Page 58 - Adnews Magazine November-December 2021

Investigation
Top 5 Predictions
By Rose Herceg, CSO, WPP AUNZ
After 21 months of (nearly) every little thing being up ended,
here are my five predictions for what this world will start taking seriously. While these predictions won’t all happen in a year, in my view, each will start in earnest in 2022.
1Learning, but not as you know it.
According to AIFS’ Life during COVID-19 research, during 2020 and 2021 almost one in two adult Australians undertook some
form of further education. This included undergraduate university students, post-graduate students, short-course students and millions of Australians simply wanting to get new skills.
They all had (almost) three things in common. They did it online. They did it (mostly) on their own timetable and 50% of them did it to get out of one career and into another. It’s therefore evident that this country is ready to change careers, change ambitions, change lives.
So what it needs is fast, useful, tactical training and education to get there. Politely, the curricula
for a lot of higher educational institutions is stale. Less politely, the sector needs a total overhaul. Fast skills are crucial for a 21st century economy and for the jobs of the future. The education sector will be pumping out courses in
all sorts of fast, effective, scrappy ways to help people get the actual skills they need. The best years for education are ahead of us.
2Fantasy in all its forms. $90 billion was spent on video gaming collectively in 2021, with $4.5 billion spent on immersive gaming. More of our money is spent on video gaming (in all its stripes) than all of the money we spend on Hollywood downloads and streaming put together.
Escapism has never been more important. A pandemic has fuelled the human necessity to (occasionally) live in a fantasy world without guilt or shame. It’s the definition of fantasy that is
changing. This includes everything from immersive gaming experiences, role-play, fantasy leagues, even the (scary) spike in micro-dosing of illegal drugs to boost the fantasy high.
The real question is where to next for fantasy? I think of that 1980s TV show Fantasy Island.
Mr Roarke (Ricardo Montalban) and his sidekick “the plane, plane” Tattoo (Herve Villechaize) create actual fantasies for rich people with too much money on their hands. Where do you actually take fantasy in 2022? With all that additional cash companies such as Apple have, which is more than the US government’s Federal Reserve, what kind of fantasy role play could you actually build and deliver?
This is a segment ready to explode. All that’s required is the imagination to think it up.
Imagine this: It’s holiday shopping season, 2022. You walk into your local shopping centre and you’re ready to shop up a storm. The camera already knows your face and you get targeted with interactive messages on your phone or digital billboards (for those who like to see their name up in lights and have removed any privacy restrictions) pitching you what to buy based on your shopping history.
When you’re ready to check out, your fingerprint is all you need to complete the purchase. This is all made possible through the use of biometric technology. Talk about
a great customer experience. Well, it’s coming.
4
What to sell is one thing. How to sell it, is another. Businesses will be dedicating entire divisions of their smartest people on figuring out entirely new business models. We did it in a matter of days when COVID-19 hit. Partnering to sell,
3
Biometric retail therapy.
iPhone’s Face ID can trigger Apple Pay’s contactless payments. The next step is for this kind of tech to be available on every single platform and in any retail setting.
Business Model
Innovation.
With so much attention
on following the rules and the editorialising of Australia (by foreign media) as the world’s great nanny state, taking a few calculated risks might be around the corner. Increasing immigration numbers for a few years, allowing bars and restaurants to operate on sidewalks freely, letting kids play in parks and on swings without a lawyer standing nearby assessing public liability — just a few of
the things around the corner in 2022-2023. This begs the question: where can your business throw caution to the wind?
creating a marketplace, finding new channels to market — and a dozen other ideas that have yet
to be invented. Think about what you sell right now. How could you dramatically change your business model in order to sell it?
5
Bye-bye fun police.
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