What Does It Mean For #MyIndustry To Predict The Future?
Keith Weed
Chair & Independent Director on Boards inc @WPP @Sainsbury’s. President & Chair Royal Horticultural Society, Chair UN Women Unstereotype Alliance, Director BITC, Trustee Leverhulme, Advisor AlixPartners. Ex-CMO @Unilever
Earlier, I spoke at the Guardian Changing Media Summit. On the way back I thought it would be a good time to reflect on some of the big changes that are going on in the marketing, advertising and media world for this month’s #MyIndustry theme.
If I think about the last five years and compare it to the twenty-five years before, there’s been huge amount of change, which we all live and breathe on a day-to-day basis. Of course the Internet and how people connect with people and people connect with brands was the fundamental change, but we see an acceleration of change with mobile, and just around the corner the impact wearables. And then there’s going to be virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.
In fact, the only thing that’s going to be constant is accelerating change.
That’s going to be a huge challenge for marketers and advertisers alike. What we’re going to have to do is be skilled up on an on going basis, and whether you’re a digital native or not, we’re all going to have to learn in real time.
We’re going to have to invest in looking outside our companies to see what’s going on in a way much more than we ever envisioned before. We’re going to have to look to the future and anticipate where the world’s going much more frequently.
If the role of a marketeer used to be all about insight, surely it’s now all about foresight. As with that foresight we’ll predict where the world is going and where people are going, and if we do that well, it’s an incredibly exciting time to be in this industry, and if we do it badly we’ll all be lost.
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Generative AI Designer / Artist ?
8 年interesting
Innovation Ideation & Solutions 'alchemist'. PhD Neuroscience. MD. Annapolis. Open to job/consulting offers.
8 年UL Foundry has been a good step in regards to spotting the future from the outside, and investing in it. What steps might be taken to improve, say, the usefulness of Foundry IDEAS ? Then there is UL's crowdsourcing through third-party platforms which also moderate the crowd's submissions. What are the pros and cons of external moderation, and would you like me to suggest improvements in those processes?
Media Arts
8 年Looking outside the beauty care / personal care category and aligning with - no, CHAMPIONING - the future of things is a broad leap, yes? Go, Unilever! And how fortunate for the outsiders who catch your eye!
Enjoying what I enjoy doing .. be an inspiration to individuals, teams & organization to discover their passion and to stretch their potential
8 年Marketing has to move from insight to foresight .. very interesting insight. So, we need to shift from Big Data which is about data analysis to Real Time Data which is more about predictive analysis .. very exciting indeed.
Emmy Winner, 5 time Canneslions Speaker, Partner and Global CMO at amp, ADC Member, MBA, Author of 101GreatMinds
8 年great insight, thanks keith