Many of the innovations that defined the 20th century had already been invented by the 1920s. The domestic refrigerator, the internal combustion engine, the telephone, insulin and transatlantic air travel. But like many lasting innovations, it was the characters, companies and brands that made them commercial and mainstream which really embedded them in culture. Arguably, it was GE, Ford, Bell, Lufthansa and many of the other commercial pioneers of the 20th century that brought this modernity to the masses, who can be given the credit for the immeasurable positive impact these developments had on our quality of life, culture and understanding of the world around us. It’s not just the inventors we have to thank.
Accelerate forward to 1980 and we see the same picture. The technologies that have come to define contemporary life – personal computing, mobile telephony, the semiconductor, digital video, genetic engineering, interactive gaming and entertainment, the world’s first wind farm, even the early Internet – were already proven and blossoming in niche applications. It was brands like Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Sony, Ericsson, Nokia, AOL and the energy providers which democratized many of them into products and services, made them appealing to consumers, drove everyday choices, and built their benefits into our everyday lives.
Just as the 20th century saw huge improvements, the last 35 years has seen breathtaking developments in the key measures of human existence – infant mortality worldwide reduced by two thirds since 1990, the number of people living in extreme poverty has halved in the last two decades, 1.7 billion people gained access to electricity between 1990 and 2010, and between just 2007 and 2010 there was a 15% increase in registered vehicles in the world, meaning more people than ever have access to the freedom and economic benefits of private transportation. On which note, the global GDP per capita has increased from $871.15 in 1980 to $3,005.51 in 2013.
If we apply the same logic to today’s proven technologies that are being adopted, but not yet mainstream, what possible brand-driven human progress could we predict by 2050 – 35 years from now? How will Fitbit, Nike FuelBand and Apple Watch help to reduce obesity and early onset diabetes once wearable health monitoring and dietary controls are adopted by billions instead of thousands? How will Nest and Loop begin to make a measurable impact on national and international energy consumption when billions of consumers are controlling their domestic heating to within a single joule? How much petrol and diesel will hundreds of millions of Tesla and BMW i Series owners save weekly, monthly or annually over decades when their technology is the norm rather than the exception? Not to mention the associated reduction in environmental pollution. How might secondary markets like Thredup.com transform our consumption of fashion to the point where young people think of their clothes as investments to resell, rather than disposable commodities to discard after one use, with all of the consequent positive impact on manufacturing transparency, wages and the drive towards a ‘wasteless’ society? All without sacrificing beauty, contemporaneity and emerging generations’ reasonable desire to define their own style and culture.
This is neither a utopian vision nor a denial of the inevitable challenges and problems that continue to exist in the world. Despite massive complexity, at a macro level aspects of the world are getting better in tangible ways all the time. This is because of the relentless curiosity and talent of inventors and pioneers around the world, but also the brands who identify a market for their transformational inventions, and genuinely innovate to make them mainstream. This author thinks that much of the future is already here, but as William Gibson keenly observed, it’s just unevenly distributed. If brands really are the agents of distribution, they might just be the catalyst for a more positive future that we can all enjoy.