change

6 ways the future consumer will be different

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Powerful forces are changing how consumers think and act. As we look out over the next 15 years, we can highlight critical shifts that will change the way branding, marketing, producing, advertising, and retailing are done. Winning businesses will reckon with these forces by transforming how they produce, market, and sell their goods. It won’t be enough to just make minor adjustments—we will have to get beyond the low-hanging fruit.

What are the changes? Here are six: 

1. More consumers will be born digital – The next generations of consumers include the tens of millions of today’s children who have lived their lives digitally—most of that time with a mobile phone in their hands. Even before they got a phone, they probably had Xbox, Wii, or Playstation, or a parent’s device.

They were born digital, and are growing up digital. They have habits and expectations on how they want to communicate with people and systems. Their digital lives are social too, with instant connections and inputs from their friends and “friends” being integral to what they do in the marketplace.

The bottom line for business. It’s time to look at the consumer differently, to recognize that the consumer’s interactions with you and your products and services are part of a bigger picture of his or her digital life. You cannot expect to do well with the born-digital consumer if you lag behind their routine expectations from technology and for social-connectedness. Growing up with video and computer games means the digitally-born expect the systems they use to be multi-sensory and interactive—that they can communicate with gestures, not just a keyboard. That they can touch a screen and scroll, zoom, and so on. Why should the systems they find in the marketplace in 2026 be less intuitive, interactive, and lively than their Xbox 360 or Wii?

2. Enjoying continuous digital access – Living a digital life means carrying a mobile device that gives people ubiquitous access to the ‘net. Most well-off people have that and far more have basic mobile communications with at least texting (SMS) capability. And with that is the power of social networking, which changes the dynamics of what people do while connected.

Network access, instant information, and social connections will be part of nearly everything people do. In their consumer lives, they will be essential tools and powerful influencers of what people want and buy. New information tools and channels will submerge traditional media—and advertising, in a cacophony of new, powerful influences.

The bottom line for business. Selling will be about tapping into social networks, harnessing buzz, finding what resonates with specific groups. You will need to find consumers in the cloud—you can’t wait for them to enter your store, whether that’s a brick and mortar building or a website.

Consumers will become even more “brand fickle”—the forces of digital communications, social networks, and the pace of change in the marketplace move them off of long-term brand loyalty. You will be able to win over consumers to your products, but it will be hard to keep them.

3. The focus is shifting to market niches of one (“N = 1”) – The consumer’s interest is in his or her individuality. Consumers have come to focus on themselves and business has supported that. Consumers care about their uniqueness and specific needs, and expect the products and services they use to fit closely to that uniqueness. This value is integral to US Baby Boomer sensibility, and America’s younger generations, steeped in it too, and are even more likely to have the digital tools and habits to do something about it. They won’t just crave it, they will have lived it.

The bottom line for business. The “N = 1” shift results in changed relationships: firm to individual consumer, instead of firm to market niche or mass market. Ultimately, consumers want to have a hand in creating, or at least identifying and fine-tuning the products businesses offer them. The relationship becomes two-way. Each sale will be about showing the consumer you recognize who she is and how your product fits her uniqueness.

4. We’ll be “free range” shopping – Anywhere/anytime network access leads to what I like to call “free-range shopping”. You don’t have to be at a shopping place to buy things, you can do that wherever you are, and increasingly, you want to. One key reason: encountering products out in the world shows them at their truest and best, and that’s probably when you recognize how they might fit your needs.

Because products have a digital life too, it will be possible to take a mobile phone picture and automatically identify the product for purchase. Consumers will embrace this ability, freeing them to find and choose products whenever and wherever they want. And they will be impatient with sellers who don’t make it that easy. Meanwhile, smart speakers add another tool to anywhere (or at least anytime) shopping: voice-command ordering.

The bottom line for business. Since the consumer lives in and wants to shop in the cloud, you will have to make more mobile purchases possible. Brick and mortar stores can continue to offer thorough, immersive experiences that are hard to replace, but convenience and ubiquitous access will often trump the qualities of store shopping. Finding ways to tie the physical with the virtual will pay off, but often brick and mortar stores will be the show-rooms for people who want to touch a product before they buy it. But does having them in the store guarantee that store gets the sale? And where else should your products appear? The answer is, everywhere.

5. We are reconsidering consumption – More consumers show at least some post-materialist values in their consumption and that value will grow. That means that they at least sometimes think, “Why do I want more stuff?” and make choices that are not about having more material goods.

They focus instead on how what they consume improves the quality of their lives. Consumers other values into this too, including interests in the environment and social justice. The “sharing economy” idea, notably seen with urban car, bike, and scooter sharing, shows how quickly not owning things can take hold.

Post-materialist thinking may mean consuming differently, not necessarily less. For example, more people want a new, authentic experience in what they consume, not just the latest product. But that could mean buying more expensive, more authentic, and higher quality things, such as hand-crafted clothing or furniture, or patronizing businesses that add a lot of personalized service and customization to their products.

The bottom line for business. More consumers will want products that offer them something special: greater feelings of safety, wellbeing, a match to their values, authenticity, a new experience, and overall, a product that adds to the quality of their lives. They may look hard at your full value chain, not just the end product. While people will continue to buy mass-produced commodity products—ordinary things that don’t aspire to offer much beyond basic utility, it’s dangerous to assume that changing values won’t matter to consumers for your products. They will.

6. More are greening it up – Soon regulatory and social pressures will meet economic pressures to drive greener lifestyles. People are already subject to local recycling laws and often laws relating to their use of energy and water resources. But higher prices are an even surer way to wake up consumers to the need to conserve, reuse, etc.

The bottom line for business. Though it’s not a majority of consumers who are acting on green values as they consume, plenty are. And sometimes the green option is the choice when two choices are otherwise about equal. At some point a company’s overall profile is a critical brand attribute, and if that profile looks anti-green in the marketplace, that company loses. Sustainable practices will be an integral part of corporate processes and a prominent brand matter. And the sustainability bar is regularly raised, as we gain knowledge and awareness of what matters.

Conclusion: A lot of change is unfolding now and will probably accelerate in the next five to ten years, reshaping the competitive landscape for producers, distributors, and retailers. This is not a time to wait and see—it’s time now for business to game out the possibilities and figure out how to win in the new competitive arena that’s emerging.

Note: part of my work is to lead groups in workshops exploring how the future consumer will shape their businesses. I also present to trade and corporate groups on this and related topics. Contact me for more information: jbmahaffie@leadingfuturists.biz.

Image: Tia Henriksen, via Flickr, CC attribution license.

What is and What if

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In organizations, knowing what’s going on today across the business landscape (”what is”), is essential. Too often the press of daily work keeps an executive from knowing enough.

But understanding how things are changing and the emerging challenges and opportunities in front of you (”what if”) needs attention too. Nearly always, the press of business and immediate demands shut down attention to “what if”.

Here is what is involved:  

“What is” — the operating environment:

  • Due diligence — care and attention to the organization’s interests
  • Industry focus — sector and market knowlege
  • The state of the art — best practices and the latest technology, systems, processes
  • What’s going on — the competitive landscape

“What if” — the future:

  • Leading edge change — emerging change in the market, technology, society, that will impact the organization
  • Emerging and future possibilities — identification of specific opportunities and challenges and potential responses to them

For both, we can’t help but stand in today as we think and work to understand. But we must try to think forward to better anticipate the future.

“What is” functions poorly without “what if.” Taking action in response to conditions today, without thoughts toward the future, is risky. But the reverse is true too. You need to know enough about current conditions to fully explore potential change. 

What to do about it

Broaden your view of “what is” by exploring the environment more broadly, beyond the specific marketplace niche, or issue, or geography you focus on.

Deepen your view of “what if” into the future by: Explicitly testing out ideas about 5 or 10 or more years from now. Ask the “what ifs” questions. Build stories (scenarios) of future possibilities. Draw implications of those “what ifs”.  Attention to both questions will make you stronger and more limber as you face challenges and meet new opportunities.

For more insight on this and a related illustration, see: Management, strategy, and foresight, compared

Do you suffer from mill-mindedness?

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The Mill astride the river was the town’s heart. Life blood pumped through it in surges of steam, blasts of the shift-change whistle, toings and froings of boxcars and hoppers on the rail spur, shift workers parading in and parading out. Tied up the traffic light? A mill shift was entering or leaving. A man asking credit at the grocery? The Mill cut back hours. New houses going up on the North side? Output and sales are up. Like peasant shacks against a castle wall, the whole town leaned on The Mill, and drew its sustenance from it. Imagine the town without The Mill? You cannot.

You must try to imagine the town without The Mill.

Small towns exist because of a mill or rail depot, a mine, a factory, a college, a hospital, something central that informs, shapes, sustains a community. But America’s ghost towns are often mill or mine towns that lost their mainstays. They didn’t think past The Mill.

Too many companies and sectors have something just like this: a mill, a production line, a critical machine, a cash cow, that is everything. It occupies the front and center of the minds of stakeholders: owners, investors, leaders, and workers. Wall Street sees the firm with mill eyes. Lenders see it with mill eyes. The community sees the firm and itself it with mill eyes.

All of them want The Mill to be The Mill, to churn along, to make money and jobs and community. And all of them define their truths in reference to it. This is mill-mindedness and it can constrain thought and change.

Using foresight to fight mill-mindedness

Foresight can make the difference. Images of different futures are powerful for fighting mill-mindedness.

What is the company (or the town), after The Mill?

Good futures thinking brings a focus beyond what exists now. It can break down rigid mental framing. Without images of something different, The Mill will define everything, past, present, and future.

How to work past mill-mindedness:

Ask these questions of yourself or better, discuss them with colleagues:

  1. What is our mill—that central thing or process that we allow to define us?
  2. Does that thing or process have a secure future?
  3. What would our organization become if we no longer had it?

Exploring the answers means confronting fundamental questions about how you frame and understand what your organization is all about. And answering them sets you up to consider “what’s next?”.

So build scenarios of your future without The Mill. Re-imagine the organization on a new basis. Those thought experiments allow you to see a future that doesn’t depend on this singular force or asset. It gets you past your mill-mindedness.

This blog has dozens of posts about “thinking differently” and on the power of foresight to work past stuck thinking. See: Thinking differently 

My practice as a futurist is centered on helping organizations break down barriers to thought and positive change. If your organization is so afflicted, maybe I can help. Let me know. Email me or call 202-271-0444.

Image: White Oak Cotton Mill, North Carolina, about 1914, with part of the mill village in the foreground. Public domain.

What keeps organizations stuck in the present?

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What keeps an organization stuck in the present (or struggling to get out of the past)?:

  • Holding on to sunk investment — Organizations hold tight to the big systems and assets they have invested in, often limiting their ability to move elsewhere, but also framing their thinking about what they can and should do.
  • Tradition — For example, social organizations such as the Boy Scouts or Freemasons have deep-set traditions that factor in their ability to even conceive of change. 
  • Inability to change the business model — Corporations and nonprofits face limits on their ability to evolve or jump to a new revenue or business model, for example to scale up or down their revenues, sales or donor volume, etc.
  • Defined by others — For example, the United States Air Force struggles to take up roles in cybersecurity. It is defined historically and in the public eye by its role for 70 years operating military aircraft. Similarly, organizations are often defined by Wall Street. A blue chip firm isn’t supposed to suddenly act like a start up, plunging into a new marketplace, or taking its operations and investment in a new direction.
  • Market drifting away — For example, cable outlets such as ESPN may have a steady-state view of their markets and an interest in continuing to push for market share and viewership, even as entertainment viewing has moved to mobile devices, non-real-time viewing
  • Fear of change/inability to imagine positive change — Not having a positive vision of what’s ahead, or at least a sense of taking intentional action to try for a positive future leaves organizations locked in current, often defensive behavior.
  • Pollyannism — Excessive optimism — the habit of thinking things will come around or that there are no threats that really matter. A simple human tendency or temperament, this can also be an affliction of whole organizations.

What to do about it — How to get un-stuck

1. Inventory how your organization is stuck. Pull together a few colleagues who you think are ready to think differently. Together, inventory the way your organization is “stuck”. Consider each of the items above. Which applies to your organization. How?

2. Identify critical forces of change. Make the case for change. Decide what those critical forces mean. Do they compel you to make changes? What is stopping you?

3. Pose sobering, critical “what ifs” for the organization. These should be powerful changes that would require the organization to change. What do they imply you need to do differently?

4. Get beyond key biases. Tell each other what they are. List them. What are they rooted in? See more here.

5.http://Setting aside biases Armed with these self-assessments, open up the conversation about needed change. Go at it. Don’t backslide!

Other prior posts with some good insights on this:

Image: Han Solo in Carbonite, William Warby, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution license

6 Foresight hacks

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Hacks are shortcuts for getting things done and being clever about it. Foresight needs hacks too. And there are great ones that fit into real, busy lives. Here are six that you can use to get a better sense of your future: 

1. Scan the scanners–Find the bloggers, news sites, tweets, podcasts, etc. that select what matters from the wide range of news and information you need to monitor. They are doing work for you, free. More here.

2. Use push–Use email subscriptions, rss feeds, social media follows, etc. to make sure that fresh insights, in the appropriate volumes, flow to you, so you don’t have to remember to go and look at them.

3. Automate serendipity–As you do 1 and 2, be sure you don’t create your own, finely-tuned echo chamber. Find sources that give you breadth and variety. Use push tools online and develop the habits that make sure you encounter things to open and change your mind.

4. Get out from behind the mouse–Going with no. 3, and running over your efforts in 1 and 2, be sure you don’t only learn from electronic sources. Go places, talk to people, see things. Experience the changing world. Surprise yourself.

5. Lurk–Take a note from great novelists—listen in on others’ conversations. This can be about exploring online discussions/social media, even without participating. There area tons of places where people share ideas. You can dip in, search, follow, or just visit, and open up a front for encountering new ideas. You don’t have to subscribe or even have an account, and you don’t have to participate.

6. Take a futurist to lunch–Believe me, they want lunch! Ask most futurists any question and they’re off and running. You will get all sorts of insights. For the cost of lunch, or coffee, or an online post, your effort will pay off. 

Decide what you most want to explore about your future. Then try a hack or two. No matter what, it will expand and enrich your view of the future.

More “hacks” are among my 27 Habits of highly effective futurists 

Inhibitors of foresight: Measurement and its pitfalls

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“Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.”   –William Bruce Cameron, sociologist (often attributed to Einstein)

We put a lot on measurement. We say, “what gets measured gets done.” What we can measure takes priority over the subjective and unmeasured.

We expect proof of progress that we can measure. Numbers that we can report or publish prove success. Statistical reports and year-on-year comparisons dominate leadership meetings.

But measurement weakens or fails when we’re dealing with the future. The future does not exist. There is no data. There is nothing we can touch or feel or measure.

Consider:

1. You can’t measure something that hasn’t happened
The results of a policy, program change, or new business model unfold over time. Any measurable outcome is in the future. We need to start the change process now, ahead of any chance at measured assessment. Yet often managers look for immediate quantitative evidence of success.

EXAMPLE: RotoRooter placed radio ads in my city in the 1970s. Then I didn’t hear any ads for 20+ years. But they had planted an idea (and a jingle) in my head that I used thirty years later when I had a blocked drain. RotoRooter could not have measured that payoff of the ads in the 1970s.

2. New or emerging things are hard to measure and our traditional measurement tools don’t fit
New things need new measures. But we don’t always know what those should be. Or, we may think the measurement tools we have fit when they don’t. Our measurement can give results that lead to wrong assessments and decisions.

EXAMPLE: When a consumer sees a promotional Instagram post, some kind of brand message has gotten across. But such social media marketing is new. What’s the value of that Instagram post to the brand owner? Is it the equal of a TV or print ad? We have numerical measurement tools for those: circulation, impressions, and reach. Do those work for social media messages? We don’t know enough to say. But instinct tells us to use the social media anyway. Our instinct is surely right.

3. We can’t measure some things that matter
Some of the most interesting changes in society and commerce are those that are hard or impossible to measure. Social phenomena, psychic outcomes, and culture and behavior change don’t fit our measurement tools.

EXAMPLE: In education, we don’t know all the payoffs from experiential learning, from collaboration, or from the application of new technology. Common standardized testing doesn’t directly assess those programs. The intellectual outcomes for a child won’t be clear or measured until years later. But mandated standardized testing has to correlate specific parts of curricula to measured assessments, today.

What to do about this

In strategic conversation, consider changes that you won’t be able to assess quantitatively. Allow strategic action that has weak or no measures. Get beyond the tyranny of measurement. To do otherwise is to hamstring organizations and limit positive change.

Image: G. Combe, Elements of Phrenology, 1824, via Wikimedia Commons.

Change is messy

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It’s easy to fall into assuming:

  • No change is happening because we cannot see or feel it (a famous metaphor is the frog in heating water. AKA change blindness)
  • Change is gradual (after-the-fact simplification of history can lead to this)
  • Change is sudden (forces, trends, and evolutionary change are not plain to us until a moment of crisis or a high-profile event, e.g. Occupy Wall Street marches in 2011-12 or the risk of extremist terror after 9-11).
  • A small change is significant (this is aligned with confirmation bias, in which you place excess significance on something you are particularly aware of or interested in).

Understanding history helps us see that change does not work in only one way. It’s not always gradual. It happens whether we’re focused on the changes underway or not. It includes sudden shifts, like Post-9/11 change as well as gradual ones, like the rising influence of the Baby Boom after World War II.

And change happens;simultaneously for each element of society; populations and communities, natural systems, technologies, etc. Some change gradually. Others jump forward. And the changes all interact. It’s messy.

The future will emerge the same way. The future will be messy.

Image: James Lee, via Flickr, Creative Commons attribution license.

5 stages of grief for people facing their future

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In her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five stages of grief and loss. To anyone trying to get people to face and accept change or the need to change, the stages ring familiar.

Experts in change management recognize this. They have used the stages in identify what happens when people face change. The stages make sense in foresight too. They are a lens for looking at how people cope with the future.

Don’t be a victim of change

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When you face change, your responses fall on a spectrum. Foresight makes sure you are in the right place.

Reactive — Watching and likely being blindsided by change, and only making a move when forced to do so. Often your action is expensive and not effective. You miss opportunities and risk failure and economic loss.

Responsive — Preparing for and responding to emerging, visible change. You gain agility for responding, and may get ahead of crises and seize opportunities.

Proactive — Anticipating and shaping change. You are ready for crises and sharp change. You can seize opportunities ahead of others.

Never be a victim of change. Anticipate and shape it. Foresight is decisive in making you ready.

7 Deadly sins of foresight

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1. Ignoring the future (You let today's concerns give you an excuse to not focus on the future) [See: Keep an eye on the future while righting the ship].

2. Shortsightedness (You only think a few years into the future) [See: The foresight gap: what too many organizations get wrong]

3. Mistaking the present for the future (You mistake fixing things and catching up with today for being future-focused) [See: If you're only keeping up you're probably going backwards]

4. Narrowness (You fail to realize your future will be shaped by a much larger one which you need to understand) [See: Foresight illustrated: choosing how broad a view to take while exploring the future]

5. All else held equal (You let your attention focus on just one change, and assume everything else stays the same) [A solution is to use scenarios– fleshed out views of the future — to make sure you explore how multiple changes will unfold. See: Why we need scenarios to be ready for the future] 

6. Lack of vision (You have not thought through nor communicated the future you want or expect) [See: You can't be what you can't see]

7. Deafness (You don't listen to others, or pay attention to signals of change) [See: Talk to the frog]

For more on pitfalls and "deadly sins" for foresight see: 13 mistakes you make when exploring the future

For good habits in foresight that can fight these sins, see:  27 habits of highly effective futurists

Image: detail from Hieronymus Bosch, The seven deadly sins and the four last things, circa 1500. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Public domain.

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