1 - Abundance of choice
The range of options—both in B2B and B2C environments— is constantly widening, and more often than not, those choices are literally at our fingertips. Inasmuch as we may trust or even love a brand, exploring and trying new options has never been cheaper, quicker, and, often, engaging. Tried to pick a pair of sneakers recently?
2 - Erosion of loyalty
Abundance doesn’t only make it harder for brands to be chosen.
It also erodes loyalty and changes its dynamics. Once the result of meeting expectations, today loyalty is the consequence of being able to constantly shift them. The clash of the titans in the online entertainment space is a powerful example of how loyalty is built through the constant promise and delivery of new and next.
3 - Speed of adoption
Suggesting that the pace of innovation is accelerating is
stating the obvious. What’s more intriguing, though, is the exponential increase in its speed of adoption. Ecosystems propagate new products, services, and technologies to millions of customers at speeds never seen before. The likes of Apple and Google have made the mass adoption of technologies such as artificial intelligence or facial recognition virtually effortless— and immediate.
4 - Shifting frames of reference
Finally, consumers’ frames of reference are shifting—whereby the expectation of Uber’s immediacy, Spotify’s abundance, and Netflix’s intimacy ripples across every aspect of life and line of business, raising the threshold of what’s good enough. Apple’s launch of a credit card in conjunction with Goldman Sachs is a bet on importing
in financial services levels of desirability and utility that are now the standard in other categories.
When these four forces combine with hypercompetitive markets driven by the increased availability of capital and competencies, the result is an entirely new environment—one in which people’s expectations are moving faster than the fastest businesses.
To get a sense what the next big thing is going to be, don’t turn your gaze toward R&D labs, but toward people’s discussions, searches, habits, and demands.
Increasingly, brands are built around some form of community—not vice versa.
The next diet, the next gym activity, the new coffee variation, and the next must-be part of town are out there already. They’re merely in disguise, shaped as needs and desires—and even the fastest businesses are only starting to work them out.