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Humans have a built-in flaw: They have difficulty imagining their “future selves.” A recent study from the University of California highlighted that, when participants were asked to imagine their future self, MRI scans showed the exact same synapses fire as when those same participants were asked to envisage German politician Angela Merkel. Because they are both strangers.
In short, you do not recognize the “You of 2042.”
Understandably we have evolved to prioritize “the now” over “the next.” A tiger hiding in the bushes now is a more imminent danger than the one hiding in a bush next week. Consequently, we are a species with a bias for the current.
But this has potentially damaging implications for people, institutions and businesses.
The good news, however, is that we can train our minds and reengineer our business practices to combat a potentially debilitating short-termism.
What marshmallows and climate change have in common
In psychology and sociology, the renowned Marshmallow Experiment provides a shorthand for our understanding of this phenomenon. Put simply, a child is offered one marshmallow now. But they are promised that they will be given two marshmallows later if they are prepared to wait alone for five minutes with the single marshmallow positioned tantalizingly in front of them and not touch it.
Many children grab the single marshmallow. But some wait to get two.
Significantly, the experiment was revealed to be an accurate predictor of future success in life. Those participants who were able to wait and trade in their urges in the present for greater reward in the future (otherwise known as delayed gratification) went on to be happier, healthier and attain greater societal status in later life.
In behavioral economics, our failure to plan for later is called “discounting the future.” We do it all the time: As a species, we are told to “save for a rainy day,” yet we are in tens of billions of dollars in debt to credit card companies. We ignore warnings about pandemics and Putin and get caught out. And currently we are ignoring climate change klaxons in favor of yet another “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” approach.
As Homer Simpson says, “That’s a problem for Future Homer. Man, I don’t envy that guy.”
How this applies to marketing
For businesses and brands, the effect is also present. Marketing is too much about the now.
Some businesses plan their marketing and media quarter-by-quarter, meaning innovation is often deprioritized as budget can’t be put into the service of test-and-learn programs over the mid- to long-term. The future is discounted.
If we can learn to commit now, we can have a better future, however unpalatable or inconvenient that is in the present.
—Phil Rowley, head of futures, Omnicom Media Group U.K.
Some businesses incentivize individual ambition by aggressively promoting those who spend 18 months making a graph go up and to the right before allowing them to “move on to greater challenges” elsewhere in the business. The short-term sales return on investment has been taken care of, but the mid- to long-term has been neglected in favor of one marshmallow now rather than two later.
On occasion, some businesses do catch wind of some exciting future development, like the metaverse, and want all-in immediately. But without putting in the hard yards of working to make their company agile and future-facing over the mid-term, they risk making similar opportunities inaccessible in the future.
And so while business should be like a cross-country Iron Man, where we plan to conserve our energy for the coming journey, it becomes a 4×4 relay sprint. Each leg of the race is a rerun from the same starting block, over and over again.
So how do we encourage businesses and brands to get in touch with their future selves?
Doing futurism right
In his latest book, Rationality, Professor Steven Pinker deconstructs the phenomenon of being a stranger to our future selves and proffers some quotidian solutions.
Life is littered with examples of mechanisms that, if enacted in the present, can hold our future selves to account, he argues. Whether it’s hiding our phone while sober to prevent texting an ex while drunk, or a brand publicly announcing sustainability targets so that consumers can hold them to account if they conveniently forget—if we can learn to commit now, we can have a better future, however unpalatable or inconvenient that is in the present.
We need more of this in media and marketing. While there are many tools that are designed to advantage businesses, from competitor analysis to customer insight, only occasionally is the discipline of futurism deployed by brands interested in what comes next. Sadly, however, it tends to be packaged up as an exercise in pseudo-entertainment, like a fireworks display where we all “ooh” and “aah” at the spectacle before heading home as the last flare is fading. Invariably, there has been no commitment to doing anything about the opportunities foretold.
To do futurism right, we should all be more like Hernán Cortés. When Cortés landed on the shores of the New World in 1519, he burnt his ships. As a result, his men, knowing there was no return ticket, were well-motivated to make a success of their future.
Businesses should of course not be burning their ships, even metaphorically. But by enshrining a commitment to prepare for the future, it means structures and practices must follow to accommodate that commitment.
Brands are perfectly happy to announce their financial targets—and latterly, in some cases, their environmental targets—as a way of publicly stating their objectives. But how many brands are equally dedicated to making that same commitment to the sophistication of their media and marketing over the longer term?
Brands should be planning by decade. They should have systems and processes for testing and learning, pivoting and innovating—not the knee-jerk reaction that comes from seeing a snazzy idea from a competitor in the trade press, but an actual commitment to future-proofing marketing.
Yes, they can still execute by year and act by quarter, but only by actively envisaging their corporate future self and manifesting that vision via a long-term plan with dates, gates and actions can they meet the challenge of the next decades head on.
The brands of tomorrow will get two marshmallows. The brands of today only get one.
