Luxury Briefing.

WELCOME to the turbulent teens. As the climate changes, power shifts, populations increase and economies lurch, the next 10 years are set to be the most challenging, problematic, optimistic and imaginative decade of our lifetimes. We’re heading into a time when everything – economic, corporate, governmental, geopolitical, environmental, social, technological and civic – acts like a teenager.

The oil crunch. World oil reserves are due to peak in 2011, then go into a steep decline, according to the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre.

Economic collapse. There have been 96 banking crises and 176 monetary crises since 1970. More will come, and soon, according to Bernard Lietaer, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Geopolitical turbulence. We will witness a quickening shift in geopolitical power, from mature to ascending countries, and from the poles of extreme wealth to the middle classes. The middle class in the ascending economies will grow 55m each year, from 492m today to more than 1bn in 2020.

New leadership. Facilitated by technology and the easy, swift movement of information, the nature and structure of business leadership are changing. Professor Joseph Nye, author of Soft Power, says, “Leadership is no longer about being king of the mountain. It’s about being centre of the circle.”

Betapreneurial mindsets. People are collaborating, developing new brands, products and services of?ine, using technologies/techniques learned online that include being collaborative, risk-friendly, responsive, experimental, imaginative and counter-intuitive. This betapreneurial approach is informed, influenced and guided by other trends we’ve identified – how consumers are using social networks, smartphones and live conversations via Twitter to make brands more collaborative, creative and conversational – Brandtocratic, in other words.

These shifts are also creating their own waves and kick-starting new, unique, personal and intimate behaviours. Let’s see which we approve or disapprove of: Global or local? Recorded or live? Virtual or real? Commercial or cultural? Convivial or rude? Connected or lonely? Social or surly? Mass or micro? We or me? Intimate or impersonal?

Here’s what we predicted you’d say: local, live, real, cultural, convivial, connected, social, micro, we and intimate. These are the words that sum up the key attitudes, mindsets and behaviours.

It’s all going mobile. Once media was fixed, but now it is mobile, smart and interactive. YouTube mobile, for instance, receives more than 100m playbacks a day. More users will connect to the internet using mobile devices than desktop PCs by 2015. The fashion market is ahead in this ?eld, as magazines become retailers, and retailers become magazines. Alison Loehnis, vice-president of sales and marketing, Net-A-Porter, says, “Net-A-Porter.com has always been about the marriage of content and commerce. As we move forward we’ll see editorial content and commerce converge like never before.”

It’s all going local. Brands need to shift from a global sensibility to one that touches on local needs. “You have to be global in reach, yet quintessentially local in terms of communications, image, service – everything.” Sue Whiteley, UK managing director, Louis Vuitton.

Mobile money and m-commerce. The shift to local will be enhanced by the growth in the mobile money market, in which money is transferred through smartphones. In the US, the mobile money market is expected to grow to $8.6bn by 2014. Handsets will increasingly behave as wallets that allow for on-the-spot payments, and card-scanning devices that enable small, independent retailers to accept credit card payments.

M-commerce – the sale of products and services conducted via mobile handsets – is expected to grow by 28% in 2011 to over $40bn. The push to live is set to grow the value of this market even further. The geo-location market is now worth $4.2bn. It will be worth more than $12bn by 2014. Hugh Garry, senior content producer, BBC, says, “Any brand not looking at this technology is insane. It’s the equivalent of not being listed in the Yellow Pages 20 years ago.”
Check-in culture. As people increasingly multiscreen, by watching TV as they update their Facebook accounts or send texts, and use geo-location apps to tell friends and networks where they are, a culture of checking-in is emerging. Foursquare has a check-in every second and 1.4m venues pro?ting from them. Location based social media is the next big thing.

It’s all going live: entertainment to intertainment. At present, we go to entertainment. In future, it will come into our lives as ‘intertainment’ based on augmented reality. People will pay a premium for a new kind of film where you ‘live the experience’.

Augmented Reality retail. AR will be the ultimate way to blend the virtual and real worlds, and hence to communicate with the Digital Generation. By merging the virtual and the real, augmented reality places an interactive digital world over real-world retail spaces, allowing for AR product displays and experiences. AR mobile apps enable users to access hidden layers of information.

LIVE events… In future brands will use LIVE – as in Live, Intimate, Visceral and Exclusive – moments to provoke, surprise and engage customers. Dr Jonathan Sykes, director at eMotionLab, Glasgow Caledonian University, says, “Interactive entertainment will soon eclipse linear media to become the iOpiate of the people.”

Welcome, then, not just to the start of a new decade, but the impact of being in a new century.

Which century are you from? Are you, your outlook and your business 20th, or 21st century?

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