Futures Coaching

Asian Women: Why are they so crucial to growth?

Going back a few years I worked for a trends company whose global data showed a most interesting thing. The changes women were making (regarding employment, roles and responsibilities, changing value sets etc) were the single most important social dynamic of the time.

Now, I would argue that social media and new technologies are more influential today than feminisation. Nevertheless, anyone ignoring the staggering changes being brought about by women, including Asia women, would have a substantial blindspot in their vision of the future.

Update you knowledge banks on this key dynamic here.

 

Four Consumer End Games for 2012

2012 will be make or break for many businesses. Has business survival ever been more dependent on knowing how consumers will react in the future? 

I've been working on the four key strategies - or End Games - which consumers will deploy in 2012. Consumer 'End Games' come to the fore in times of uncertainty, where having a survival strategy matters.

The top line analysis will take about 5 minutes to read. Here

10 Surprising facts about the British and Sex

In a series about the British, I'll expose the underbelly of the Nation and give an insight into the Trends shaping British consumer markets today.

Let's talk about sex.

The British have traditionally kept up a chaste apprearance - so much so that a 1955 Saturday Review article felt it necessary to insist: "contrary to popular belief, English women do not wear tweed nightgowns".

This was all rubbish, of course. In his book, "The English" Jeremy Paxman, talking about the last few centuries, notes: "The sheer hypocracy of many Englishmen, pretending morality while debauching themselves, takes some believing".

Today's Britain is entirely different. Sex has come out of the closet, as it were. Here are 10 amazing facts to illustrate:

- The percentage of unmarried women who are sexually active by the age of 19 is 86%

- Over half of 15-44 year olds approve of sex shops on the High Street

- One quarter of people proclaiming a 'pleasure seeking' mindset have an open attitude when it comes to consenting underaged sex

- The highest social class (the 'A' class) is the most prudent on most measures of sexual openness

- At the other end of the social scale, the Chippendales find most favour with the 'D' social classes

- Fascinatingly, a little education seems to open the floodgates to libertine forces. Those with GCSEs/O levels (exams taken as a 16 year old) are open to sexual liberalism whilst those with no qualifications at all are closed. (Note: there is a strong correlation between no qualifications and older age groups).

- 45% of British approve of a society with a variety of sexual preferences

- Astonishingly, the social group most open to unrestricted access to internet porn sites are found amongst those with Masters/PhD diplomas

- Sexual openness is highly correlated with a love for technology

- Meanwhile, those who are driven by a need for status, safety and tradition are the most closed to any form of public sexual display.

There you have it. The British stripped bare. Keep reading this blog for more......

Why do brands often fix today and forget about tomorrow?

OK, so you have just taken over a brand and feel in your gut that changes are needed. The brand looks out-of-date. It's target audience have probably moved on, you reason. The communications strategy is so very 20th Century.

And so you embark on a brand review. Lots of focus groups, competitive analyses and market statistics later, you confirm that you have a problem and secure yourself the go-ahead to get the ad agency on the case.

Now things are really starting to motor. Lots of conjoint research, communications planets and brand footprints later and you have your answer. A deftly crafted brand essence, nicely worded set of benefits (functional and emotional!), a killer reasons to believe, all topped off with an engaging brand personality.

So far so good. BUT. (And it's a big but). The brand positioning work has updated your brand so that it is relevant to today's climate. What about tomorrow's world?

For many of the brand review processes I've witnessed, thinking critically about the future is just too big a stretch. Budgets are exhausted, ideas are exhausted, everyone's exausted!

AND YET this is probably the most important work of all. What is the point doing all that work updating the brand only to see it becoming out-of-date almost as soon as it is relaunched?

What you need, it seems to me, is to 'future-proof' the brand by placing it on a long-term trajectory.

This is not as onerous as it sounds! But it does require input from a trend specialists who can go beyond the planning horizon of agency planners or brand strategy agencies. Indeed, the ideal combination is to have your brand agency interplaying with a futuring company so that the conception of the brand strategy is placed in the context of consumer's future needs and wants.

The good news is that aligning brands with the future can be done. Brand managers who do this leave behind a legacy of long-term sales and profit growth - which can't be bad either for ROI calculations or one's career reputation.

Abandoned Adolescents

British papers carried two seemingly separate stories about children last week but for me, as a social watcher, they are certainly very connected. The first story, covered the fact that over 1.1 million children have had their genetic information taken and stored - but as many as half of them have no criminal record.

In the second story, Office of National Statistics data showed an increase in the number of pregnancies among girls in the 16-18 age group and the under 16s. More than 8000 British girls under 16 became pregnant in 2007!

And the link?

A whole generation of adolescents and young adults is growing up sensing that is mistrusted and maligned by the adult world. Adolescents are banned from shopping centres due to their 'hoodie' tops; they are shooed away by transmitters which give out high pitched sound frequencies which only their young ears can hear; they are represented on TV programs such as 'Skins' and 'Shameless' in the worse possible light.

Something rather radical has happened in society - and I look for the explanation, not at our 'feckless', or 'frightening' youth but first and foremost at the adult generations.

For example, just when did adults stop being parents? As Alan Duncan, a British MP said: "we are obviously failing our children when they are raising children themselves".

When did we stop being interested parties? Many children come off the rails when they have no adult presence in their lives - be they parents, step-parents, guardians, youth leaders or the like. Even teachers are disinterested or fearful of getting too close and being accused of child molestation. In fact, studies show, that for many children, this is the case - they have no adults at all to turn to.

When did adults abandon children to the wide open world? A recent British study showed that the majority of adults would not approach a group of 13 year olds if they felt they were misbehaving. Children, as young as 10 or 11, are left to roam the streets without anyone interfering or thinking that there is something wrong.

Meanwhile, the young, completely left to their own devices, are terrorising each other. I've a teenager nephew living in South London and he will only take certain ways home for fear of being knifed. According to the  British Metropolitan Police Service, in 2006, ‘52 teenagers are victims of knife crime EVERY week in London’.

And when did we stop being employers? Wherever you look - in Spain, France and so on - rates of unemployment are far higher amongst the young. In France 25% of young adults are without work - and most of those employed are on temporary, often 6 month, contracts (CDDs).

Finally, when did we abandon our fight for healthy younger generations? Rates of child obseity are growing in places as far apart as America and Argentina, China and the Czech Republic. In Britain, over 5000 sports playing fields were sold between 1981-1997.

Marketers need to recognise that the Coke-is-Life image of effervescent youth is a misleading pastiche.

And brands targeting youth need to be seen to be actively on youth's side. This is more than selling them stuff and helping them find their identity by giving them a cool self image. Its also about initiatives that give context and opportunities to young people. Look no further than MacDonald's football coaching as evidence for how brands can really make a difference. 

So why have adults turned their backs on their offspring? The reasons are complex and manifold. Here are just three for starters. Firstly older generations have been having a party over the last decade or so. Who needs pesky children to come along and spoil it? Relatedly, we've all become so autonomous and egotistical over the last 20 years, that it's everyone for themselves - and that includes our very own children. Thirdly, the media has played its part in building up the image of youth as monsters-in-disguise.

So no wonder the teenage pregnancies, the obesity, the knife crime, the hours spent in front of the Playstation or the hanging around on park benches. Older generations have adandoned their youth. And what they have created through their negligence is a young generation with little notion of any social contract, who sense anomie, and who are simply making up the rules as they go.

All our futures will be a darker place for it.