CSIRO offers foresight for marketers
By Wayde Bull, Planning Director at Principals.
CSIRO recently published Our Future World, an analysis of the global trends that it believes will redefine how we will live in future, impacting the science and technology we will therefore demand. The study’s primary purpose was to inform strategic planning within its scientific community, yet it provides equally valuable guidance to marketers, given its focus upon the changing needs and behaviours of people. CSIRO staffers have distilled over 100 economic, social and environmental trends down to just five megatrends that represent the greatest opportunities and threats to society – and to business.
More from less:
The world’s finite natural resources are diminishing as populations and economies grow. While Australia is a key beneficiary of the developing world’s hunger for basic raw materials today, there are parallel fortunes to be made in the creation of businesses and brands that compete on the basis of their miserly use of new resources. Resourcefulness is the new creativity, as governments, money markets and consumers place a growing premium upon extracting more from less. This suggests that the winning product brands of the future will contain a growing quotient of recycled content or refresh componentry that discourages a throw-away culture. The winning retailers of the future will partner with customers and community to enable the return or recycling of products, particularly those that are difficult to dispose of responsibly. And the winning service providers of the future will actively assist their customers to use less of their services over time. While this concept sounds like commercial suicide, consider how commonplace this ‘focus on frugality’ has already become in the utilities sector, where electricity, gas and water brands commonly position themselves as resource optimisers. The rarer the resource, the greater its price and therefore the greater the opportunity to add value through branded advice or services bolt-ons.
The personal touch:
Mature Western economies are increasingly reliant upon the service sector to drive prosperity. Australia’s economy is no exception, with over 75% of GDP already anchored in services. Intense competition, coupled with sustained advances in affordable computing and robotics give rise to the customised economy, in which customer loyalty to brands is underpinned by the individual tailoring of products, services and messaging. Nike iD demonstrates the concept in action today. Consumers are invited to design their own Nike shoes online, adapting the colours, materials, width and even the size of one’s left and right shoes, to deliver the perfect product for one. CSIRO cite an IBM scenario in which doctors might provide you with your own genetic map in future that tells you what health risks you are likely face in your lifetime and the specific things you can do to prevent them based on your specific DNA. Expected time of arrival : 2014. Expected cost : less than US $100.
On the move:
The world’s population is converging into cities, yet at the same time people are becoming ever more mobile within and between them. People are changing careers more often, moving homes more often, commuting further to work and travelling the world more frequently. The challenge for marketers is to deliver great service to customers who will increasingly demand it via mobile devices, snatching time between commitments, in situations where the service interaction isn’t getting their undivided attention. For anyone who’s ever hit a company’s computer voice recognition system on a mobile phone in a noisy departure lounge, you get the idea. Brands will need to make it far easier for customers to engage with them to get things done, ideally in ways that enable the customer to literally help themselves. Businesses that deliver fixed services into the home also need to rethink the portability of their brand relationships; how to avoid every move of house being another trigger of customer defection?
Divergent demographics:
Global, national and local communities are heading in divergent, and often, conflicting demographic directions depending upon their economic maturity. Wealthy nations like Australia face aging populations, shrinking workforces and growing tensions between the (health and retirement) needs of the old and the (education) needs of the young. Australian marketers also face this demographic timebomb. Should they target their brands to a youthful demographic or recognise and reflect Australia’s steady drift toward old age? Those with the luxury of a blank sheet might conclude that the best way forward is to create a portfolio of smaller brands devoted to tight demographic sectors. Suncorp’s stable of insurance brands now includes Just Car at the youth end of the market and Australian Pensioners Insurance at the other. These brands might lack the mainstream reach of the market leaders but are poised to grow at the expense of those who attempt to sit in the middle of the demographic road.
iWorld:
Of course, no list of megatrends would be complete without reference to the internet. While the web may already feel like a pervasive influence upon our lives, CSIRO report that just 30% of the world’s population is so far connected. Enthusiasts of the network effect will say that the more people who have access to the internet, the more valuable it will become to each and every user – and the more critical it will become to every enterprise on earth. So there’s one trend we can all build a business upon.
First published on AFR (www.afr.com) - 6th May 2010
