Designing products for the consumer of tomorrow

Innovation teams make decisions today about products that may only reach consumers years from now. Yet most research looks at people as they are today. That makes it hard to anticipate how their needs, behaviours and expectations might change.

So how can brands stay close to people while designing for futures that haven’t arrived yet?

In this paper, we explore how human understanding, cultural foresight and AI-powered digital twins can help innovation teams look beyond the present. We bring this to life through our collaboration with The Coca-Cola Company on Advanced Hydration. The project shows how future twins can help brands explore possible futures, uncover new opportunity spaces and make more future-ready decisions.

Recognised with two Gold Esomar awards

We’re proud to share that this work received two Gold Esomar Awards: the Tony Cowling Foundation Innovation Award and the Excellence in Global Research Award.

Inside the paper, explore:

• How digital twins differ from synthetic personas
• How future twins are built from real consumer understanding
• How future worlds can reveal new opportunity spaces
• How future twins generated insights beyond a generic AI model
• What dynamic innovation means for brands navigating uncertainty

The goal isn’t to predict one future. It’s to be ready for several.