Turnarounds, pattern destabilization and brand opportunity

Evan’s “10 Year Futures” talk (embedded below and based upon his earlier blog post) gives us several ways to think about turnarounds and brand opportunity.

The evaluative component is patterns. More to the point, looking deeply into the underlying assumptions (e.g. another way of saying patterns) upon which a product, business or industry is predicated.

Instagram is predicated upon the assumption of reliable camera technologies, which is predicated upon a stable pattern of fast mobile connectivity, cloud processing and storage, and the pattern of the Internet.

For the sake of identifying turnaround opportunity, we look for pattern destabilization. Turnarounds begin within destabilization — which may not be closely evident.

Consider the automotive sector and its reliance on gasoline as a singular fuel source as a pattern. Then consider everything predicated upon it—additional patterns of roadway design, parking, home construction, insurance, traffic management, policing, etc. As electric power and battery technologies evolve and destabilize the current gas-fuel automotive patten, all others built upon it become ripe for turnaround. In this sense, turnarounds in the auto insurance and parking lot construction industries appear inevitable.

Or Amazon. Has there been a more profound destabilizer of reliable patterns? We should expect turnarounds within mall real estate, cardboard recycling, package delivery and home services as a result.

As patterns destabilize, a turnaround could be phrased: “What happens to _______ if _______?” i.e. What happens to consumer packaged goods if grocery center store isn’t in a store, but only available by delivery?

Worth noting the similarity here between this formula and Adam Morgan and Mark Barden’s “Can – If” technique from A Beautiful Constraint. The point being optimism. Not all patterns are forever.

It’s what we do, how we turnaround amidst destabilization, that matters most.

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BY TIM BRUNELLE, CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Image of Benedict Evans via TechCrunch