Since the study of values and lifestyles is so fundamental to understanding the future and how society, and thus the requisite for businesses, is changing, we’ve made it one our core research fields.
Most important of all is it to understand the youth, not only because they constitute an important consumer group or that they are the decision-makers of tomorrow. No, the main reason is that they represent the future today, since we tend to stick to the values we develop as young. Consequently, society’s fundamental culture is first and foremost transformed by the entrance of younger generation with values, attitudes and behaviors more in tune with time. By studying the youth, you get a glimpse of the future.
Our first large-scale projects were launched even before we were called Kairos Future, in the late 1980s and early 1990. Since then we’ve conducted several dozens of large-scale studies – national, regional and global – on the aspirations, attitudes and dreams of young people. We’ve also studied other generations such as the Record Generation born 1945-54, the first teenage generation that have had such a tremendous impact on society since the mid 1960s, and in collaboration with partners we constantly keep track on long-term values-shifts globally and nationally.
Did you know that the global convergence of values is so rapid, that if it continues on its trajectory, national differences among youth will more or less disappear until 2050?
Today, values and lifestyle research no longer need to rely only on surveys, focus groups or ethnographic research. With social media, values and attitudes are not only distributed more rapidly, social media is also a new source of information. With big data analysis of social media trails we can tap into the minds of the consumers on an aggregate level, and automatically identify new trends and topics that we didn’t even know existed. That's what we do, assisted by our software sidekick Marvin.
So, do you know where your customers, customers’ customers or employees are heading?