These factors — and the challenges they present — are fairly new or not fully understood yet, which seems to explain why they aren’t currently top-of-mind. They also garner less attention from the C-Suite because they are not easily quantifiable. Nearly all factors discussed here have deeply human and emotional traits to them, making them somewhat unique and harder to grasp. Nonetheless, we believe they are of great importance in the future of marketing and should be addressed accordingly.

1. FIVE HIDDEN FACTORS IMPACTING
THE FUTURE OF MARKETING
Christopher Brace and Prisca Tsai
?

2. BEHAVIORS ATTITUDES BELIEFS
“I spend a lot of time
Googling and finding
information.”
“More information
means I make
better decisions.”
“I believe I am well
informed and make
good decisions.”
“I spend a lot of time
Googling and finding
information.”
“More information
means I make better
decisions.”
“I believe I am well
informed and make
good decisions.”
1. Intelligence Squared U.S: Smart Technology is Making Us Dumb, 2015
THE EFFECTS
TECHNOLOGY HAS ON
US AT A HUMAN LEVEL
PEOPLE’S SEARCH
FOR MEANING IN
THEIR LIVES
DIGITAL/
TECHNOLOGICAL
DISRUPTION IN
BUSINESS
SOCIETY’S MOVE
FROM ANALYZING TO
SYNTHESIZING
THE TALENT WAR
In the last white paper, “Five Factors Driving Marketplace Complexity in the Future of Marketing”, we covered the
most frequently discussed contributors to complexity all marketers must deal with in the future. By all accounts,
these are a lot to contend with, but Syntegrate Consulting has identified 5 additional drivers of market complexity
not being discussed by today’s marketers.
These topics — and the challenges they present — are fairly new or not fully understood yet, which seems to
explain why they aren’t currently top-of-mind. They also garner less attention from the C-Suite because they are
not easily quantifiable. Nearly all factors discussed here have deeply human and emotional traits to them, making
them somewhat unique and harder to grasp. Nonetheless, we believe they are of great importance in the future of
marketing and should be addressed accordingly.
While technology may be making us more efficient, it’s also making us lazier because we rely on technology to
do our thinking for us. Sound like a contradiction? It’s not. Studies show that when people look at their phones or
computers, they skim content using an F pattern as the dominant form of reading. As a result, they end up retaining
less information and thinking less deeply, which in turn threatens their ability to distinguish important information
from trivia. More importantly, this gives people a false sense of smartness and empowerment.1
From a marketing
perspective, this means technology is not only changing how we buy products and services (our behaviors) but also
the way we think, feel and relate to the world around us (our attitudes and beliefs).
It is our responsibility as marketers to better understand the impact technology is having on consumers and
shoppers at a human level so we don’t waste marketing dollars on tactical, behavioral initiatives without the ability
to tie them back to the underlining beliefs and attitudes (i.e. emotional truths).
THE EFFECTS TECHNOLOGY HAS ON
US AT A HUMAN LEVEL

3. PEOPLE’S SEARCH FOR MEANING
IT IS THE WANT THAT DRIVES THE BRAND CHOICE.
Our society has long associated happiness with material things, but in an age of abundance, this is no longer
enough. “Liberated by prosperity but not fulfilled by it,”2
people are pursuing a new quest, one of meaning. And
clearly, we have work to do: according to a recent study,3
U.S consumers only care about 5% of brands (i.e. if 95%
of brands disappeared, they wouldn’t give a hoot). As we covered in the first white paper, “The Future of Marketing
— Changing Marketers’ Mindsets,” we must evolve the role of marketing from generating transactions to building
intimate relationships with our consumers and shoppers. So, the real challenge for marketers today is this: how can
we bring emotional meaning to consumers and shoppers’ lives through our brands and go beyond just satisfying
their needs and wants through product performance? It is very important that marketers realize we no longer live
in a need-based society but a want-based society. It is the need that brings consumers and shoppers to a category,
but it is a want that drives the brand choice. What are your brands doing to create that want at shelf?
2. A Whole New Mind. Why right-brainers will rule the future, Daniel H. Pink 2005
3. Meaningful Brands 2015, Havas

4. 4. Digital Vortex, How Digital Disruption is Redefining Industries. Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, 2015
5. Ibid
DIGITAL/TECHNOLOGICAL DISRUPTION IN BUSINESS
Technological trends have many ramifications, both on the consumer side and the business side. While most
companies are busy playing catch-up with new digital platforms and analyzing immense amounts of data, the
potential for new digital disruptions is left unaddressed. In fact, in about 45% of companies, digital disruption is
not seen as worthy of board-level attention,4
perhaps because it is often ill-defined. Digital disruption is not just a
new technology sweeping customers away from your base. It is “the digitization of products, services, and business
processes allowing disruptive players to deliver the same value a traditional competitor provides — and even augment
it — without having to reproduce the conventional value chain.”5
In this context, the conventional value chain refers
to the industrial-based formula for success we discussed in the first white paper: develop economies of scale, an
integrated value chain, and then build brands and go-to-market strategies based on the traditional 5 Ps of marketing.
Dollar Shave Club is a good example of this: they launched as a
standalone e-commerce company in July 2011 offering a monthly
delivery of razor blades at a very low price. Not only did they avoid
the cost of brick and mortar stores, they also had no R&D investment
and hardly any advertising budget, relying largely on the power of
YouTube and social media. Other than being priced very competitively,
the additional value they provided was two-fold: they removed the
hassle of remembering to buy new blades every month (and having
to go to the store), and they brought back the idea that a simple,
effective blade is really all you need. By 2015, Dollar Shave Club had
captured 54% of the online shaving market. Just last month, Unilever
bought Dollar Shave Club for $1 Billion. While buying the disruptor is
one way to overcome disruption, it remains a reactive measure that,
in this case, took place after the industry had already been disrupted.
Rather, incumbents need to be proactive in understanding how to
disrupt their own business practices.

5. SOCIETY’S MOVE FROM ANALYZING
TO SYNTHESIZING
First, let’s lay out the difference between analysis and synthesis. Analysis is the process
of breaking things down to understand the parts of a situation. In doing so, it allows
us to identify the differences between those parts. However, analytical thinking makes
the interactions between said parts less visible, so insight diminishes. In other words,
we lose sight of the big picture when we dismantle something too much. Synthesizing,
on the other hand allows us to understand how things work together through the
process of finding patterns across components. As such, it allows us to find similarities,
rather than differences. While both valuable, analysis is a fairly static, slow and limited
process, whereas synthesis is dynamic in nature and limitless in terms of the possible
combinations it creates.
Having clarified the distinction between those two concepts, it is ironic to note that,
despite big data being so prominent these days, the era of the deeply analytical
“knowledge worker” is over. It doesn’t mean we don’t need data anymore — far from it —
but it means we need to start interpreting and leveraging its potential differently. It also
implies the skill-sets in high demand are changing. For one, most technical and analytical
skills have been delegated to computer software and overseas outsourcing. Second,
even the most advanced technology cannot solve all problems, because not all problems
require logical thinking. Take brand storytelling. Crafting compelling narratives that fully
engage customers and leave them wanting more from a brand cannot just come from
analytical thinking. Data points can reveal consumers and shoppers’ needs (typically in
the form of product benefits and features), but they often miss their unstated “wants” —
what truly motivates them to purchase one brand over another. This is fully aligned with
the fact that people are turning more and more to the brands that “get them,” those that
reflect their values and interests, provide them with meaning, express an identity beyond
their product attributes, and can almost be characterized with human qualities. Naturally,
marketing will be called to evolve accordingly. For example, most companies today use
quantitatively-led decision-making supported by qualitative data. In the future, we will
need to lead with qualitative decision-making supported by quantitative data.

6. THE TALENT WAR
The skills required to address our fast changing, highly complex and unpredictable environment need to evolve
along with the definition of marketing. But how is the workforce actually adapting? Not so well, it seems. In the
U.S, we anticipate a skilled labor gap of around 1.5 million too few workers by 2020.6
To make matters worse, nearly
70% of our workforce is disengaged.7
So what new skill-sets should companies acquire to succeed in the future of
marketing? And how can employees flourish in that new environment?
As we start to look at consumers and shoppers through the lens of their emotional makeup and belief system rather
than their behaviors (thus moving from analysis to synthesis), we will need more “High Concept/High Touch” skills.
These translate into:
• Detecting patterns and opportunities
• Creating artistic and emotional beauty
• Combining seemingly unrelated ideas into something new
• Empathizing with others and understanding the subtleties of human interaction
• Finding joy in one’s self and eliciting it in others.
While the five factors we just introduced are not being heavily discussed by marketers today, we passionately
believe in the need to explore them further to succeed in the future of marketing. To be sure, the transformations
occurring in the world of marketing bring excitement and opportunities. But make no mistake about it: focusing
efforts solely on new technology platforms, heavy data analysis and countless behavioral studies will send the
organization down the wrong path, a path of illusive gains and quick fixes, calling for more data, new tactics, or new
campaigns with no strategic backbone. As we enter this new marketing paradigm, we should remember that being
useful to consumers and shoppers doesn’t give brands lasting power in their minds, being meaningful does.
Christopher Brace is the CEO and founded Syntegrate Consulting in 2006. He can be
reached at brace@syntegrate-consulting.com.
Prisca Tsai is a Strategist at Syntegrate Consulting and leads the qualitative research
projects and all research integration work for clients. She can be reached at
prisca@syntegrate-consulting.com.
Syntegrate Consulting is an insight-based strategic consulting firm that specializes in
helping clients build better brands, communications, and go-to-market strategies that
create new value in the marketplace through syntegration: the bringing together of
dissimilar research, knowledge, insights, and people to create something completely new.
Please visit our website at www.syntegrate-consulting.com.
6. The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), “Help Wanted: The future of work in advanced economies”, March 2012
7. U.S Employee Engagement Study, Gallup, 2015