Jim put into perspective the impact of social networks upon branding, consumer relationships and marketing for this group of senior executives from some of the world’s largest technology companies.
I just came from giving a keynote for the annual conference of a major customer loyalty organization, with the talk focused on some of key trends impacting the world of retail today.
There’s certainly a lot going on and a lot to think about. Extremely rapid business model change, the emergence of new competitors, ongoing consumer confidence volatility, rapid product turnover and faster product life-cycles.
So what are they really, really worried about? Let’s put in context the people I had in the room — senior VP’s and managers in major retailers representing several billions in revenue in a wide variety of markets, including pharmaceutical, grocery, consumer goods and electronics. Not to mention quite a few bankers, responsible for credit card portfolio’s, loyalty programs and other customer oriented programs and infrastructure.
Given all that, the top of mind issue is — new methods of customer interaction.
Look at the poll results below. The issue stands out far and away as the most important concern of the day!
Hence, my keynote was bang-on. I didn’t touch too much on the social networking phenomena, as this type of crowd has been drowning in social-networking Powerpoints.
My focus was on interactivity, location, and intelligence,, and the extremely rapid emergence of new forms of in-store interaction and product sales uplift. Things like digital signage, in-store electronic promotional displays, iPod based coups. A flood of new stuff and new ideas that promote new ways of
Listen folks, I know I’ve said it here before, but I’ll say it again.
2010 is the year of location, combined with mobility, and it’s happening faster than you think.
I’m pumped about this topic and the reaction, so I’ve rolled this into a new keynote description:
Location is the New Intelligence: Customer Interaction in the Era of Pervasive Mobile
We’re at the leading edge of the merger of three perfect trends: the rapid and massive emergence of a massive mobile infrastructure with increasingly intelligent devices. Pervasive location awareness as a results of GPS and location intelligence/mapping trends in those very same tools. And a consumer mindset that is increasingly open to new forms of interaction. The result is massive business model disruption, absolutely transformative market change, and complete obliteration of old assumptions as to the nature of the customer relationship. Smart, innovative super-heroes know that this is an unprecedented time to jump on the emergence of location as the new intelligence, in order to provide for new ways of product uplift in the retail space, changing the very nature of customer loyalty through new forms of interaction, and enhancing existing one-to-0ne conversations through a more direct, distinct and fascinating new form of location based relationships. Futurist, Trends & Innovation Expert Jim Carroll is setting the retail, marketing and advertising world on fire with his fast paced insight into one of the most important trends to shape the customer-business relationship in the last few decades. Move over social networking — location is the new intelligence!
Read more: Location is the new intelligence 
Jim Carroll delivered the general session keynote at the Produce Marketing Association’s (PMA) Fresh Summit in 2010, one of the produce industry’s largest and most important annual gatherings. His keynote challenged attendees with a provocative question: ‘Are you guilty of future crimes?’ — exploring how organizations that fail to innovate today are essentially committing crimes against their own futures. Jim drew on his deep experience with food, agriculture, and consumer trend analysis to push Fresh Summit attendees to think about accelerating disruption in the produce supply chain, consumer expectations, and the competitive dynamics reshaping the fresh food business. PMA highlighted the event in a separate press release, calling Jim a ‘futurist, author and trends and innovation expert’ who would challenge attendees to reinvigorate their business.
Disney has always understood something important about innovation:
The future rarely looks exactly like the past.
That was the context for my work with The Walt Disney Company in Hollywood, where the focus was innovation, creativity and the need to challenge assumptions about where new ideas come from.
The phrase I used was “upside-down trends.”
It captured a simple reality.
Industries often spend too much time studying the traditional leaders in their field.
But some of the most important disruption comes from somewhere else.
A small company can suddenly challenge a large one.
A new technology can redefine customer expectations.
A business model from one industry can migrate into another.
A consumer behavior that seems insignificant can quickly become mainstream.
The strategic challenge is not simply to watch your competitors.
It is to understand the wider patterns of change that might redefine your world.
That was particularly relevant for an organization built around creativity.
Creativity is not about generating more of the same.
It is about seeing possibilities that others overlook.
Six themes framed the discussion:
The bigger message was about organizational habit.
Successful organizations naturally build systems around what already works.
That is rational.
But over time, those systems can make unconventional ideas harder to see.
The creative organization has to maintain the discipline of asking uncomfortable questions.
What if the customer changes?
What if the technology changes?
What if the business model changes?
What if the future arrives from a direction we are not watching?
Disney’s enduring strength has always involved imagination.
The leadership challenge is to apply the same imagination to strategy.
Innovation begins when an organization becomes willing to turn its assumptions upside down.
With a lot of university graduations and commencements, it might be a good moment and pause to think about a degree that colleges and universities should be offering their students. That’s why I opined a number of years ago that we needed to prepare people for a fast paced future by letting them enroll in a Masters of Business Imagination Degree.
Grab the PDF to the right, and share it around. Here’s how it reads.
“In a time of rapid, disruptive change can be a death sentence – not only for organizations, but for the careers and skills of those who work there! It’s time to abandon the thinking that has had you anchored firmly to the past – and to shift your focus to the future, with enthusiasm, motivation and imagination.
You can do this by abandoning any pretense that the skills of yesterday will be important tomorrow. Figuratively and literally, it is time to move beyond the thinking that has led us to a world of MBA’s – Masters of Business Administration – and focus upon the critical skill that will take you into tomorrow. The world doesn’t need more administrators. It needs more MBI’s – Masters of Business Imagination!
What are the attributes? MBI’s:
Grab the Masters of Business Imagination PDF 
Here’s a summary of my observations from a keynote I did in New York City for retailers, agencies, marketing organizations, food and CPG companies, on some of the trends that are sweeping their industries today.
The summary is courtesy of the event sponsor, the Readers Digest Food & Entertainment Group.
1. The New Consumer Is Shifting Their Attention Faster than Ever
Consumers suffer from “continuous partial attention” with more stimuli around them than ever before:
Consumers across demographic segments are immersed in this new interactive world forcing brands to engage them across all mediums to stay connected.
This new shopper is not only more scattered and more connected, but also faster – scanning 12 feet of shelf space on average per second. In-store influencers will now evolve at the pace of the iPhone and the Blackberry, challenging marketers to keep up with the pace. Faster is the new innovation and innovation isn’t just about new product design – it’s about responding to fast-paced consumer change.
Marketing Implication: Marketers must work harder than ever to capture the attention of the consumer and make a connection. Brands must keep up with the pace of consumer change in order to stay relevant.
2. The New Consumer Is No Longer Nuclear
The nuclear family is no longer the norm as Americans find new definitions for ‘family’ in today’s world. The following headlines touch on the variety of different ways families are structured today:
Brands must acknowledge these new trends as they develop products and create marketing messages to resonate with today’s consumer.
Marketing Implication: Hyper-nicheing is the new brand reality as the market becomes more specialized and fragmented. Marketers can no longer rely on preconceived segmentation strategies, but rather need to think differently about who they are trying to reach and how to reach them.
3. The New Consumer Is Influenced Differently
We’re in the era of the “Celebrity Baby Blog” where purchases are influenced heavily by what others are doing. And it is not just celebrities that consumers are watching – they are also looking to their peers for advice and brand recommendations. For example, in travel, 79% of travellers trust peer reviews more than ads.
The same thing is happening with consumer products – peer reviews are the new influencers, with 83% trusting the opinion of a friend or acquaintance who has used the product or service.
Marketing Implication: Social networks are the new brand influencers and marketers must find ways to connect with consumers who are highly influential in their peer groups.
4. The New Consumer Is Shifting Their Focus
Socio-economic shifts are affecting consumer behavior at an increasingly fast pace.
For example, the downturn in the economy has quickly had a significant impact on consumers’ eating habits. 71% of consumers are choosing to prepare meals at home instead of eating out and restaurant trips have decreased from 1.5 times a week in 2006, to 1.2 times today. (Food Marketing Institute US Grocery Shopper Trends)
Another prime example of trends reaching mainstream quickly is the health trend. Even the most active consumers shopping at delis are health-conscious. 80% of deli-buyers are making changes to their diets and 90% are now reading deli labels (International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association)
New markets are constantly emerging, whether it’s fresh-cut snack food, growing from a $6.8 billion industry to $10.5 billion (International Fresh-Cut Produce Association) or rapidly changing tastes – flavors are now moving from upscale kitchens to chain restaurants in 12 months, compared to 36 months 5 years ago.
Marketing Implication: Faster-paced preference change is the new reality and brands must be nimble to keep up with consumer demand.
5. The New Product Is Rapidly Redefined
New products are brought to market faster, redefining the industry quickly and forcing products to keep up.
As scientific knowledge is being shared in real time, ethical packaging innovations are emerging and driving product design.
For example, wax paper infused with cinnamon oil (antibacterial) inhibits 96% of mold for up to 10 days (Investor’s Business Daily). This new discovery allows CPG companies to produce new products with a naturally longer shelf life. Major manufacturers and retailers must respond to these new trends, especially as consumers jump onboard and demand these innovations. Most notably, Walmart has vowed to have zero private label packaging waste by 2010, and to eliminate all packaging waste by 2025 (Modern Plastics Worldwide)
Another example of a new product being redefined at a rapid pace is the “nutri-cosmetic” market – already at $1.5 billion worldwide (only 3% of that is in the U.S.) and predicted to grow at 4.7% a year in the U.S. to $10.6 billion by 2012 (Household & Personal Products Industry). Consumers are embracing new products that can offer positive effects on their appearance, while easily being integrated into their lifestyle.
Marketing Implication: Time to market and corporate agility are the new capabilities to focus on.
6. The New Product Is Upside Down
The way companies are innovating is also changing. The process used to be to get the assortment right, figure out the merchandising, go to stores and create a marketing campaign around it all.
The new innovation model turns that upside down: as large companies are more connected to consumer demand, they can use that insight to come up with the marketing, then determine the merchandising and get the assortment right.
Partnership with retailers and packaging companies in the design of the product is the key trend because these partners are closer to consumer demands and can often guide development of new products through their unique insight. Smart manufacturers are turning to packaging designers to ask for help lowering expenses as oil and raw material prices rise. (Bangkok Post). 73% of packaging machine builders collaborate with customer-packaging engineers. (Control Engineering).
Marketing Implication: Partnership with retailers and packaging companies is the key method to speed up product innovation and efficiently introduce new products to the marketplace.
7. The New Marketing Is Shifting
Consumers are being increasingly influenced by their time spent online. Therefore, online advertising spending is increasing and is predicted to rise to $51 billion in 2012 – up from $21 billion in 2007.
Consumers are looking across all media and being influenced by different sources of inspiration. Different media serves different purposes for consumers and reaches them in different mindsets. For example, certain magazines are set aside for leisure comfort reading, while online media can quickly provide relevant information at the touch of a button.
Marketing Implication: A “healthy mix” is the new advertising recipe for success reaching consumers at different touch-points.
Here’s a short video clip of Jim’s keynote, in which he speaks about the increasing velocity of change in retail.
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