Future brands will evolve from complex interactions among consumers, culture, and technology. Marco Bevolo and Reon Brand present strategies and examples that suggest how their organization engages multidisciplinary research to uncover insights into the brand experiences that will drive future successes. They believe that brands will go beyond corporate‐designed experiences to emphasize individual control and the fulfillment of personal values and aspirations.

Purpose -This paper aims to summarize the results of an empirical project to understand the perceptions of consumers of the future high end products in the USA. This project was a precursor of a larger global project on the topic. Design/methodology/approach -The approach utilizes the consumer insights-driven process, rule-developing experimentation (RDE), introduced by the senior authors and developed in cooperation with Wharton School of Business (University of Pennsylvania). The empirical part was conducted with qualified US consumers (middle-and upper-middle class respondents). Based on a series of in-depth qualitative interviews with global leaders of luxury and premium companies, star designers and thought leaders, five dimensions of high end offering were identified, with each dimension having a unique set of four factors (elements). The second part included a quantitative survey based on RDE (modified conjoint analysis) conducted in the USA with 373 qualified middle-and upper-middle class respondents to discover the driving forces behind their perceptions of high end. Findings -There are four distinct consumer mindsets towards future high end products. The segmentation is based on a disciplined experimentation afforded by RDE and produces a more targeted understanding of the consumer mind. Practical implications -The paper provides insights of what might drive the consumer perception of high end products in the near future. The pattern-based consumer mind-set segmentation creates actionable directions for corporations in answering today's big question "How can brands migrate from being cost-driven commodities to higher margins and profits?" The answer is in the high end. Originality/value -The approach offered here could help designers and brand managers to efficiently create better products that consumers like and perceive as high end. This will result in higher margins and help marketers to differentiate their respective products from the competition.

The key question behind this article is, How is AI impacting futures research, with particular focus on foresight and design futures? To address such question, this article reports on selected epistemological and methodological traits of design futures research, on the nature of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the potential impact of AI on the design futures domain, offering a conceptual model as theoretical junction between the domains of foresight and design. Key topics and themes addressed were selectively focused on foresight, design, design futures, weak signals, and their role in relationship with visioning and the image, AI, and a multidisciplinary discussion of how these fields relate to each other. This article is based on desk research and dialogue among the two authors, both profiled professional experts in their respective fields of design futures and AI, with a track of experience both in academic and applied research. Therefore, sources include a rich texture of bibliographic information, combined with selected input from ongoing research activities on AI and related trends, as performed in the professional field.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to inform the reader of some emerging trends in placemaking and digital destination management, while providing a conceptual background on shifts in architectural design. Design/methodology/approach The trend paper is based on a fundamental bibliographic view on evolutions in placemaking, from architectural design to spatial agency, integrated by and contextualized in tourism trends, however possibly anecdotal. Findings The trend paper identifies a fundamental shift from architectural processes to spatial agency as organizing principle for placemaking, discussing how digital tourism trends are formed or forming change in this. Originality/value The trend paper newly relates otherwise distant and unrelated fields, namely architectural design theory and tourism trends, by connecting at the level of IoT and IT digital technologies, exploring the impact and the mutual role played by its two constituencies.