Andrew Lewis: We live in a time that feels imbued with a strong sense of change and possibility. As we look ahead and imagine different potential futures for ourselves, we can feel strong but often conflicting emotions. A sense of optimism on the one hand for the benefits that technological change could render to our everyday lives, but at the very same time, trepidation that these future benefits won't be available to all, that we may lose our human agency, or that governments and corporations won't act ethically with these new powers.  

For a brand or organisation looking to understand their role in the future, for those looking to harness technology to create more meaning and value for the people they serve, this all creates a somewhat uneasy ground upon which they must plan. It suggests that care must be taken when thinking about how new technology is brought to bear, even when it adds value to all involved. That there are soft and subtle human ideas that also must be considered. And as you'll hear today, it suggests that just because you can do something doesn't mean you always should.  

Hello and welcome to Frame, a podcast dedicated to the art of knowing people.

And over a series of three episodes, we're navigating the hopes and fears Kiwis and Aussies hold for the future and exploring what the future we really want looks like. Each episode I'll be joined by thought leaders from different human science disciplines. And by layering their unique perspectives on the topic, we're going to search for the truths others don't, the uncommon truths.  

Andrew Lewis: In the last episode, we unpacked the big findings from our latest research entitled the Future We Want, looking at how people responded to different future life scenarios in the year 2030. In today's episode, we're going to view these findings through the lenses of CX and brand, exploring what they mean for the way brands show up and the kind of experiences people want from them. With me today are Dr. Phil Mecredy, who leads our brand work at TRA, and Dan van Vorsselen, head of our Customer Experience Practice.  

Andrew Lewis: Phil, Dan, thank you for joining. I'm looking forward to this one.

Dan van Vorsselen: Thanks for having us, Andrew.

Phil Mecredy: Yeah, good to be here.

Andrew Lewis: Right, Phil, I'll start with you. In the research, we presented people with a range of possible future world scenarios just to really help them envisage kind of what was possible in 2030 and to kind of give them something to react to. There was a particular scenario about bespoke brands, a kind of future where everything was kind of hyper personalised. How do people respond to that?

Phil Mecredy: Yeah, it's really interesting. We know that brands have been really trying to hyper personalize and target for a number of years now. And we know this will only kind of speed up with AI. So what we wanted to do was we tested this really future state concept where every brand essentially showed up based on kind of. Everyone saw a unique version of the brand based on people's different interests and different preferences. So this goes beyond just a brand showing up essentially in terms of the offers it serves up to you based on your demographics and interests that you typically get at the moment, but is really a future state where a brand, the complete look and feel of a brand is completely different, but from user to user.

Andrew Lewis: So imagine entirely tailored just for you.

Phil Mecredy: Yeah, entirely tailored just for you. So imagining a kind of a different colour of a brand, you're seeing a different colour to someone else. If sustainability is really important for you, you're seeing a lot of the product proof points around sustainability, whereas value might be something for someone else. So very much tailoring to you what you prefer and kind of all your sort of interests. So yeah, it was really interesting in terms of this, but what we actually found is that didn't really resonate with people. So only 28% of Kiwis and only 35% of Aussies actually felt positively about it. So people didn't really see this, this idea of personalization helping them progress in life.

Andrew Lewis: That's interesting. So this is a version of a brand entirely built just for you and your personal specifications. People didn't like it?

Phil Mecredy: Yeah, yeah, they didn't. And it was kind of. People were really worried that it kind of essentially was focused on kind of the past them and it would only really come up with things that they had previously liked or engaged and it would really miss out on the opportunity to actually discover and experience kind of new and novel things. So I think if you kind of imagine all brands showing up in exactly the same way based on kind of your past individual preferences, it really stifles your opportunity to actually really evolve and experience something new.  

And people were just really concerned about this. And I think if we look at brands that balance it quite nicely, I think Spotify is a really good example where they actually have personalization but provide opportunities for discovery. So if you think about this Spotify Discover Weekly Playlist, they actually use an algorithm based on your past listening behaviour and habits. So it personalises and then it personalises a playlist for you based on new artists and songs that you haven't listened to before.

Phil Mecredy: So essentially, it's creating that room for novelty and surprise through some of their personalization.

Andrew Lewis: Right? Yeah. So this sort of what people saw as the downside of hyper personalization was this idea of a kind of the ever-decreasing circle where you're kind of locked into who you are with no discovery or nothing new. Repeating the same kind of cycle.

Phil Mecredy: Yeah, you're just getting served up essentially what you've previously experienced and what you previously like rather than anything that you might want to buy or experience in the future.

Andrew Lewis: Yeah, so you lose the sense of discovery, which is obviously how we feel. We learn and grow, I guess, as humans and evolve over time. We saw something similar actually in the previous study we did. Dan, you'll remember this too on the the connection work where kind of hyper personalization had these really negative downsides. When you saw only something that was kind of built just for you, it was harder to get a sense of belonging. You know, like this kind of idea of where I sit and the groups that define me as a person. If you're seeing something really different from anyone else, there's no kind of common ground there.

Andrew Lewis: That's really interesting, you know, like if you flip this lens on to CX. Dan, did you see something similar?

Dan van Vorsselen: We definitely do. And I think the reality is there's a really fine line here between effective personalization and over personalization. I think people want to feel understood. They want to feel like a brand and an organization understands who they are, but they don't want to have their behaviours, their attitudes or their experience dictated to them. And I think the moment you start to feel dictated to that brand and the connection point starts to feel very impersonal. It feels managed. And as Phil said, the reality is personalization without discovery can start to feel really sterile when there's no room for surprise. You know, it's a really powerful driver of making experiences memorable.

Dan van Vorsselen: And so when we are thinking about designing these experiences, having little pops of surprise, little pops of levity are really important that came out in that previous research, as you mentioned Andrew. I think what's really important here for a brand is to reframe the role of personalization. It's not about narrowing the options for our customers, but it's about showcasing relevance and making the paths more meaningful for our customers. And I think unfortunately at the moment, many customers, they're not having that experience with brands. Brands are either going too far or not far enough.

Phil Mecredy: Yeah, I think one of the other things, Dan, is obviously there's a lot of research that actually shows that, you know, social media advertising, which is supposed to be really heavily targeted and personalized. It's actually not reaching the target audience. You know, how often do you scroll through social media and see something that you know isn't relevant for you or you know, you've purchased something, four weeks ago and you're still getting served advertising for that. You know, I purchased some new white sneakers cause my partner told me I couldn't wear these ones anymore cause they're too scruffy about three weeks ago and I'm still getting surfed up adverts for white sneakers.

Dan van Vorsselen: So how many pairs do you need, Phil?

Phil Mecredy: One every two years, I think. So, you know, even if you know this hyper personalization and targeting improved in a future state, it's still likely to be quite based on kind of your past preferences and your past desires and you know, your past behaviours rather than kind of what can actually help you evolve and what you want in the future.

Dan van Vorsselen: I think this points on a really important point here, which is that idea of novelty. Right. And I think novelty is key for that kind of emotional human connection. And we know that with community, social tribes that feel feeling of novelty, that shared discovery is actually how people bond together. And it's a core part of how evolutionarily we've developed ourselves. And I think if we over personalize it isolates people from having those moments of ah, you've got to see this, you know, that connection point that many people have in the modern century.

Andrew Lewis: Yeah. So I mean what you're both talking about here really is this idea in that discovery is really critical. And you know, the danger with personalisation and when we get into these ideas of hyper personalization is you can really miss something really, really critical in the experience that we're looking for. And I love what you said before, you know, the idea about it, about finding more meaningful paths to explore is a really kind of nice way of framing what personalization can do when it's done well rather than taking away that ability to explore altogether.  

And you touched on a really interesting note too about the criticalness around the kind of discovery, et cetera for building memory. When there's hyper personalized things slide by, it's very hard to form memory of that. But I'm pretty sure we'll come back to that as we go along. Dan, this actually kind of does make me think a little bit about one of the other scenarios that were in there.

Andrew Lewis: So we had the hyper personalization one. There was another one when we were talking about in 2030 around this sort of seamless automated customer service scenario. And I'm interested in your view on that because I know you've talked before about the value of consistency in customer experience, but also the importance of friction. How did you see those ideas playing out and how people responded to that scenario?

Dan van Vorsselen: Yeah. So we tested this really interesting idea of, I guess, a fully automated customer service. And the idea behind it is your devices, your apps, the environment as a large kind of forms, this connected ecosystem that anticipates your needs. The idea is it should make admin tasks easier, should make your life more seamless. And I think what was really interesting was we found that people thought that was a really plausible future. It was likely. But actually only 4 in 10 New Zealanders and Australians actually thought that was a positive future.

Andrew Lewis: Wow, really?

Dan van Vorsselen: Yeah, it really was.

Andrew Lewis: But not that high.

Dan van Vorsselen: Not that high at all. And I think the challenge here is this idea of too much seamlessness. So, you know, seamlessness and consistency are really important concepts when it comes to CX. You know, our lives can be so overwhelming.  

People want things easier. They want to make sure they're not going to be disappointed. But those elements alone aren't enough to make experiences memorable. And I think often when there's this idea of automation, automation can actually smooth things out too much, too much to the point that there's actually an emotionally hallow experience.

Dan van Vorsselen: And the reality is if nothing stands out, nothing gets remembered. As we've spoken about before, that role of, I guess the emotional peaks, the emotional troughs are actually really important for us to remember those experiences. So the important part here is friction inherently isn't actually a bad thing. It can actually be a really important feature of an experience if it's used well.  

And I think well placed friction can create that emotional texture, that pause, that choice, that feeling of a surprise that actually makes us remember these brands. And I think a really good example here is food ordering apps. There's so many of them now. I think the experience has often been over designed overly seamless and actually it becomes commoditized.

Dan van Vorsselen: It feels flat. There's nothing memorable about that. It just feels like a transaction. Slides on by, nothing exciting about it.

Andrew Lewis: Yeah, it reminds me of that kind of. Is it Dan Ariely, the behavioural science guy who talked about the experiencing self and the remembering self and the idea of kind of designing too much for the experiencing self is you can make it slide by pretty seamlessly. And it's an amazing, it's amazingly smooth in the moment, but it all ends up on the cutting room floor of life. And there's nothing there that kind of to latch onto.

Dan van Vorsselen: Exactly. I mean, if everything's so easy, I mean, what is the joy in life if everything is so easy?

Andrew Lewis: Yeah. And what do you remember? You know, I think that's really, really important.

Phil Mecredy: Yeah. I think in terms of that kind of memory as well. Like when we're talking good friction and a customer experience, it's very important in actually building a lot of those kind of, like, memory structures. You know, if we think about what we know from advertising and marketing, we know that to actually build strong memory structures. So in other words, kind of the brand associations or associations we hold for a brand, we need to capture that great active attention.  

So capturing attention, but also when emotions are involved. So if we're thinking about a customer journey when there's actually good friction at really key emotional points, we get people out of autopilot, we actually capture that attention. And doing that in emotional moments actually gives us a great ability to actually build or reinforce those memory structures and form kind of new associations or really reinforce current ones. So there's really power and that good friction throughout that customer experience.

Dan van Vorsselen: And I think it's about designing experiences that tap into that friction in the right way. And I think, Phil, as you mentioned, I think Spotify is a really great example there. That little bit of discovery, that little surprise, that little kind of acknowledgment of who you are and playing back that information is really powerful to keep people engaged.  

But I think another great example is, you know, your typical kind of hotel experience. That idea of a little bit of friction when you check in, that little bit of feeling of I'm being appreciated, I've had a moment of to stop. That levity actually adds to the experience. In many cases, if that experience was so seamless, you wouldn't get that feeling of luxury coming through.

Andrew Lewis: Yeah, it's really interesting. So there is real, I suppose, danger for brands in technology. You know, like, if we are too much focused on ironing out every little crease and bump in a journey and an experience, we take away, we hollow it out, as I think you said, Dan, and we flatten emotions, which not only reduces the kind of ideas like discovery, but reduces memorability. You know, we make something forgettable.  

I always think of it in relation to, you know, how we tell stories as human. You know, so as humans, we're hardwired to communicate with story. It's how we pass on information and how we build our memories on things and store things and, you know, like, if you look at the hardwired human model for communication, the centre of it is always a conflict.  

You know, like there's this idea that once upon a time there was a person and then this thing happened and then they have to go on the journey and overcome the obstacles to get to the state.

Andrew Lewis: And even like imagine trying to tell an anecdote to somebody where nothing happens.

Dan van Vorsselen: The most boring story you've ever heard.

Andrew Lewis: The most boring story ever. Yeah, so it's interesting. So friction. Friction's important for lots of reasons.

Dan van Vorsselen: I think there's a distinction here as well between I guess, good and what is traditionally bad friction. And I think that's probably the distinction point here is there is friction that is bad. You know, unnecessary wait times. Processes that are cumbersome. They create a bad experience. There's no denying that.  

But it's identifying where there's an opportunity for some good friction, that moment that can build anticipation, give choice. It's not necessarily about having a consistent experience, but it's about having an experience that feels emotionally elevated.

Dan van Vorsselen: It means an experience that's aligned to a brand and touches on a lot of these things that humans are looking for in experiences. And I think we think about airlines, for example. That moment where you choose that seat is actually really important. You know exactly what to expect when you're going to jump onto that flight. You're not sitting next to the bathroom and things like that. But that choice moment actually prepares people for a better experience in the long run.

Phil Mecredy: It's nice to feel you get a bit of power in the decision making as well.

Dan van Vorsselen: 100%. That feeling of control, agency. It's important that humans believe they can actually influence the outcomes of an experience. And it's unsurprising. I mean, when we think about our own lives, that feeling of control just gives us that, you know, lowered stress. It reduces the anxiety.  

And I think the challenge here is organisations need to think about that as well when they're interacting with customers. That need for control, that need to control the experience and have a say in the experience is so important.

Dan van Vorsselen: And so that ability to customise and have boundaries put in place for our customers and their experience gives them that feeling of control. And friction's a really important way to be able to do that.

Andrew Lewis: Yeah, sort of, you know, going back to that scenario we were talking about, you know, this idea of when things become really seamless, when they become really linked up, when they're happening around us and to us kind of on a kind of autopilot mechanism, it does lower our sense of agency and control.  

And I know we talked about last week with Colleen and Laura is this idea. It was one of the key themes that came out about when we looked at the future and kind of where some of the anxiety or trepidation came from was the kind of loss of sense of agency and loss of sense of control. So I think that's an important shout out for anyone kind of in the world of brand or experience design in terms of what we're kind of looking to build in as we make things easier for people.  

It's how do you create the right moments of control and agency like the seat select, et cetera. So, let's move on now and chat about a different scenario that we tested as part of the study and what that can teach us. For practitioners in brand and CX, this scenario was around how people learn in the future. Dan, did you want to talk us through that one?

Dan van Vorsselen: We tested this idea of an intelligent learning system. So, if you imagine an AI orchestrated experience and learning system that really adapts to you in real time to who you are in that given moment, your emotional state, maybe even your energy levels or your learning patterns. The idea was to create this learning experience that was very dynamic and ultimately would give you a better kind of learning outcome.  

I think what was really interesting about this is we saw a very similar result to what we saw with the fully automated customer service scenario in that people saw it as a likely outcome, but didn't actually see the appeal in it. They were worried that these types of technological advances would actually worsen some of the existing inequalities that we have in society and leave some communities behind. That idea of would everyone get access to it or would those that are in well-funded schools or institutions, would they be the only ones that have access to it?  

So people naturally worried about the idea that with technology we need to have this almost deliberate intervention, otherwise it would tend to benefit those that are already at advantage.

Andrew Lewis: Right. So that's a really interesting idea to emerge there. This concern about equality. We know equality, of course, is a key idea in our Aussie and Kiwi DNA. The idea of level playing field and opportunity for all. So, people worry that advances like this could widen the gap?

Dan van Vorsselen: I think people were worried that only those that had the wealth and had the money would be able to afford this type of technology. And so when you're talking about a possibly better educational learning system that's going to be available to the more wealthy people, that would create inequalities for people.

Andrew Lewis:  And it starts to again get at those ideas of human agency being limited in that kind of sense. You know, what's interesting is, you know, we're entering a world now where everyone could really have their own AI agent. I just got back from an innovation conference in New York and all anybody was talking about was agentic AI. And I can absolutely tell you this is what everybody's trying to build at the moment.  

So it's a really interesting decision point for us and how we think about agency and control. And do these systems empower people or do they start acting on our behalf without our consent? It's, I think, a really great example of how progress can create new divides if we're not careful.  

Which probably leads us into the idea of trust and control a bit more. You know, Colleen talked in the last episode about trust and control as really important guardrails for ensuring that people feel good about the future that's coming and creating the right kind of future.

Andrew Lewis: Phil, how did you see these ideas showing up in the brand space?

Phil Mecredy: Yeah, it was really interesting. Trust obviously came through as a major theme and a lot of the concepts that we tested and it certainly came through very strongly and the personalised in the case of the personalised brand. So we know that people often talk about the creepiness of personalisation. You know, it makes people feel quite exposed. You know, people describe it as like walking through a security screener that can kind of read your mind.  

One respondent even said, I don't want an app to know more about me than I know about myself. So, you know, personalisation makes people really aware of what they, of what, you know, brands and organisations actually know about them. And it creates this kind of sense of power imbalance and a loss of sense of control in terms of kind of their data and who they are.

Phil Mecredy: I think one interesting case is McDonald's from a couple years ago. I saw a few articles about this. But they have a dynamic pricing within their app, so they utilise that quite often. And what that means is essentially they'll serve up different offers and promotions and deals to different users based on their past interactions.  

So one customer might get a different price for a meal combo than another customer. And you know, obviously people might feel that this is a bit, you know, unfair and people can actually lose trust in the brand. So, you know, just because we can personalise and to that kind of level and, for McDonald’s, it probably works in terms of a profit making tool. But you know, just because we can personalise doesn't always mean we should.

Phil Mecredy: And really if we are trying to build trust and personalisation, customers need to see the benefit for them and not just the business. And really we need a lot of trust, really needs to be earned through transparency. So being transparent about how the data is going to be used and the benefit for the end user.

Dan van Vorsselen: Yeah, and we know, I guess from a lot of the previous research we've done that trust grows when people feel involved, they feel involved in the process. And so the opportunity here, I think, for brands is to really invite customers in, let people steer, correct and add their own kind of flavour and creativity to an experience.  

Don't make it feel like it's a black box that's acting on people, invite them in. And I think that opportunity that turns personalisation from something that is done to customers into a more shared process, one where they feel like they have a level of control, they're co creating that experience for themselves.

Andrew Lewis: Yeah, I think this is a really interesting idea that's inherent in a lot of these future scenarios is this idea that as kind of technology enables us to do more, the role of trust becomes even stronger. You know what I mean? That's kind of, it's always on around your life, surrounding you, doing things for you. Inherent in that is the idea that you have to trust whoever's doing it.  

And we've seen that in other studies. We saw it in it ‘Connection’ and ‘Play’ and all those kind of studies too. It's sort of this idea that we're inviting people to play a bigger role in our lives and provide value. Then we have to know that they are good agents, that we've kind of invited the right people in. And I think that idea you talked about, transparency is kind of the absolutely kind of key part.

Andrew Lewis: You know, there's an authenticity to what you're doing. It's very visible what you're about and you're being really clear about it. But it's certainly what it feels like with technology when we're looking at the future is really just talking about upping the stakes here from what you need to demonstrate as a brand to be able to. There's an opportunity to play a very big role and help people. But the requirement to demonstrate this level of transparency and authenticity, to build the trust is really important.

Dan van Vorsselen: Yeah, definitely. I think the signal is clear here. People don't want to lose the ability to stare. They want to have control. They don't want to feel that sense of powerlessness. They don't want to be acted on. And I think things that brands can do to make customers feel like there is a little bit of control over that experience.

Dan van Vorsselen: And it doesn't have to be a lot, can be really powerful. It's not about making people make big decisions. It's about giving them the power to make those decisions in an easier way. And I think a really good example is something like Netflix and the ability to give the thumbs up, thumbs down on what you like to view.  

It's a really small part of the experience, but actually has a profound impact on how customers feel. It's not burdensome, it doesn't add a ton of friction to the experience, but actually gives customers control over what they're seeing and what they're interacting with.

Andrew Lewis: That's an example of working well with personalisation, giving people a small amount of say and what they're seeing, but ultimately still allowing personalisation to make life kind of easier for you. Okay, so lots of interesting stuff there across that discussion.  

I thought at this point maybe we should try and bring this together a little bit because there was quite a few little standout ideas in there. So if we had to leave brands with a few lessons, what we learned from our kind of looking at the future people kind of really want and how they've responded to these technology scenarios, what would they be?

Phil Mecredy: Yeah, I think, I mean, I'll go with the power of three also. I'll try to stick to three here, design for discovery. So not just efficiency. So we obviously have seen that people want to experience new things. So being designing in a way that allows that trust needs to be earned through transparency.  

So be really clear on what you're using data for and the benefit it has for people. And don't forget the importance of good friction in CX and building and reinforcing memory structures. It's a really powerful tool to use alongside your marketing and your advertising.

Andrew Lewis: Fantastic. Three great outtakes there. Dan?

Dan van Vorsselen: Yeah, my three. I think I'm going to build on Phil's last one. I think it's a really good point. Don't be afraid of a little bit of friction. I think it can be a really powerful enhancer to a journey. And I think the call out here is just be intentional about where you add friction to an experience.  

Where do you want customers to stop and pause in that journey? The second point I would say is put control and agency very front and centre and experience. Give people those steering mechanisms to actually have control over their experience.

Dan van Vorsselen: And it can be done through little kind of UI changes, little elements of feedback, little ability to opt in things like that. Are really powerful for making customers feel like they're in control. They're able to influence that personalisation.

Andrew Lewis: Yeah.

Dan van Vorsselen: And the last point I would say is build visible participation into experience. Give people ownership and surprise. It can create this feeling of randomness, creativity and discovery which creates those emotional peaks which, you know, are so important for an experience.

Andrew Lewis: Exactly. We saw that a lot in the ‘Play’ work that we did in a previous podcast series. So thank you both. That's, I mean, that's some fantastic outtakes there. And I think, you know, the message is clear. Just because you can automate and personalise doesn't always mean you should. You know, the brands that win trust are the ones that, you know, balance that idea of consistency and simplicity with these ideas like surprise and ideas like efficiency with discovery or automation and humanity.

Andrew Lewis: You know, it's the combination of things that allow us to act with simplicity. But be human at the same time. So if you're a leading brand, ask yourself, I guess, are you smoothing things out too much? Are you leaving room for surprise, for character and memory, for the human qualities to come through? So it's an exciting time.  

Brands have more tools than ever, but the ones that use them with care, creativity and humanity will be the ones people remember. That's it for the second episode of the Mood of the Nation podcast.  

Thank you again, Phil and Dan, for bringing both the brand and CX perspectives. Next time we're zooming out wearing a different lens. We'll be talking about society and systems, exploring how people feel about the changes that are shaping our world and why even well-intentioned innovation can still make us uneasy if it doesn't feel like progress.

Andrew Lewis: Thanks for listening to Frame, a podcast by TRA dedicated to the art of knowing people. TRA is an insights agency and by layering perspectives from the science of human understanding, we see things others don't. The uncommon truths. Download our full report on ‘The future we want’ here.

‍