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The Future Laboratory’s Trend Briefing makes a physical return

The Future Laboratory Trend Briefing 2018

London – This year, we’re pleased to announce that Trend Briefing returns as a physical event, bringing together industry professionals in an engaging and inspiring setting. We’ll be unpacking how, post-Covid, markets in flux, the realities of Brexit, the war on Ukraine and ongoing global unease are now affecting consumer behaviour.

Taking place at the Royal Academy of Arts in London on 6 October 2022, our new Trend Briefing 2023 embraces a more interactive and discursive format to set the tone for the year ahead. From 2:00pm to 6:00pm BST, our analysts will explore and dissect the key trends and strategic challenges for 2023, as well as outlining how these will affect multiple sectors for brands and businesses.

Purchasing a ticket to this event grants you access to:

: An introduction to our new macrotrend

: Interactive and discursive opportunities with our experts

: A preview of our updated Trend Tracker for 2023

: Strategic Implications for 2023

: Futures 100 Innovator Awards ceremony

: Champagne and networking

You can now book tickets to our Trend Briefing 2023 physical event on 6 October 2022. Members of LS:N Global get access to the event at a discounted rate. If you’re a member, please click here to access your discount code.

Strategic opportunity

Members can also access the new macrotrend 2023 report for free, launching on the day of the event. Find out more about LS:N Global membership here.

Mind-expanding teas for lucid dreaming

Despierta, US

US – Packed with adaptogens, naturally occurring chemicals, and vitamins, Despierta is not your average bedtime tea. Its formula was created to assist with lucid dreaming, a type of sleep where people are allegedly aware that they are dreaming and have control over their actions.

Drawing on Indigenous Mexican healing practices, the name Despierta means ‘awake’ in Spanish and signals the brand’s spiritual ambitions. It currently offers three teas: Astral Traveler, Celestial Calm, and Morning Mystic, all of which are designed to help aid sleep and daytime wellness.

Founded by Dulce Ruby, a multidisciplinary artist, meditation guide and coach from Mexico, Ruby explains: ‘It is my hope that we go about seeing Despierta as more than just a herbal tea brand, but an educational, transformational and tool-providing lifestyle company.’ The company’s brand identity and packaging also express its cosmic and mystical principles, featuring glowing orbs, stars and planets.

Infusing the concept of Sleep Eats with mystical flare, Despierta is seizing the growing awareness for lucid dreaming to create products that are healthy and mind-expanding.

Strategic opportunity

Sleep quality and overall wellbeing can be affected by dreaming. How might your brand tune in to positive wind-down practices, working with Indigenous representatives to provide meaningful ancestral understanding of dreams and rest?

Gucci’s gaming academy nurtures new eSport stars

Global – The luxury brand is expanding its efforts in the eSports sector with the launch of a global gaming academy. Working with leading eSports platform FACEIT, along with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Gucci Gaming Academy will support the development of up-and-coming gamers, helping them move from amateur to professional status. Alongside full-time gaming mentorship and access to world-class hardware, gamers will also receive mental health guidance and wellbeing resources.

Gucci will select candidates based on in-game and interview performance. Players then remain members of the academy for 12 months, unless they are officially signed to a team sooner. By creating this programme, Gucci recognises the ongoing relationship between luxury and gaming, and the potential to support a new generation beyond one-off products or collaborations.

Nicolas Oudinot, executive vice-president of new business and chief executive of Gucci Vault, says: ‘Understanding the issues that are relevant to them [eSports players] and learning about these from the people they affect are at the core of this collaboration.’ As more brands create strategies based around the gaming sector, there is an opportunity to guide professional gamers to thrive in their field.

Gucci Equilibrium and Farfetch, Global

Strategic opportunity

To stand out in a saturated market, brands should invest in the people involved in playing and creating games. Consider developing skills-development programmes that teach people about everything from avatar design to product marketing

Stat: Dubai makes a push for metaverse professions

Resonate LightVision. Designed by Layer, US

Last week, we reported on the alarming unemployment levels afflicting the MENA region. Now, Dubai is announcing a new metaverse strategy with ambitions to create 42,000 digital jobs by 2030, adding an estimated £3.2 billion ($4bn, €3.7bn) to the national economy.

To carry out the plan, the Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has appointed a metaverse committee that will oversee all technological advances in the emirate. The committee will be directed by the Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, with expectations that the metaverse could contribute 1% to Dubai’s GDP. Healthcare and engineering are two sectors that have been identified as local professions that the metaverse could improve.

With this new strategy, Dubai is joining the ranks of other countries vying to become Web3 pioneers. As the race heats up, readers can explore our Metaverse series to learn more about how emerging digital realms will affect businesses globally.

Strategic opportunity

With the future of employment and skills in mind, can your company provide Web3 and metaverse training as a workplace benefit, if not an essential part of training?