Welcome to the Future

Louise:  The turn of the year makes philosophers and fortune tellers of us all.  At Williams Nicolson, there is satisfaction in beating our own plan and in a stellar team winning work. We know we are doing something quite different and next year will deliver much, much more.

But what do we need to know to manage what’s ahead?  

We commissioned Williams Nicolson director Claire Foster and trend strategist Luisa Ferreira to scour a year’s worth of content from multiple sources to identify important signals of change.  The inaugural Williams Nicolson Trend Index identifies the strongest trends impacting communicators, our clients and organisations in 2022 and beyond.

You won’t find any flying cars – these are the three trends starting to shape business strategy and decision making today.

First, we need to adopt a radical responsibility for the world beyond our core markets.  In the absence of consistent regulation, business shoulders responsibility to redesign operations, products and services to combat climate change and deliver a sustainable future.

Second, we need to embrace the metaverse as a new market to create, define and trade value. We’ve done this before; the communications industry has already moved from marketing products, to selling services.  NFTs provide the means to promote things we can’t hold and collaborate with people we haven’t met. Imagine a digital key and membership card to an exclusive online space.  Tarantino, Stella Artois and the auctioneers Christie’s are there already – not a party we want to miss!

Third, as digital consumption has blurred the lines between distinct consumer groups and stakeholder categories. The people we need to influence – and the multiple routes to those audiences – overlap. We predict a definitive move from traditional marketing segmentation and classifications of B2B and B2C, to B2Community.

Steffan:  People love to claim they embrace change, but the reality is often the opposite.  If there is one lesson that recent years have taught us – especially with the impact of Covid and global lockdowns – it's that change is unavoidable. As communicators, we naturally want to understand the future because communication never stops. 

Once you pause to ponder what is happening, it’s probably too late.  So, it makes sense to look as far forward as possible. We’ll see you there.