Sneak Preview of the Next Decade
If the prevalence of psychics, astrologers and Tarot card readers are any indication, Americans are more than a little obsessed with the future. Add Y2K, and that interest is even more extreme. Less concerned with the accomplishments of the past century, now more than ever we want to know what’s due to happen next. We asked Marian Salzman, a long-lead planning strategist for Young & Rubicam’s Brand Futures Group and co-author of “Next: Trends for the Near-Future” (Overlook Press), for her insight.
Question: Most Americans have grown up in an era when the U.S. was culturally dominant, but you believe that will change in the century to come. Why is that?
Answer: It’s really something we’re starting to see. Americans made a mistake of naivete and arrogance. We thought globalization, westernization, modernization and internationalization were all the same thing. There are some very sophisticated cultures that look down on America, and there are just a multitude of areas where Europe offers up a different way of seeing the world. Smart cards and smart money, for example. Also, I think there’s a sense that Americans have always believed more is more, when in fact the European sensibility is that less can be more.
Q: Will any culture emerge as dominant?
A: No. It’s not that I feel America is being upstaged by the Russians or Japanese or the British. There will be a global culture that will develop, for which America will be one dimension.
Q: What about kids who are born now. What environment will they grow up in?
A: They’re not going to live in a white America. This is not going to be a country where English is spoken uniformly or where everyone’s going to be white. That’s very hard for people to get used to. I think people really do want to believe that they can color the future in their own image. And I think that’s one of the things most frightening to people--that the color of the future is a blurred and blended color. No one really knows what that will be yet.
Q: There’s so much buzz about teenagers right now. What effect will they have on the future?
A: A lot less than people would like to think. Boomers are not going to be very quick to hand over the mantle. I think that there is going to be a long haul between now and the time when teens make their impacts felt in the real market with cash, not the discretionary money they’re spending now for fad products.
The most interesting market to me is the market of 60 and older. Automotive companies used to give up on consumers at 55. Today, you’re probably going to buy your last car at 85. There’s this recognition that we’re living a lot longer. I’m not minimizing the importance of youth. I just think we need to be as savvy as we can about this older group. It’s the first time there will be a group of people who are 50 and older who are conspicuous consumers--who grew up in consumer culture.
Q: How about the workplace in the years to come?
A: First of all, I don’t think people will be employed for life ever again. They will be far more likely to take a job and become in effect their own brand. You’re the brand, and you’re always marketing yourself, and there will be no stigma or taboo associated with being a free agent. People will take a sabbatical every four years to learn something new to stay current. There will be much more pressure than ever before to keep reinventing ourselves.
Q: And the family?
A: For one thing, the definition of what is a family is changing. Right now, family is still a biological concept. I think we’ll see people embracing the idea that family is where you get unconditional acceptance. Right now we think of family as adult and child. Now we’re seeing people with pets who say, “My dog and I are a family.” Also in the very near future, people can afford to have more children than they’ve had previously. The idea of three- and four-children families. It’s in part people wanting to have something that’s permanent.
Q: You predict a rise in nationalism.
A: It’s a push back against anti-Americanism that’s going to start to boil up and people wanting to feel they’re a part of something. Wanting to be a part of a community. They kind of want to be married to a unit that they can hide within, that they can be part of in a deep and meaningful way which identifies them. The idea of being patriotic is very trendy right now. We feel that we’ve kind of lost our way because we’ve gotten so big. We’ve gotten so overwhelmed by change.
Q: And religion?
A: People really find a great deal of solace in guidelines and rules. I think people are signing up for new-age religions and for traditional, creationism-style religions. There’s a desire to have a belief set that’s absolute. It just makes things easier for people.
Q: Your book makes projections for, at most, 10 years into the future. Why don’t you make predictions beyond that?
A: Beyond that it becomes almost like science fiction. It’s not to say some predictions we’re making won’t be relevant then, but we are increasingly sure that there are things that are almost unimaginable to the average person that will happen in the next five to eight years. We talk about the fact that you’ll be able to feed all your senses in a home seven to nine years from now. You’ll touch a series of buttons and will have aromatherapy. A citrus scent, for example, where your walls will go to a soft celadon and the floors will be like rough burlap. These ideas sound like “The Jetsons” to people.