Sterling Brands was begun in 1992. The brand consultancy provides services around brand development, notably brand strategy, brand innovation and brand design. One its most successful brands is its own.
The company has grown to have offices in six cities, including New York and London, is over its 21st birthday, and became part of global marketing and advertising services giant, Omnicom, in 2009. Its clients include Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Disney, Bayer, Google, Visa, Time Warner, T-Mobile, Abbott Laboratories and Pepsico. It has acquired enough expertise to launch its first annual forecast of the trends and products that will shape our lives in the near future.
What trends? What products?
What if the tussle between city life and a desire for healthy living resulted in products like pockets embedded with a silver-based, antimicrobial nanotextile that sanitises your hands on the go? What if your jacket converts into a temporary pod for opportunistic napping when you’re out and about?
On the Future is the book that examines consumer data and global trends in industries as varied as fashion, technology, urban planning and food production, to arrive at 15 Sterling Futurecasts, or fully designed products and services that are plausible in the near future.
Deedee Gordon, president of innovation at Sterling and author of the report, commented, "We predict there will be a plethora of products and services grown out of the convergence of technological advancements and consumer needs. For example, with more than half of the adult American population made up of single people, one of the most promising trends we see makes the connection between urbanization and single-serve food items."
Debbie Millman, chief marketing officer at Sterling added, “Our research and predictions point to a real change in how we perceive home, what makes up our homes, and how we spend our time once in them. What's coming will be revolutionary."
Sterling Brands used a cross-section of cultural anthropology, market research, trends observation and forecasting, and industrial and experiential design to create the Sterling Futurecasts. Each is a future opportunity for brand and product innovation through Sterling brand's eyes. Each Sterling Futurecast is based on observation of what products are already in market, what’s driving socioeconomic trends and how consumers will adapt to both. Three of these are, in short:
Urban Defense: The over-population of urban environments and the creation of more mega-cities will drive the creation of health and wellness products that help consumers navigate and fight environmental challenges.
Augmentality: Wearables that track the steps you take or the food you eat are already falling behind the true potential for the convergence between health and technology. Future products will allow for up-to-the-minute reports on your blood composition in order to recommend changes to your diet and exercise regimens as you-go.
Frugeois (pronounced Froo-ZHwa): Millennials and the generation that follows have each experienced the recent economic recession in their own way, and learned that conspicuous consumption and careless spending never ends well. For them, being frugal and finding new ways to reuse and repurpose what they already have is paramount.
If you just said to yourself, “I’d like to read that,” click Sterling Brands, On the Future.
You might also like to read Sterling Brands' October report, Digital Impact on In-Store Shopping: Research Debunks Common Myths. We can make that available to you, too. Click Digital Impact on In-Store Shopping.
