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Will Higham: The Next Big Thing
William Higham
Consumer Strategist, Futurist, & Founder of the Next Big Thing
- Global authority on how to monetize emerging consumer behaviors
- Serves as a strategic consultant with clients spanning every industry
- Talks are full of fresh approaches to historically overcomplicated problems
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A global authority on Innovation and Strategy, Will predicts how future customers are going to behave, and recommends the best strategies clients should use to reach them.
He’s the man who championed Strictly Come Dancing to the BBC, warned the drinks industry about the New Sobriety, and saw the Wellbeing Consumer coming a mile off.
His engaging and inspiring talks leave audiences excited to face the future: armed with new, smarter ways to handle tomorrow’s consumers; and an arsenal of opportunities for innovation-led growth.
His keynote talks have inspired thousands globally: from conferences organised by the Financial Times and Harvard Business Review to corporate events for Walt Disney, Barclaycard, Marks and Spencer and Primark.
Will runs strategic consultancy Next Big Thing, helping clients from Amazon to HSBC, Sainsbury’s to MTV understand what their customers (and employees) will think, do, expect, demand and buy in future.
He wrote the first practical handbook for trend strategists: ‘The Next Big Thing: Forecasting Consumer Trends For Profit’ (Kogan Page, 2009), which has since been translated into five languages.
He’s been interviewed across media: BBC to Bloomberg TV, Fast Company to The Times. He presented a TV show for CNBC, and written for The Economist, Advertising Age and Huffington Post.
He’s taken part in academic programs like Cambridge University’s Open Innovation Forum and been a judge on prestigious panels such as WARC Innovation Awards.
Will made his name in the Music industry. Working at Sony, Virgin and Universal, he marketed artists from Michael Jackson to The Rolling Stones. His fascination with music fans led him to the Research industry, as a consumer trends consultant for brands from Levis to BT: and later as managing director of research company OnePoll, whose clients include Kelloggs and Findus.
Speaker Video
Changing Fortunes: How you can make sense of and monetise consumer change. We are living in turbulent times. Few industries or parts of our lives are safe from change. But change offers possibilities as well as threats.
This topic takes you on a tour of emerging trends, drivers, and ideas shaping tomorrow’s customer, identifying implications and opportunities for individuals, and helping you anticipate and adapt your strategies to all these changes.
You will also:
- Learn about emerging global trends across sectors and the threats and opportunities they pose
- Gain profound insight into new consumer drivers to help you create more informed strategies
- Obtain practical action points that will immediately help ‘future proof’ your business
Future-Proof Your Business: Create products strategy to appeal to tomorrow’s Smart Consumer. Everything we create in business succeeds or fails due to consumer demand.
But how can you predict what that demand will be? This topic helps you take the guesswork out of planning by helping you identify the key needs, attitudes, and behaviours of tomorrow’s Smart Consumer.
You will also:
- Gain practical insights into new customer needs that you can use straight away
- Marketers will learn how to appeal to future consumers
- CEOs will learn to better focus future company strategies
- Product designers will gain insights into what consumers will want from their products
Customer Revolution: The rise of the new Smart Consumers and how to appeal to them. Once brands and advertisers drove the business agenda; today consumers are taking charge. Aware of their power, they seek greater control over their purchasing and media behaviours, and are subsequently developing a whole new set of attitudes, expectations, and needs.
This topic shows you how to anticipate and appeal to tomorrow’s new Smart Consumer. In this talk, you will:
- Discover what will motivate future customers and how best to appeal to them
- Gain insights into a new consumer type that will be here for years to come
- Be given actionable consumer insights to implement into marketing, communications, and strategy plans
Customer-Driven Innovation: Develop business models to resonate with new Smart Consumer. Innovation is increasingly being driven not by company needs but by those of the consumer. As part of an Innovation program, this talk offers emerging foresights on future consumer needs. Audiences will learn about key trends and future thinking to inform and drive business innovation in a fast changing market.
You will also:
- Learn how tomorrow’s Smart Consumers will think, feel, and behave
- Gain the strategic clarity to develop a more effective market strategy
- Prepare your services and products for the needs of the new Smart Consumer
Smart Staff: Adapting to the opportunities and threats of new employee attitudes. Employee attitudes to work, schedules, hierarchies, and rewards are changing. Tech change is driving individual empowerment. Traditional ways to attract or retain staff are failing. How can you please employees while improving bottom line?
This topic helps you understand how to get the best out of the new generation of ‘Smart Staff’. By the end of the day, you will:
- Better understand the new needs and drivers of your employes
- Gain a roadmap to improved workplace motivation and efficiency
- Learn how to future-proof your hiring, retention, and HR policy to secure motivated employees
