The Marketer as Futurist: Why Brands Must Begin with Tomorrow in Mind
Over the long Raya weekend, I met a fascinating woman who described herself not by what she did, but by what she believed.
“I help people rehearse for the future,” she exclaimed.
She wasn’t a theatre coach, nor a life planner.
She was a futurist — one of a curious, courageous, rare breed who live not in the world as it is, but in the world as it might become.
Now, if you’re a marketer reading this, you may be tempted to dismiss such a job title as either indulgent or irrelevant.
After all, the business of brand-building demands results — this quarter, this week, this moment.
But as the world hurtles ever faster toward change, perhaps the real question is not whether we can afford to think like futurists — but whether we can afford not to.
Thinking in Possibles, Not Just Probables
Interestingly, in partnership with the Global Futures Society, a recent study sought to profile the worldview of professional futurists.
The findings are compelling — and, if you squint a little, uncomfortably familiar.
Futurists, it turns out, are more optimistic than most people — about their families, their communities, their countries.
But they’re less optimistic about the world.
Why?
Because they stare into the long-term risks most of us prefer not to see: climate instability, digital authoritarianism, inequality on steroids.
Yet here’s the twist — they are not paralysed by this foresight.
They are energised by it.
They understand that the purpose of strategic foresight is not to predict doom but to design hope.
To identify not just what’s likely to happen, but what ought to happen — and then, quite deliberately, to build toward that.
Now imagine if more brands and marketers thought like that.
The Case for Brand Optimism
What if we stopped treating the future as a threat to be mitigated — and began treating it as an asset to be cultivated?
Futurists, unlike the general public, are less anxious about technological change.
They embrace fluid identities, question legacy assumptions, and hold businesses to higher standards.
And crucially, they believe in their ability to plan for the long term.
Is it any wonder, then, that futurists are increasingly found not in ivory towers, but inside boardrooms, agency think tanks, and C-suites?
Brands that plan for multiple futures are less likely to panic when disruption hits.
They are more likely to invest in inclusive storytelling not because it is “woke”, but because it is wise.
They understand that relevance is not found in the comfort of the familiar — but in the courage of the forward-facing.
The Empathy Gap
But here’s the rub.
The everyday consumer, shaped by news cycles and social feeds, doesn’t always see what the futurist sees.
They’re worried.
Overwhelmed.
Sometimes even fatalistic.
This is where marketers step in — not just as messengers, but as bridges.
The brands that will lead tomorrow are those that can close the empathy gap between insight and imagination.
Between data and direction.
Between what is, and what could be.
And that requires a mindset shift: from campaign managers to cultural architects.
From chasing the next trend to designing the next norm.
Designing the Preferable
The role of a futurist is not just to map what’s possible, but to fight for what’s preferable.
There is both poetry and power in that.
So ask yourself: what is the future your brand is rehearsing for?
Is it one of scarcity, division, retreat?
Or one of collaboration, regeneration, bold reinvention?
Futurists — those quiet cartographers of tomorrow — believe that by imagining the preferable, we make it possible.
Marketers should believe the same.
Because when all is said and done, the greatest campaign you’ll ever launch isn’t for a product.
