What is a "DX Elementary Student"? Future Customer Profile "Future Persona" and Derivation Approach

Looking at this Future Persona sheet, we want you to think about: "What does the DX elementary schooler want?" and "What services are they using?" Surely, their allowance is electronic money, leaving a full record of every purchase. They might get scolded for buying too many snacks or have their spending habits guided by AI.

Furthermore, their health might be monitored, and if they seem unwell or under the weather, their guardians could receive automatic notifications. They'll likely coordinate plans with friends using a digital scheduler. In some cases, their personal AI partner might even communicate with their friend's AI partner on their own, suggesting things like, "We can play here, what do you think?" The appeal of this approach is that it sparks many concrete ideas about what kind of "delight" to provide in which areas, and what services will become essential, in a future with such Future Personas.

"Hyper-Focused Partners" – A New Form of Shared Living

Let me introduce another Future Persona. While predictions suggest an increase in single individuals choosing not to marry, questions about the financial rationality of living alone are also expected to become more apparent. Options like shared housing exist, but people naturally want to spend time with those they feel comfortable with.

Therefore, we can expect an increase in living arrangements with new partners who share compatible values and hobbies, though not romantic partners. Living together reduces the burden of essential living costs. These individuals idealize a lifestyle where they enjoy shared hobbies together while remaining largely uninvolved in each other's personal affairs. The number of same-sex couples choosing this cohabitation model, avoiding the institution of marriage, may also grow.

This future visualization framework has received high praise from many companies we've supported. While future forecasting is important, its appeal lies in visualizing what kind of future we can create and want to create based on that forecast, and sharing it with the team. It not only helps generate concrete business ideas—a fundamental challenge—but also serves as a valuable tool for verifying benefits and meaning (the envisioned future).

Now, let me introduce the unique methodology of the Future Business Creation Lab for visualizing the future of consumers.

To understand the future, we must grasp macro trends. This can be done by analyzing diverse information available online and future projections and possibilities published by government agencies.

Among these, the most reliable foundation is population trends and changes in age demographics. These are highly credible areas where predictions rarely deviate significantly. Additionally, changes in household structures, regional differences between urban and rural areas, environmental issues, climate change, and natural disasters are also relatively predictable domains. Equally or even more important than these are the technologies poised to profoundly transform daily life. Just as the internet and smartphones did before, robotics, AI, the metaverse, and the proliferation of sensors will be major factors moving forward.

Beyond forecasting these societal trends, the Future Business Creation Lab's unique "Future CSV Approach" leverages the Dentsu Group's strengths in consumer insights and future forecasting. This approach seeks to discover the "ideal lifestyle" that is comfortable for society, consumers, and businesses alike. By visualizing this "ideal lifestyle" through this methodology, we can clarify future value.

Dentsu Inc. possesses several unique knowledge assets for envisioning consumers' futures, one of which is Future Time Use (FTU), released on September 12, 2023 ( see release here ).

FTU is a tool that concretely depicts life ten years from now. It visualizes cohort analysis (※1) of media contact data collected annually, allowing users to see changes in daily life time for each gender and age group from their teens to their sixties, both currently and ten years ahead.

※1 = Cohort Analysis
An analytical method that separates factors influencing change from long-term continuous survey data into the effects of aging (age effect), the effects of the times (era effect), and the effects of generational differences (generational effect or cohort effect). A cohort refers to a group sharing the same birth year (or birth decade).

To envision the future, we must distinguish between what will change and what will remain constant. It is crucial to clearly identify where imagination or speculation is necessary. Furthermore, assuming everything will change or transform introduces too many variables, making the thinking process difficult.

Therefore, to envision the future desired by consumers beyond FTU, we prioritize people's "desires." We also conduct cohort analysis based on Dentsu Inc.'s long-term consumer survey data to calculate future desire scores. However, cross-referencing the number of desires with age groups becomes overly complex. To prioritize understanding and practical application, we define universal desires. In other words, our approach focuses on the fact that while desires themselves do not change, the actions taken to fulfill various desires do change, and the values tied to those desires shift with the times. We derive the actual state of each.

This time, we introduced two specific examples of Future Persona, one of the visualization frameworks within the Future Business Creation Lab's approach and methodology. In practice, since these represent future customer profiles, more emotionally resonant and distinctive Future Personas are often visualized.

When considering your vision, purpose, or new ventures, why not visualize the "reality of the future you want to create" and the "target persona"? We recommend this approach: establish your vision and purpose by defining the initiatives to build that future and the meaning behind it. This will surely help you establish new ideas unlike anything before and a strong will to create such a future!

Illustration: Tomomi Matsuyama