FUTURECAST

Coming from Covid, there is a greater need than ever to come together and to celebrate our journey, circles of love, and overarching humanity. Gatherings such as Juice Papi are fueling a creativity-fueled sense of togetherness.

THINGS TO EXPLORE

1. What are some ways in which your brand can help people celebrate?

2. What is your brand’s playlist? If your brand were organizing a party, what would the concept be? Who would be there?

Amidst sociocultural tensions and divisions we are looking for elements that bring us together. There is a rise in interest for smaller communities of trust and love and based on individual expression and identities. Better brands explore how their ethos, product experience and creative expressions can bring people together.

THINGS TO EXPLORE:

1. What is your unifying superpower?

2. How does your brand engender love?

3. What are the natural tribes and communities that your brand creates?

As we renter the world, there is a need to recalibrate our social connections. There is a sense of healing and necessary understanding that is taking place as everyone’s experiences have varied widely. Conversational contexts should embrace listening, more emotive and human forms of storytelling and a focus on building relationships.

THINGS TO EXPLORE

1. Find ways to better listen to your consumer?

2. Put empathy at the core of your brand’s strategic planning?

3. What are the 3 core things that your brand can do to make your consumers feel listened to and respected?

Covid 19 delivered some of our worst dystopian fear: of contagion, lockdown, social breakdown, and a deepening divide between the haves and the have nots, not to mention a deafening level of political dissonance. With this reality comes a new embracement of the extreme and the absurd through a lens that is both hyperrealistic and theatrical.

THINGS TO EXPLORE

1. Comedy and levity as social outlets?

2. Sharp commentaries on modern existence?

3. How can your brand be a hero amidst dystopian scenarios?

4. How can you unite?

The craving for maximalist expressions will continue as our extraordinary times call for both bold statements and as we feel the need, post lock down, to unapologetically experiment and push the boundaries. This movement is also a response to a highly digitized era that has left us feeling a bit robotic.

THINGS TO EXPLORE:

1. Explore the power of deep personalization and gamefication around your product. How can the product experience help the consumer express him/herself?

2. Think of your brand as a crafted product? What new materiality and textures would you apply to it?

3. Explore the art of the extremes? What unexpected innovations, designs or collaborations would be explore for your brand?

We resort to Nostalgia when we seek to escape the dreary present. The unapologetic excess and euphoria that ushered the uncertainty of Y2K is very appealing to a consumer wanting to revert to when things were less complicated. We are seeing the return of maximalist design touches, bold colors, lo-fi digital experiences, and all things clunkily and loudly retro.

THINGS TO EXPLORE

1. What is your retro story?

2. In what ways can you deliver an experience that feels quirky and personal while still highlighting the strength of your brand and product?

3. Which Y2K cultural icons go with your brand’s cultural vision? What’s your Y2K playlist?

The new consumer and creator class are embracing the chance to do things on their terms, mapping out new possibilities as they go. They will prize spontaneity, agile sprints and collaborations, and new ways of doing things. They will also embrace the beauty of the unexpected.

Think and explore:

1. Unexpected pairings.

2. New textural and color visions.

3. Experiences that transcend platforms.

During an age of anxiety more relaxed and playful concepts and interfaces will prevail at bringing out our best, most dynamic selves. Play will also thrive at unlocking, judgement-free forms of creativity and at inspiring more collaborative and fearless working networks.

Think/Explore:

1. How your brand can be an experiential brand.

2. The power of play and discovery in a more dynamic consumer innovation journey.

Interest in the Arts is soaring as we all seek a deeper form of meaning along with an aesthetic set of possibilities around creativity, imagination and personal discovery. We see brands embracing the Arts as a means of imbuing their DNAs with more heritage, meaning and more immersive way of connecting with consumers.

Think/Explore:

1. Which artists would your brand collaborate with?

2. What would a branded gallery experience consist of?

During Covid we have witnessed people coming together to chart a way forward. The ultimate example of possibilities has been around vaccine development. The swift realization of a Covid vaccine has mobilized many to seek drastic evolutions and improvements around the challenges we face as a society.

THINGS TO EXPLORE

1. Exploration of a new work/life balance, including new forms of wellness centered lifestyle design.

2. More bold stance by brands looking to make an impact and make a difference.

3. Science and performance based attributes and functionalities coming front and center to inspire and assuage an incoming consumer seeking protection and peace of mind.

The United State and many of the major Western societies are undergoing a demographic evolution towards greater diversity. There is a moment of reckoning for brands to reflect the true diversity of their consumers, prodding them to properly represent the wide diversity of cultures and identities that make up the new consumer landscape.

THINGS TO EXPLORE:

1. How are your products and brands new-majority ready?

2. What are you doing to better understand emerging minority/majority groups?

3. How is your brand inherently a multi-cultural brand?

As we imagine a world full of possibilities and change we are embracing new forms of more immersive storytelling. This is where next generation storytelling and the meta-verse connect and where physical and digital form a seamless conduit to personalized experiences.

THINGS TO EXPLORE

1. How would you bring your brand experience through emotions?

2. How are you blending IRL and URL?

3. What next generation form of storytelling are you deploying?

The converge of technology and a hunger for escapist and affirming immersion is driving forth a journey towards universes of possibilities where game, self expression and realization meet.

THINGS TO EXPLORE

1. Explore a full world of brand possibilities built around a brand ethos and the different ways it can manifest itself and evolve based on consumer personalization and collective iterations.

2. Explore new platforms through the journey of how your consumer is finding value in them? Test new programs with collaborators fluent in these platforms and with a point of view that amplifies your brand.

As the identity conversation evolves we are seeing game changers such as James Whiteside and creators of different backgrounds challenging the traditional cannon around gender and intersectional identities.

THINGS TO EXPLORE:

1. How are you designing around all levels of intersectional fluidity?

2. How is your brand’s essence universally fluid?

Art matters more than ever as we seek new forms of expressing the full set of emotions post-covid. As the Art world and other establishments are reckoning with embracing greater diversity a new wave of creators addressing issues such as representation, systematic racism as well as generational codes such as the freelance economy, intersectionalism and more.

THINGS TO EXPLORE

1. How is your brand embracing a new generation of artists?

2. Which artistic movements embody our brand ethos and vision for the future?

Covid has forced many of us to reprioritize life work balance, favoring the latter even when protection and survival seem to call for unrelenting work and hustle. This prioritization has reshaped design thinking principles resulting in favoring comfort, seamless mobility and interfaces, warm and personal spaces, and wellbeing as a unifying experiential principle.

THINGS TO EXPLORE

1. What the new life work balance means for your category and your consumer.

2. How wellbeing can become a unifying experience for your brand, from product design to branding and marketing interfaces.

3. How are you delivering this ethos within your work culture?

We are seeing the rise of elements such as stone providing a timeless foundation to build on. This functional and aesthetic materiality favors that which feels grounded, permanent and connected to the Earth and our sense of belonging. Related to this shift, we see. a return to crafted pottery, carved woods and all things both rustic and industrial.

THINGS TO EXPLORE:

1. Power of nature along with industrial craft.

2. Monochromatic and earthen palettes and textural tones.

3. Rise of new star architects.

We are in a constant journey of discovery requiring comfort without compromising style. . We are seeing the elevation of comfort wear and athleisure into something more elevated. The framework is a refined palette and comfort driven materials with a focus on spacious silhouettes for movement.

THINGS TO EXPLORE

1. Explore how. the concept of journey applies to your brand.

2. How do you inspire and empower movement?

3. The timeless influence of Classical Greece.

An enhanced focus on wellbeing along with a stronger environmental awareness will continue to accelerate the pivot towards plant based innovation across a wide realm of spaces from culinary to product design to next generation supplements.

Things to explore:

1. Plant-based fabric innovation.

2. Power of foraging and original nature.

3. Green living and green design.

Slow living is our societal reset in response to the fast pace of technology and mass consumption. The pandemic forced us all to decelerate and to renter normal with a new set of tools. We see a continued return to things which feel healing, nurturing and pampering. Timeless rituals give us the sense of peace we seek.

Things to explore:

1. Power of slow craft.

2. Slow social media and content overload detox.

3. The power of the edit across brand journey.

4. The power of touch and hedonism.

A restorative mindset is the prevailing mood as we deal with excess digital detox, the immense healing from the pandemic, and the mounting loads of modern day stress. As a result we are sleeping less while needing it more. Next generation brand experiences will give us the peace of mind to disconnect, recharge and refind ourselves.

Think/explore:

1. Sleep as the next form of engagement?

2. The power of quiet and slow.

3. Restorative lifestyle and wellbeing.