The shape of things to come: How marketing services organisations anticipate the future

Abstract

Respondents in 70 advertising agencies, 70 public relations firms and 67 marketing research companies completed a mail questionnaire regarding their business's anticipatory analysis (future gazing) activities. It emerged that the extent to which a firm was likely to engage in anticipatory analysis depended substantially on its innate innovativeness, the scope of its conventional planning and forecasting systems, and the degree to which its management believed that future client requirements would differ radically from the prevailing ones. Environmental complexity, volatility and competitive intensity seemed to encourage firms to adopt somewhat casual and intuitive approaches to future gazing. Advertising agencies undertook anticipatory analysis to a greater degree than marketing research companies. This latter outcome is compatible with the views expressed by a number of previous writers who have argued that conventional marketing research is predicated on the past and inhibits the meaningful contemplation of future scenarios and possibilities.