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Advertising has always been the art of surfing the very latest social trends. Now, more than ever before, it needs to ride the wave of radical change. Everything is in a state of flux –with one crucial exception: the “brand personality,” the sole remaining point of reference in a fragmented and individualized society.
The future never evolves by accident. It is the product of the ongoing legacy left to us by our leaders, fathers, and ancestors. Brands are no exception to this rule – their destiny remains forever rooted in their past and their future develops in reference to what is gone and in anticipation of what is to come.

Beyond conquest, the quest

We are living through one of the most remarkable, fast-moving, productive and promising periods in human history. We are already experiencing the four sociological shifts that will characterize the early part of this century: consumer society is becoming an information society; mass society is becoming a society of individuals; a formal society a casual society; and a society based on class division is becoming a society based on social and inter-personal relationships.
Wooed excessively from all directions, people are becoming defensive. Advertising will increasingly bore them, unless it succeeds in surprising them, in kindling their imagination. Now may be the time for dreams, but the scars left by the latest economic downturn prove that, for contemporary advertising to work, it must be realistic and product-oriented.

Advertising: Era of creative ideas

Following the passionate 1980s and the rational 1990s, the first decade of the new millennium is ushering in a prodigious association of the imaginative and the utilitarian. The quest for new ideas is becoming more selective, and it will only be effective if results are responsive and convey the emotional charge that the greatest advertising campaigns have always inspired.
Consumers will remain as dualistic as ever: a mixture of child and adult. Pandering to consumers’ appetite for frivolity, advertisers have always attempted to arouse their quiescent enthusiasm, before immediately going on to assure them that their purchase represents the very best value for money. This uncompromising attitude will only increase consumers’ demand for information and transparency. Telling them lies means immediately losing their custom. More individualistic than ever, consumers will live in groups, cliques, castes and sects. It is precisely here, in their sanctuaries and retreats that they will have to be reached. Finally more in tune with their feminine sides, consumers will only consider brands that deliver a different type of message. The pompous and chauvinistic triumphalism that marked the 20th century’s greatest advertising successes will no longer work. It represents the swan song of a declining masculine culture. Manufacturers, distributors and consumers will seek ways to create a more friendly relationship. Trust will replace hubris. Collective aggressiveness will give way to unifying projects.
Advertising campaigns extolling the virtues of this blossoming matriarchal culture will serve as foundations for the next century’s successes as surely as America has built its conquests on the illusion of its core values: Coca-Cola is youth; Marlboro, virility; McDonald’s, family spirit; Levi’s, liberty; Nike, surpassing oneself. Relationships might well become the Holy Grail of the 21st century. The quest will take us on an arduous path to relationships with ourselves, others, nature and the rest of the world.

Beyond the factual, the virtual

Advertising will be transformed. It will abandon mass messages to specialize in personalized communication. Make room for surgical precision: messages will become Exocet missiles, programmed for individual targets. New technologies will allow us to create a mass phenomenon of customized products. In their new, more active role, consumers will be able to simply click on an advertisement and discover everything there is to know about the product on their television screens. Another click will enable them to simulate a choice and to experience a virtual purchase. Films will be interactive, and all the products displayed will be instantaneously available for purchase, deliverable within 48 hours. Purchases will be made electronically, using virtual money. Imperceptibly, advertising will be turned on its head. More and more Web advertising will supplement television commercials, conventional advertisements, and billboards. By 2020, investments in Internet advertising will match those in television. For consumers, a new world is dawning –a world to be grasped without reservations or preconceived ideas.
The brain is like a parachute: it works best when it is open. Creative advertising works in the same way: it can only hit the target if it is open to all forms of communication. In broadening its own horizons, it will extend those of consumers.