act and care in the long-term. • The status quo is the easiest route. We think customer- led Foresight can address 3 systemic biases CHALLENGES
- 14. IKEA THE BRIEF: Co-create the shopping experience of the future METHOD: - Early adopters - Parallel worlds - Outside-in DISCOVERED: From: the shopping day-trip To: magical services
- 15. IKEA PROBLEM: “What you see is all that is” Egocentric bias SOLUTION: Look outside-in METHOD: Early adopters/ parallel worlds
- 16. BRIEF: Building relevance with Gen Z in travel METHOD: #NextGen closeness & ethnography DISCOVERED: From: hyper- informed activists To: quiet rebellion
- 17. PROBLEM: “Believe the hype” Techtopian optimism bias SOLUTION: Ground it METHOD: Engage future and current customers
- 18. PROBLEM: “It’s all too hard” Status quo bias SOLUTION: Build it METHOD: Co-creation
- 19. THE BRIEF: Re-imagine travel loyalty METHOD: Trends Big Talk A/B modelling Prototyping CEO stories DISCOVERED: From: benefits while we travel To: 365 days a year (Live Local) IMPACT: 23 awards
- 20. 22 Conclusion In summary, three things to remember… 1. Look outside in To overcome… “What you see is all there is” 2. Ground it To overcome… “Believe the hype” 3. Build it To overcome… “It’s too hard”
- 21. 23 What questions do you have? Questions C Space © 2023 Amy Concannon Practice Director, Foresight aconcannon@cspace.com 07502311446 Nick Coates Global Consultancy Director ncoates@cspace.com 07960907925
Editor's Notes
- Intro Practice Director of Foresight at C Space We’ve recently run research with insight professionals & created a toolkit for running customer-led Foresight. Today, we’ll be chatting about Challenges with approaching Foresight (there are a few!) Principles for best involving customers in Foresight work Sharing a handy takeaway By Foresight, we’re talking about the next 3+ yrs The time horizon will change based on TOPIC & circumstance (e.g. in the pandemic it would have been more like 1 yr out)
- This is banded about a lot, but it feels like the pace of change has accelerated… For example: - Tech is advancing at an unprecedented pace. It took over 2 million years for our ancestors to control fire & use it to cook, but only 66 years from the first flight to humans landing on the moon - The average lifespan of businesses has decreased from 67 yrs in the 1920s to 15 years in 2020 - The covid pandemic meant ‘2 yrs of digital transformation happened within 2 months’ (e.g. proliferation of digital collaboration tools) The result of this is that CEOs think their business are constantly in flux. It’s difficult to plan for the next few months – let alone years. //// Foresight changes… For example: - The exponential growth of AI - The average lifespan o fan S&P 500 company has decreased from 67 years in the 1920s to just 15 years in 2020, reflecting the rapid changes in the business landscape. - moon example - The acceleration of tech innovation in areas like cloud computing, IoT - Product life cycles shortening - The speed in which we saw the rise & fall of Bitcoins (e.. Increase of 595% in the 153 days between October 9 and March 2021. Then compressed present of Bitcoin’s fall in value between Nov 21 and June 2022) We have more data than ever before, but instead of giving more focus to Futures strategies, this can simply lead to more confusion. This is having a real impact on businesses: - A recent study by Accenture revealed a surprising fact: 61% of executives expect their organizations to be in a continuous state of evolution over the next five years. - PWC - Forty percent of global CEOs think their organisation will no longer be economically viable in ten years’ time, if it continues on its current course And all of this means it’s difficult to plan for the next few months – let alone the next few years. ////// when the world seemed relatively stable, trends were predictable and this could be translated into a more or less credible multiyear business plan. /////////////// - Just in time manufacturing, Nike stock rotation, XXX - People always talking about the future getting faster… there’s specific ways businesses are finding it harder of that… The pace of change has accelerated, but why? - dramatic changes in tech with rise of AI - cost of living crisis & covid – life can be turned upside down more quickly than we expected - more data means more confusion etc It now feels difficult to plan for the next few months – let alone years. Proofpoint: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200923-the-hinge-of-history-long-termism-and-existential-risk - The climate crisis gathering momentum – it’s the first time in history that our species has the planet’s future in its hands The Unprecedented Pace Of Change (forbes.com) WHAT WE USED TO DO…. Things are always changing – but things have started to change faster. MeToo, The Cost Of Living Crisis, The Greta Effect, Covid, Ukraine, Brexit. What started as localized, one-off events, have turned into global movements that have profoundly affected the tradeoffs consumers are willing make. Expectations, simply, are much higher and for brands to win in this environment, they need to learn to give, as much as they seek to get. Proofpoint: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200923-the-hinge-of-history-long-termism-and-existential-risk //////////////////////// Jono additions A recent study by Accenture revealed a surprising fact: 61% of executives expect their organizations to be in a continuous state of evolution over the next five years. PWC - Forty percent of global CEOs think their organisation will no longer be economically viable in ten years’ time, if it continues on its current course.
- So it’s unsurprising that traditional ways of running Foresight projects are being thrown out. Ikea & other clients are completely changing how they do Foresight. As Jasper Brodin, IKEA said: “we laugh about the time when we were doing one-year budgets, and how we would be right or wrong by 0.3%.” Now this is completely different. IKEA have moved from setting out specific goals for the year, and instead has a set of “scenarios” to give the business wiggle room as the outlook changes. It means acknowledging that widely different outcomes are possible. If there’s more change, they need to not get to more precision, but to more flexibility This is just one example of many brands who are re-thinking how the do foresight. Traditionally Foresight has been done by experts, but there are limitations to this approach. /////// CEOs are struggling to make sense of confusing macroeconomic signals. In Europe and the US, an economic downturn is combined with record low unemployment and labour shortages. Consumer behaviour is a mystery: up until recently people have kept spending even though the price of almost everything has gone up. The worst predictions of economic crisis and energy shortages from last year have not materialised. But it feels uniquely hard to predict the path ahead at the moment. Helping businesses be more resilient… if there’s more change, it’s not more precision, it’s more flexibility. Foresight is back on the agenda
- Let’s take the Metaverse… Zukerburg & many predicted the Metaverse would totally transform how we live – imminently. Let’s look at this video… ////// “Experts are so close to technologies that they have a huge bias. Their predictions are more expressions of industry, rather than expressions of actual market change.”Oskar Korkman, Co-Founder of Alice Labs Partners & former Director of Insights at Nokia
- - But they hadn’t got the right timescale (we tend to over-egg the short term, and underestimate the long term) - And they hadn’t got the right use case – the advert was futuristic and unrelatable And that’s because often predictions are made by experts with a motivation for the business to succeed. They make products designed for people like them (& the world doesn’t look like them) ////// “Experts are so close to technologies that they have a huge bias. Their predictions are more expressions of industry, rather than expressions of actual market change.”Oskar Korkman, Co-Founder of Alice Labs Partners & former Director of Insights at Nokia
- Now the advertising for the Metaverse is much more grounded in a real use cases (e.g. in the workplace).
- Now the advertising for the Metaverse is much more grounded in a real use cases (e.g. in the workplace).
- In our second example… Voice control is the right solution (they weren’t wrong), but it hasn’t been as transformational as predicted as it didn’t speak to the right need. When designing Alexa, engineers wanted to create something out of Star Trek. But people actually want more of a mother-figure – softer & more genuinely helpful. Voice wasn’t solving a huge pain point in terms of making purchases – and people often like the friction of needing to pause, browse and get inspiration before making a purchase. In summary… technologists want Star trek and humans want a mother. ///////////// It’s because “technologists want ‘Star Trek,’ and humans want a mother,” as Lucia Komljen, former Insight and Innovation Strategy Director at Telefonica puts it, when describing the disconnect between the engineers intention for Alexa versus what consumers want and need from an AI Assistant.
- They were designing for itself
- Consumers are often ignored in product design In an age where things are created in one place & used in a totally different part of the world, there’s big potential to shift and design FOR people “Make people want things “Make things people want”
- So we knew the expert-only, industry-led approach to Foresight was broken. As part of exploration, we spoke to dozens of insight professionals to unpick what their challenges are when it comes to Foresight.
- We recognised is that there’s a gap. On the one side, if you focus too much on the today, you end up being reactive and unprepared. On the other extreme, if you focus too much on trends & experts, you get to… - predications that are intangible - predications that are expressions of the industry (not market change) - you get excited by things that are over-hyped - you get to spaces that forget what people want & need We see a gap for customer-led Foresight, which explores trends & works with experts, but works with customers in a way that grounds these trends & makes them more real. It means that Foresight work can be: - Less biased - More actionable - More human
- At C Space, we’ve created a Foresight Practice, and we’ve written & article and toolkit that explains how to successful involve customers in Foresight work. We don’t have time to go through all of these, but we will share three barriers & ways we’ve overcome these. /// The reason I’m sharing this is: How to collaborate with consumers in Foresight work. You know the value of involving consumers in insight/ foresight work…. But it’s often difficult to get consumers in a future-facing mindset. This sets out some practical ways to involve consumers in Foresight challenges in a meaningful way. E.g. helping consumers ‘feel the future’ by using future-sounding/ looking stimuli E.g. using Design Fiction to make the abstract gritty & grounded. Overcoming biases through LEGO Serious Play How to get the business to care & act when it comes to Foresight. Often Foresight can be easy to ignore… this gives you tools to keep it front & centre E.g. creating toolkits, not reports So you can: Feel more confident with approaching Foresight projects Use some of our tried & trusted techniques
- Goodyear’s idea for a space station. They were building from what they know. You may not be surprised to learn that the idea wasn’t suitable for space and Nasa didn’t go onto select that design… Confirmation bias? Ecocentric bias Recency bias? Optimism bias?
- This is a story about lobsters. Why am I telling you about lobsters? I’m telling you about Lobsters because in China, you can pick up a lobster at the supermarket & get it sent straight to your door within 2 hours. Most of us in Europe don’t have this. BRIEF: When IKEA came to us in 2019 to co-create the shopping experience of the future, they knew they wouldn’t get the answer just by looking at retail in Sweden - they needed to get out of the bubble. METHOD: We intentionally looked outside IKEA’s markets for solutions that were meeting customer problems. One of these was learning from retailers like Hema in China which meets customers where they are and delivers magical services like lobsters directly to your door. DISCOVERED: This helped IKEA get ahead of some of the trends pre-Covid It led IKEA to see the shift in THINGS coming to customers, rather than customers going to retailers. From the shopping day-trip as an event in its own right, to customers expecting items to magically appear. It shows you things BRIEF: Understand and map the way connected retail is driving new customer needs to help IKEA’s future markets team bring the brief internally and shape a future connected Retail experience strategy for the next 5-10 years. Instead of being too academic, we create a thread from tomorrow to today, making it human and tangible During Covid this need became reality (dark kitchens etc)… we’d only seen this model in Asia… thinking this way, means you’re ready for a disruption like Covid Looking at another culture (retail model that is more advanced & more different)… untangling which needs are cultural & which are fundamental, helps us get rid of processes… The future’s already here… it’s just unevenly distributed.
- And this has trickled into what IKEA are doing today: getting rid of the catalogue, closing big warehouse stores, and opening stores centrally in cities So to summarise the lessons here are: The problem: what you see is all that is and it’s often tempting to look inside the category for the answers… In IKEA’s case, being based in Sweden, they think in a Nordic way and that can blind you from innovations in other places. and it’s often tempting to look inside the category. The lesson is: Instead of being category-obsessed, take a wide-lens and look outside-in as change happens on the outside and ripples in. “Snow melts from the edges.” Disruption often comes from outside the category. So, by looking in other places (either by working with early adopters or exploring parallel worlds or countries e.g. China), you can help overcome this egocentric bias.
- This next story is about forks & flying! Why am I telling you about this? Listen up.. Last year, AFKLM came to us to understand how to build relevance with Gen Z. There is so much hype about Gen Z – particularly around their attitude towards sustainability & what that means for air travel. On the one hand, trends seem to suggest: young people aren’t flying at all, they are all Greta Thunbergs, passionate about sustainability, marching in the streets and not wanting to fly at any cost. At the other end of the argument, there is totally conflicting advice that suggests this is simply a life-stage thing and they will still travel in the future. And to complicate this further, the people writing these trends are often Gen Z themselves. The best way we know how to bridge that gap is to work WITH those audiences, so we ran a series of paired friendship interviews with Gen Z (so each person can keep the other honest!) What we found is that they’re not all hyper-informed actvitists. Instead, they take small nudges towards a more sustainable future and place huge weight on brands to lead the way with sustainability initiative For many Gen Z, they won’t stop flying, but they do want to make sure brands are taking care of the little details (e.g. offering recycling, no plastic wrapping, reusable cups & cutlery, showing you’re treating the staff well). These might not be the things that make the biggest difference in terms of sustainable travel, but it’s important to respond as these are the elements people care about. It’s the little things that make a big difference to them. It’s imperative not to neglect the little things. Help people be part of the change in small ways. /////// We ran Young Gen We learnt: - Instead of being hyper-informed activists on the streets. In reality, they fight a quiet fight and make small nudges towards a more sustainable future and place a huge weight on BRANDS to lead the way with sustainability initiatives - Instead of not flying at all. In reality, many do & feel it’s their right to still fly / experience what other generations have - Instead of ‘quit quitting’ and complete rejection of traditional work. In reality, we found that the work/ life boundaries were blurred and that o aid wellness, airlines need to facilitate productivity The overriding value of this generation was: self-direction, shown through entrepreniural spirit (e.g. Celine, Gina), but in smaller ways with mainstream consumers ///// It was the COMBINATION of mainstream Gen Z & Early Adopter/ leading Gen Z that got us to really interesting findings: Early Adopters & experts showed us different FUTURE trajectories e.g. towards topics like sustainability. Some didn’t fly at all, or limited to one flight per year Some traded off flights for their ‘human’ impact when they got to the country, or did multi-trip/ stays to maximise the time away, reducing flights Some went the other way & did all the travel they wanted 2. The other big part of the work was identifying what were lifestage vs. generational traits for Gen Z. I.e. is it a trait because they are in their teens/ 20s, or is it a trait because it’s 2023 not 1973? We did this by using the Shwartz Model which highlights needs/ values, and throughout the research we mapped the values and Self Direction came up time & again for Gen Z. We landed on self-direction because of a sense of overwhelm & the fact that the world is offering ways for them to choose their own goals & better themselves) We could see their entrepreneurial spirit in big ways (e.g. Cecile and her investment company) and smaller ways (e.g. example from mainstream consumers) The idea of luxury being all about wellness and a desire to feel good & prioritise the self This is helping AFKLM tailor their marketing towards this generation 'Overwhelm' nudges Gen Z to focus on ‘self’ They are independent and choose their own goals, curious about life with the freedom to explore and satisfy their curiosity. ...not by others, not by the world and world events, or driven to achieve accepted, 'normal' milestones or work in a high-powered job. Gen Z want to be free to live the life they want, to be able to choose their own goals, bettering themselves and positively impacting the world along the way - guilt free.
- So to summarise here… The problem is: it’s easy to ‘believe the hype’ and get carried away with trends, but in reality, most trends don’t actually pick up in the mainstream. There’s a Techtopia bias, where we can be at risk of overegging it & believing the hype. Solution: examine the trends, but talk directly with early adopters & current consumers to ‘ground’ the trends and help navigate what will & won’t become an important influence.
- We offer a loyalty programme that is supposedly useful & generous, but it’s not most of the time… Sleeping bears are on our doorstep
- They believed that limitations of today, would also be limitations tomorrow (i.e. that you need a chauffeur to use a car) They were thinking INSIDE-OUT and biased by their company They didn't count for other groups outside of chauffeurs would be driving/learn to drive Price drops in cars It's also interesting the factors at play, starting a car in the 1900's was greasy, required physical strength, getting down in the mud to turn the crank shaft - tech / luxury was an accelerant as well! It’s not about voice control for lazy people, What’s the from / to
- Companies need to show their employees that they are on top of the big future debates of the day. Foresight is all about creating the conditions for thought which ultimately help with resilience. Mapping out the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ scenarios can help businesses flex and prepare for what might come.
- Our take is that fundamental human needs – hopes, fears, relationships – are more fixed than the world that surrounds them. And so focusing on people helps drive meaning and relevance, in turn giving more confidence to not only change what businesses think, but also what they do.
- Gen Z are driven by self…
- Used AI to scrape websites to identify key breakfast themes/ trends The part that made it particularly useful to Belvita was comparing outside trends, to what they already knew/ how they were already communicating. E.g. So much online about the pitfalls of boredom eating… Used AI to scrape over 200 websites, ranging from blogs, to competitors' sites and twitter. Through this we found hundreds of topics, that we collected into 25 themes around breakfast. We shared this with the client and from this picked 10 themes to deep dive into. We’ve done a ton of research… we’ve got overlapping brands We’re a breakfast bar & we’re buying other brand that are also cereal bar… how do we make it breakfast themed? Low enthusiasm for reading 70 documents about breakfast bar… saving a huge amount of time Looking at what they’ve already done is not going to help us… then opened up Discover AI (UK & France)… fed 100 sites from UK & FR Lots of pseudo-science (bite size quotes took a few hours not days)… that allowed me to build out trends… took 10 themes & fleshed it out… Then went to look at their older stuff…. And landed on where their research was good & what was missed People are still eating in the moring, but are calling it different things… They talk about ‘slow release energy’, but not ‘how full they feel’/ ‘not feeling hungry’… don’t focus on the benefit of that (i.e. you feel full and don’t Benefit of TRENDS but also LOOKING BACK… Way more actionable BECAUSE You know you’re doing stuff with breakfast, but you’re not doing anything with it…. Boredom eating – everyone does it, but the internet says so much about how you shouldn’t do it…. Now talking about how to avoid the pitfalls (DON’T make it forbidden)… we’ve found the benefits of MINDFUL eating… what are the things we could twist or change to make it a THING? Choosing what you eat & how you eat it can help you focus… Through this we found hundreds of topics, that we collected into 25 themes around breakfast. We shared this with the client and from this picked 10 themes to deep dive into.
- What point in history are they in their early 20s… We ran Young Gen friendship pair interviews, which was really helpful in getting to ACTUAL behaviours (e.g. the friend would keep the other honest). And Early Adopter Creative sessions (e.g. sessions themed around topics like sustainability, the importance of luxury in travel). It was the COMBINATION of mainstream Gen Z & Early Adopter/ leading Gen Z that got us to really interesting findings: Gen Z are driven by self direction (often because of a sense of overwhelm & the fact that the world is offering ways for them to choose their own goals & better themselves) We could see their entrepreniural spirit in big ways (e.g. Cecile and her investment company) and smaller ways (e.g. example from mainstream consumers) The idea of luxury being all about wellness and a desire to feel good & prioritise the self This is helping AFKLM tailor their marketing towards this generation Early Adopters showed us different FUTURE trajectories e.g. towards topics like sustainability. Some didn’t fly at all, or limited to one flight per year Some traded off flights for their ‘human’ impact when they got to the country, or did multi-trip/ stays to maximise the time away, reducing flights Some went the other way & did all the travel they wanted Working with Early Adopters helped map these future trajectories & then we could work with AFKLM to think about what the triggers might be in the coming years to indicate which the majority of mass consumers would follow //// 'Overwhelm' nudges Gen Z to focus on ‘self’ They are independent and choose their own goals, curious about life with the freedom to explore and satisfy their curiosity. ...not by others, not by the world and world events, or driven to achieve accepted, 'normal' milestones or work in a high-powered job. Gen Z want to be free to live the life they want, to be able to choose their own goals, bettering themselves and positively impacting the world along the way - guilt free.
- Used AI to scrape websites to identify key breakfast themes/ trends The part that made it particularly useful to Belvita was comparing outside trends, to what they already knew/ how they were already communicating. E.g. So much online about the pitfalls of boredom eating… Used AI to scrape over 200 websites, ranging from blogs, to competitors' sites and twitter. Through this we found hundreds of topics, that we collected into 25 themes around breakfast. We shared this with the client and from this picked 10 themes to deep dive into. We’ve done a ton of research… we’ve got overlapping brands We’re a breakfast bar & we’re buying other brand that are also cereal bar… how do we make it breakfast themed? Low enthusiasm for reading 70 documents about breakfast bar… saving a huge amount of time Looking at what they’ve already done is not going to help us… then opened up Discover AI (UK & France)… fed 100 sites from UK & FR Lots of pseudo-science (bite size quotes took a few hours not days)… that allowed me to build out trends… took 10 themes & fleshed it out… Then went to look at their older stuff…. And landed on where their research was good & what was missed People are still eating in the moring, but are calling it different things… They talk about ‘slow release energy’, but not ‘how full they feel’/ ‘not feeling hungry’… don’t focus on the benefit of that (i.e. you feel full and don’t Benefit of TRENDS but also LOOKING BACK… Way more actionable BECAUSE You know you’re doing stuff with breakfast, but you’re not doing anything with it…. Boredom eating – everyone does it, but the internet says so much about how you shouldn’t do it…. Now talking about how to avoid the pitfalls (DON’T make it forbidden)… we’ve found the benefits of MINDFUL eating… what are the things we could twist or change to make it a THING? Choosing what you eat & how you eat it can help you focus… Through this we found hundreds of topics, that we collected into 25 themes around breakfast. We shared this with the client and from this picked 10 themes to deep dive into.
- Teaser for Dwell
- We ran Young Gen friendship pair interviews, which was really helpful in getting to ACTUAL behaviours (e.g. the friend would keep the other honest). And Early Adopter Creative sessions (e.g. sessions themed around topics like sustainability, the importance of luxury in travel). It was the COMBINATION of mainstream Gen Z & Early Adopter/ leading Gen Z that got us to really interesting findings: Early Adopters & experts showed us different FUTURE trajectories e.g. towards topics like sustainability. Some didn’t fly at all, or limited to one flight per year Some traded off flights for their ‘human’ impact when they got to the country, or did multi-trip/ stays to maximise the time away, reducing flights Some went the other way & did all the travel they wanted Working with Early Adopters & experts helped map these future trajectories. Working with mainstream Gen Z helped us work out what are the early signals in which trajectory most people are on. It will also be used on an ongoing basis for AFKLM to gather signs on which direction most people will be embarking upon 2. The other big part of the work was identifying what were lifestage vs. generational traits for Gen Z. I.e. is it a trait because they are in their teens/ 20s, or is it a trait because it’s 2023 not 1973? We did this by using the Shwartz Model which highlights needs/ values, and throughout the research we mapped the values and Self Direction came up time & again for Gen Z. We landed on self-direction because of a sense of overwhelm & the fact that the world is offering ways for them to choose their own goals & better themselves) We could see their entrepreneurial spirit in big ways (e.g. Cecile and her investment company) and smaller ways (e.g. example from mainstream consumers) The idea of luxury being all about wellness and a desire to feel good & prioritise the self This is helping AFKLM tailor their marketing towards this generation //// 'Overwhelm' nudges Gen Z to focus on ‘self’ They are independent and choose their own goals, curious about life with the freedom to explore and satisfy their curiosity. ...not by others, not by the world and world events, or driven to achieve accepted, 'normal' milestones or work in a high-powered job. Gen Z want to be free to live the life they want, to be able to choose their own goals, bettering themselves and positively impacting the world along the way - guilt free.
- Often future scenarios or future experience principles feel quite abstract. To make it more ‘real’ with IKEA, we turned into tangible products & services (& this also made it easier for customers to react and relate to) E.g. Future of Retail as Calm turned into ‘Style diagnosis tool’ E..g the desire for social shopping turning into XXX Other elements of making it real e.g. Activation workshops Stimulus that stimulates LEGO Serious Play Future Scenarios (What would it mean if X happened?)
- We took a FUTURE BACKWARDS approach. Didn’t start with looking at how VMO2 could make more money/ be a little better/ more attractive to the competition. But actually started with changing household needs. We started with using Dwell as a starting point (which Grace will share in another session), which was a study to look at the Future of the Home & future home needs - e.g. the Home needing to work harder for people (e.g. becoming a Generator) - e.g. the Home as the facilitator (i.e. the home as an enabler, not marker for success) E.g. The need for a cocoon (even with six people living on top of each other) Or the desire to access cool content from home (when CoL means gigs/ other events are less accessible) This lead to core themes about ACCESS from home & to help VMO2 define what role they could play in the future…
- When Metaverse first launched, “Imagine you put on your headset and you’re instantly in your homespace… It has an inspiring view of whatever you find most beautiful… And now woah we’re floating in space?!”
- Foresight traditionally relies on experts – but there are flaws in this approach Between 1984 – 2005, 284 experts made 28,000 predictions The experiments show that experts JUST about average person in the short term, but were WORSE than guessing in the longer term often have an agenda predictions are expressions of the industry (not market change) are human and flawed in their judgment often forget about what people want and need “technologists want ‘Star Trek,’ and humans want a mother,” as Lucia Komljen, former Insight and Innovation Strategy Director at Telefonica puts it, when describing the disconnect between the engineers intention for Alexa versus what consumers want and need from an AI Assistant.