Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

What the future holds

New York futurologist Marian Salzman shares her tips for the decade ahead with Sheridan Winn

January is the perfect time to look forward at the ‘deep’ trends that are likely to shape our lives over the next decade. Who better to guide us than Marian Salzman, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of JWT Worldwide, the world’s fourth-largest advertising agency?

Salzman is a woman with her finger on the pulse. In 1996 she raved about the internet but had a hard time persuading big corporations to take it seriously – they saw it as a slow-paced novelty for consumers. More recently, she foresaw US superiority challenged by a United States of Europe, the rise of Al-Qaeda (and 9/11, a year before it happened), on-demand entertainment, a redefinition of age and attitude, and a growing chasm between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’, particularly when it came to new technologies.

Salzman has been spot on more recently, too. In 2005, she foresaw the need for non-Muslims and Muslims to come to terms with cohabitation, particularly in Europe, as well as a growing level of eco-awareness, and corporations, governments and individuals questioning the cost of mobility. She also thought sleep would become a luxury.

“Four dynamics drive the long-term trends in our lives,” she says. “Technology permeates business, family life, social life, entertainment and reproduction – virtually every aspect of our lives. Demography highlights the changes in the population profile, such as birth and death rates, migration and the relative proportions of men to women. Resources are a fundamental factor, although today they’re more about time and money than energy and productive land. Psychology – people’s desires and expectations and the way they seek to meet their needs – is also of primary importance.”

Over the next 10 years, Salzman and her team expect to see the following:

1 Everything on tap, everywhere

Driven by high-powered mobile connectivity, this trend sees business racing to meet our desire for instant gratification and our growing expectation that we’ll get it. We already get books, music and movies online, pretty much wherever we want, but the same will apply to products such as vacuum cleaners, house plants, medication and cars.

As interactive technology develops towards unwired Wi-fi mobility, location will no longer be a barrier to getting next-day delivery of the products we want, when and wherever we want them.

2 Radical transparency

In our wired world, data is committed to digital form – there are new points of connectivity and a record of everything. Salzman believes the net effect is an increasing acceptance of living life in the open.

“In a world of intense media scrutiny, it’s wise to assume determined diggers can unearth the most guarded information. No secrets will be safe,” she says. “Older generations are wary, but younger people – weaned on the internet, celebrity culture and anti-terrorism scrutiny – pay less heed to privacy issues and take openness for granted.”

3 Blue is the next green

We can no longer take water for granted: the era of limitless clean supplies has come to an end. It has been suggested water could be traded on the futures exchanges, as other resources are now.

Globally, polluted water is a problem for vacation destinations, but a much graver issue for people who have little or none. “There are few alternatives to oil, but none to water and that’s scary,” says Salzman. “Over the next decade, expect to see water management and conservation rise on government and corporate agendas.”

4 Savouring what’s local

Things are tipping from ‘global’ to ‘local’. Despite the appeal of golden sands, crystal-clear seas and the relative cheapness of travel, sheer weight of numbers means business and leisure travel are less easy than they were a decade ago. As travel becomes more of a hassle and high-powered interactive media delivers global content wherever you are, the balance of interest tips away from ‘somewhere else’ to ‘where I am now’.

It’s a factor driving the growing appeal of what’s local. Consumers want the wide world and their global brands, but they also prize their individuality. “The more global and common brands become, the more incentive there is to seek what’s distinctively local,” says Salzman. “Expect to see truly local experiences prized for their ‘specificity’.”

5 Personal CPM

The increasing fragmentation of attention is part of our focus on ‘local’. Consumers look for – and expect – services personalised to where they are physically and where they’re at personally. Centralised services, advertising included, can’t do that. Interactive technologies, however, allow consumers to forge wide networks of kindred spirits. As they become mainstream, these will rival ‘traditional’ media-born advertising. ‘Personal’ means a real person. Millions of authentically influential individuals will have their equivalent of a personal ‘CPM’ – the traditional ‘cost per thousand’ advertising rate card.

6 Computer-mediated fashion

“Gone is the traditional ‘few-to-many’ viral vector of the old mass retailers and media,” says Salzman. “Interactive technology drives fashions in a broader sense, with more mutations, faster. In a million online conversations, young people create fashion second-by-second. As they lead seamlessly interwoven physical and virtual lives in parallel, elements of their online style will become apparent in their offline behaviour in the ‘real’ world.”

7 The end of demography as we know it

The same principles of fragmentation are coming to bear on demography. Big shifts in technology and mass psychology are playing havoc with age-based benchmarking. Over the coming decade, the possible permutations of age, sexuality, marital status, family composition, work and health status will become too complex for easy demographic pigeon-holing to be useful or meaningful.

8 Moving towards female rules

“One of the most important shifts shaping demography is the rising power of women,” says Salzman. “All around the world, women are figuring out how to get a fairer share of opportunities, power and money.

“It isn’t going to get easy for women suddenly and it won’t stop being a man’s world overnight, but the balance of power is shifting towards women getting a better deal. In the next decade, women will increasingly shape the world to their needs.”

FR Tendances du futur

La futurologue new-yorkaise Marian Salzman est une femme qui prend le pouls des tendances. En 1996, elle s’est enthousiasmée pour l’internet, non sans rencontrer des difficultés pour persuader les grandes firmes de prendre cette évolution au sérieux. Plus récemment, elle a prévu le nouveau dé filancé par les Etats-Unis d’Europe aux USA et l’augmentation des loisirs à la demande.

Au cours des 10 années à venir, Salzman et son équipe s’attendent à voir émerger les tendances suivantes:

1. Tout à volonté, partout. Au fur et à mesure que la technologie interactive se développe, la localisation ne sera plus un obstacle pour recevoir des livraisons le jour suivant des produits souhaités, au moment et à l’endroit voulu.

2. Transparence Radicale. Dans notre univers connecté, nous acceptons de plus en plus la vie dans l’ouverture. “On peut réellement assumer aujourd’hui que des personnes déterminées à déterrer des informations, arriveront à trouver les secrets les mieux gardés. Plus rien ne sera à l’abri,” explique Salzman.

3. La prochaine préoccupation ‘verte’ sera ‘bleue’. L’ère de la fourniture illimitée d’eau propre à la consommation est terminée. “Attendez-vous à voir de plus en plus les questions de gestion et de conservation de l’eau comme une priorité dans les agendas des gouvernements et des entreprises,” confie Salzman.

4. Le goût du local. Selon Salzman “Au plus les marques internationales deviendront la norme, au plus les gens voudront découvrir des produits qui se différencient au niveau local”.

5. Un CPM (Coût pour mille) personnel. Les technologies interactives permettent au consommateur de tisser de larges réseaux de liens d’affinités. S’ils deviennent des courants forts, ceux-ci rivaliseront avec les espaces web ‘traditionnels’ nés dans le sillage des media.

6. La mode médiatisée en ligne. “Le vecteur traditionnel de ‘un petit nombre pour la masse’ est dépassé, le concept de distribution de masse et de médiatisation n’a plus lieu d’être,” dit Salzman. “A partir d’un million de conversations en ligne, les jeunes créent les phénomènes de mode seconde après seconde.”

7. La fin de la démographie telle que nous la connaissons. Dans la décennie à venir, les permutations d’âge, de sexualité, de statut marital, de composition familiale, le travail et la santé deviendront des aspects trop complexes pour que la structure des données démographiques reste valable.

8. Le déplacement vers des règles féminines. “A travers le monde, les femmes cherchent à obtenir une part plus équitable des opportunités, du pouvoir et de l’argent,” précise Salzman. “La prédominance masculine ne va pas changer du jour au lendemain, mais la balance penche en faveur des femmes qui en retirent de meilleurs avantages.”

NL Blik op de toekomst

De New Yorkse futurologe Marian Salzman houdt de vinger aan de pols. In 1996 orakelde ze over het internet, maar kreeg de grote bedrijven er niet makkelijk warm voor. Recenter wist ze dat de suprematie van de Verenigde Staten concurrentie zou krijgen van een Verenigde Staten van Europa. Ze voorzag ook de opkomst van entertainment on demand.

Voor de komende 10 jaar voorspellen Salzman en haar team het volgende:

1. Alles overal beschikbaar. Naarmate interactieve technologie evolueert, is locatie geen hinderpaal meer. We zullen de producten van onze dromen de volgende dag kunnen laten leveren, waar en wanneer we willen.

2. Radicale transparantie. In onze ‘geconnecteerde’ wereld is totale transparantie steeds meer aanvaard. “Je gaat er maar beter van uit dat wie zoekt, zelfs de best beschermde informatie vindt. Geen enkel geheim is nog veilig”, verklaart Salzman.

3. Blauw is het volgende groen. De tijd dat zuiver water onbeperkt beschikbaar was, is voorgoed voorbij. “Waterbeheer en -behoud worden steeds belangrijker voor regeringen en bedrijven”, aldus Salzman.

4. Lokale geneugten. “Hoe mondialer en algemener merken worden, hoe meer we op zoek gaan naar lokale authenticiteit”, verklaart Salzman.

5. Persoonlijke CPM. Dankzij interactieve technologieën kunnen consumenten enorme netwerken met gelijkgestemden opbouwen. Naarmate die meer ingeburgerd raken, zullen ze concurreren met ‘traditionele’ mediareclame.

6. Mode via de computer. “Vergeet de traditionele stimulans van ‘enkelen-naar-velen’ waar grootleveranciers en de massamedia op teerden”, zegt Salzman. “In een miljoen onlineconversaties creëren jongeren mode seconde per seconde.”

7. Dood van de demografie zoals we die kennen. Het volgende decennium worden de mogelijke permutaties van leeftijd, seksualiteit, relationele status, gezinssamenstelling, werk en gezondheid te complex voor een eenvoudige demografische opdeling in vakjes.

8. Vrouwen aan de macht. “Overal ontdekken vrouwen hoe ze meer kansen, macht en geld kunnen krijgen”, verklaart Salzman. “De macht van de man is nog niet ten einde, maar door de verschuiving van de verhoudingen verbetert de positie van de vrouw.

Leave a Reply