Mumbai: Consumers are likely to prioritise concerns over climate change and data privacy, and look for ‘Titan Brands’ that fulfill all their lifestyle needs and technology up-gradation over the next decade, says a new report published by Dentsu International.
The report – Dentsu Consumer Vision 2030: The Age of Inclusive Intelligence attempts to capture some of the long-term consumer trends that are likely to shape this decade and provides brands with a roadmap to navigate through the post-pandemic world.
The projections are based on in-depth interviews with world-renowned futurists, academics, authors, and experts, together with multiple proprietary consumer surveys from over 20 countries.
Concerns over health and climate change
Health and well-being is a key theme throughout the report, with consumers reporting a desire to utilise technology to stay healthy in the future. As per the report, increase in e-commerce will pave the way for the ‘Rise of the Titan Brands’ trend, where online retailers will increase in size and scope.
Majority of global consumers also expressed concerns over climate change and said that COVID-19 has made them more aware of the harm caused to the environment by global travel. This is likely to fuel greater consumer activism in the longer run, with purchasing decisions increasingly based on sustainable factors. Two-thirds of global consumers say that by 2030 they will not buy goods that could have a negative impact on the environment.
Technology rules the roost
Trends forecast that technology will be leveraged in increasingly innovative ways to foster human connection. One-third of consumers today consider allowing AI to care for an elderly relative unsupervised. In 2030, robot companions will become more commonplace as a way of helping the elderly and disabled, providing in-home care more effectively, indicates the study.
Changes in Consumer Behaviour
The study identified four overarching themes that will shape the next ten years in terms of consumer behaviour and brand response: Universal Activism, Synthetic Society, Bigger Bolder Brands & The Human Dividend.
Universal Activism
The study underlines that brands will need to reconceive their customers as activists, driven in their decision-making by a new range of influences and causes, from climate change to data privacy and new definitions of identity. How brands communicate the concrete action they are taking along these causes, for instance, on combating climate change, alongside realising some of its benefits will be a delicate balancing act. It also predicts that by 2030, more and more consumers will be deploying new AI-enabled personal data assistants to manage their relationships with brands, creating a new power paradigm.
Synthetic Society
The study predicts by 2030 we’ll see the emergence of a new, privileged class of citizens who can afford technological upgrades to their physical and psychological states. Around a third of consumers would consider undergoing non-essential surgery to improve their mental health. By 2030, eSports and immersive gaming will have changed the way we look at ‘real-world’ sports and activities, forcing the latter to innovate to keep up.
For brands, the implications are manifold. New arenas of potential sponsorship and partnerships will emerge as eSports become mainstream, while new domains of augmented experience will provide further opportunities for entertainment and engagement In the next decade, technology will be leveraged in increasingly innovative ways to foster human connection, forging togetherness despite distance or solitude, and democratising friendships and intimacy.
Bigger Bolder Brands
Over the next decade, the focus will shift to how brands can help service consumers more effectively across all aspects of their lifestyle. At the same time, data will enable brands to be more selective in the consumers they choose to engage with, focusing on those segments that will in time be most lucrative.
Rise of the Titan brands:
By 2030 we can expect to see consumers selecting specific brands to be their main lifestyle partners, becoming an integral part of their commercial activity and everyday lifestyle. Competing with these ‘Titan’ brands will also be made harder by their access to huge amounts of customer data, placing the onus on other brands to form effective partnerships and alliances— or to develop a direct-to-consumer relationship that secures access to first-party data.
Every brand is a health brand:
Nearly half of people globally believe that over the next five to ten years they will use technology to predict what will happen to their physical health. Building on this trend, in 2030, every brand will have become a health brand and all companies will be expected to help consumers enhance their wellbeing through the brand’s products and services.
The Human Dividend
Attention will shift towards those traits and capabilities that make us human, leading to a renewed celebration of what makes us unique. Humanised service will be at the centre of premium brand propositions by 2030. Faced with the threat of automation, there will be an even greater premium on human skills such as creativity and compassion—and the brands that successfully embody those traits. A never-before-event we could see emerge by 2030 is – ‘product labelling’ that clearly states whether something was produced by a robot or a human.
Inclusive Intelligence : Crucial for brands
Each of these trends carries specific implications for brands. But all of them sit on the concept of ‘inclusive intelligence’— the ability to incorporate new views, values, and behaviours into their value proposition against a backdrop of widening inequality, societal dislocation, and ethical complexity. This concept will be a key battleground for brands over the next decade, dentsu believes.
dentsu international Global CEO Wendy Clark said: “What is very clear from the past year and the findings of ‘dentsu consumer vision 2030’ is that business leaders must prepare for a very different consumer landscape. One which is continually evolving via innovation in technology, health and well-being, activism, and climate change. Leading brands will use this information and inclusive intelligence to build human-centric experiences and relationships to meet these consumer expectations.”
dentsu Asia Pacific CEO Ashish Bhasin said: “Brands, especially those in our region, will need to be more open, more transparent, in the way they work and be comfortable collaborating outside of their organisations as they are within them. This is especially key in their dealings with clients, agency partners, NGOs, governments, communities. Building inclusive intelligence starts with superior consumer understanding. The time is now for brands to take charge of their future narrative by developing pre-emptive efforts in getting to know and predict end-user behaviour, rather than play catch-up with the speed of their consumers.”