How to define your category’s future
When people are faced with an existential question about the future of their category, it takes a combination of structure, analytics and creativity to help marketing and R&D teams to imagine future scenarios, and; to plan how to stay relevant in the future.
Using an example brief from an imaginary client, we have brought to life how to make this happen.
Let’s imagine that our client works in the personal care field, and wants to understand what the future of ‘youthfulness’ looks like, so that they can build their innovation funnel. They are aware of category codes changing; from early cosmetic interventions by 20 somethings on the one hand; to shifting cultural messages around ageing healthily on the other hand; and want to know where to play.
They have a wealth of tools at their fingertips, including insight, foresight, scientific opinion and AI tools, and want direction on what their next, big-bet innovations should be.
Understanding their category vision
By questioning and capturing their view of the future and their appetite for change, we gain consensus on their scope and vision. For example, we might consider …
Do they want to go beyond skin, teeth and hair, to body, mind and nutrition? In the future people’s age may not just be defined by their skin, hair and teeth, but by also by their gait, posture and mind.
How much do they want to plan for new cohorts, with new cultural contexts. This will help us to sharpen our geographical and demographic focus (for example, rising populations in SE Asia/Africa, and booming generations). Once we know this we will be able to research and plan for different demands, rituals, needs and budgets.
How much should technology be part of the solution? We know for example that Haut.AI’s SkinGPT is likely to change how brands help people to see their future selves, we know our client is also sitting on some smart technologies, and partnering with some great academic institutions to discover breakthrough molecules.
What are their financial appetite or constraints, what capabilities do they have, and how regulated are they?
Do they have any hypotheses about the business they think they should be in?
Overall, the kick off session is there to understand their vision, parameters for success, and capture their available insight, foresight and technologies. A successful output is to define the category that they want to play in now, and in the future.
Building and immersing in future scenarios
Using a combination of inputs from category immersion, existing research and foresight, to gathering expert opinions, we will create scenarios for the team to immerse in. These futures will be brought to life in a multi-sensory format, to make them as accessible and immersive as possible for all involved. This might involve experts being on hand to chat to, exploring future sound-bytes, reading materials, textures, future shock scenarios, and imagery, etc., but all with our future consumer, and our business front and centre. These scenarios are pitched at different ‘levels’ to fuel both engagement and creativity.
Here we’ve imagined 4 scenarios.
New Biological Breakthroughs. The possibility for youthfulness being manipulated at a cellular level (and not just for skin and hair). Here we explore how harnessing the best from science and biomimicry, creates previously unforeseen breakthroughs in health and youthfulness.
Bringing Expert Rituals To The Home. Bringing professional grade treatments, regimes, musculoskeletal lifestyle hacks, brain training, and workouts to the home for a new wave of DIY youthfulness.
New Codes of Ageing. Imagining a culture shift so strong that youthfulness as we know it, is no longer relevant, and new codes emerge, such as new value based on care, wisdom, and health.
Dealing With New Aggressors. How a lifetime of urban living, ultra-processed food consumption, computer-based work, emotional stress and poor gut health, accelerates ageing.
Our client would spend time being in these spaces, immersing in the consumer perspective, pre-empting what their existing and new competitors’ responses would be, and determining their own right to play. They will think broadly about the opportunity, assessing which elements are likely and which less likely.
Once they have experienced these scenarios, and discussed the implications, they will be helped to generate early concepts. Many may have unknown feasibility, but by back-casting with the vision in mind, we can explore routes to make this more possible.
Managing the internal sell in
Our client has clarity on the future of their category and has generated some concepts they’re really excited about, from regenerating skin’s resilience, to promoting musculoskeletal health. They have developed a coherent roadmap based on consumer research, (which explored both the scenarios and the early concepts), and now their biggest hurdle is to sell this into their senior leadership team to gain investment. Without investment, they are unable to realise their category vision.
Ideally, representatives from the leadership team would have attended the initial workshops, but inevitably diary clashes have occurred. They ask Futureful to help bring these futures to life for their Leadership Team and get them to see, why it is essential that they should take action. The Leadership Team has workshop and agency fatigue and wants clarity on the facts and figures. Futureful supports their client in delivering this, but also in inspiring them to ‘see the future’ and understand that if their business doesn’t lead the market, then others will.
Futureful is a brand strategy and innovation agency with a passion for collaborating with clients to create better futures. Please get in touch if you’d like to hear more.