Context 4 (10): How to sell the future today
Selling the future today is too expensive. Why? The mental gap between present time and future is too far away. History is a part of our today life, it’s our context and history is visible but the future is not visible. The line between future and science-fiction is what we believe in. It’s like in the old saying: What you see is what you get. This is a problem for the future, because we can’t see it in our modern world. So what happens is that most people feel more comfortable looking back than forward to an uncertain future.
Closing the gap to the future
A solution for selling the future today is simply to create a context where we feel comfortable to consume the future within that context. The first step is to make future visible. It is as in the report “Closing the Gaps” from The international Commission on Climate Change and Development. In that report they point out that the present adult generation only care about their next generation, their children. Why? Because that is the generation we can see, others to come is invisible (in our time).
How can we make future generation a part of our present life?
Create architectural design (buildings, towns etc), were we all live together with future generations. We can see the pyramids but where is the future monuments? Make DNA mirrors (a mirror that shows a version of the future you)?
Commercial dimensions
Brand future dimensions? A good example is Audi who product placement of future product in the science fiction-action movie I, Robot (2004). In that movie they also showed a future business that will be enormous: Technical body part which is also exposed in Puma’s commercial.
