The Future Laboratory
Making a better future happen
All images and videos © The Future Laboratory
The Future Laboratory is one of the world’s most renowned futures consultancies. With a unique blend of trend forecasting, consumer insight, foresight, brand strategy, and innovation, the agency inspires and future-proofs organisations.
As the Head of Foresight from 2017-2021, I was responsible for leading the multi-million-pound product growth of the agency’s Foresight and Trends Intelligence division.
My department delivered foresight through a number of services, including presentations, IRL and virtual events, white-label reports, and consumer ethnographic research.
One of the key areas of my focus was the editorial direction of LS:N Global, the company’s subscription platform. Through its daily strategic foresight reports, clients harness new market trends and gain a deeper understanding of how to adapt to emerging consumer needs.
Publishing
Heading up a team of 20 editors, researchers, marketers, designers and event producers, my leadership and editorial direction increased LS:N Global membership retention, social media engagement, and subscription sales across the product suite.
Operations
As part of the Senior Leadership Team, I helped embed diversity and inclusion KPIs across the company, as well as mental health and wellness initiatives. I also trained my team in smart working techniques to increase our productivity, internal communications, and efficiency.
Marketing
I integrated content marketing into Foresight deliverables and initiated multiple social media campaigns. Working daily with the marketing department, during my tenure we increased our followers by 143% and report sales by 600%.
Foresight
I led the development and relaunch of the brand’s e-commerce website, set content budgets, product roadmaps, and re-structured my department. I also directed the content of our live events and implemented a new research system powered by machine learning.
Strategy
I collaborated closely with the Head of Strategy to ensure that all of our research could be used for bespoke client projects, foresight frameworks, presentations, and workshops for brands such as Spotify, Nike, Unilever, Warner Media, Facebook, and Google.
Creative
Working with the creative director and art director, I changed the company’s focus from IRL event installations to online activations. We created a series of innovative and immersive digital microsites that inspired and engaged new and prospective clients.
LS:N Global growth
LS:N Global is a subscription-based trends intelligence service by The Future Laboratory. It provides original research, trends, analysis, market intelligence, and qualitative insights to help industry professionals make informed decisions about the future.
Members of the service get exclusive access to the consumer trends defining tomorrow’s cultural landscape and the early adopters, innovators, and start-ups driving global change across eight industry sectors.
As Editorial Director of the site, I substantially increased sales and engagement across all the key reporting metrics.
Reports
I edited and creatively oversaw the development of each cross-sector industry report from 2017-2021. Written and visualised by a hugely talented team of industry trend experts, we covered the future of beauty, retail, fashion, sustainability, luxury, youth, food, drink, and the annual Trend Briefing reports. This resulted in 600% growth by value and volume of PDF sales.
PDF Report Sales
“Tim has revolutionised the way we create and market our editorial content.”
– Chris Sanderson, co-founder, The Future Laboratory
Growth of The Future Laboratory’s
e-commerce platform
After leading the development and creative direction of the agency’s new website in 2017, I worked with the business development and marketing departments to increase engagement and deal conversions. I did this by creating new products, formats, and marketing initiatives informed by feedback from clients.
My content plan had a transformative effect on the commercial operation of the business with significant increases in new contacts, page views, and sales deal conversions.
Case Study: Trend Tracker
In 2020, during my tenure at The Future Laboratory, I led a pivotal project to commemorate the agency's 20th anniversary Trend Briefing event.
I initiated the Trend Tracker, an interactive microsite that chronicled over two decades of trends in Experience, Brand, and Consumer behaviour. The hypothesis was that by providing a comprehensive, interactive trend mapping tool using the agency's two decades of insights, we could significantly increase brand engagement and drive new business for the B2B trends subscription platform.
In this project, I led a multidisciplinary team including data analysts, web developers, and marketing professionals. We transformed extensive trend data into a user-friendly, interactive digital experience, aiming to make complex insights accessible and visually engaging.
The Trend Tracker not only engaged our audience during the live event but also proved to be a powerful tool for data capture post-event, leading to 11,000 newsletter sign-ups. It also influenced over 50% of our membership deals converted in that year, validating my hypothesis about the effectiveness of using interactive data tools in content strategy.
The video below is a quick demonstration of the Trend Tracker in action. Click this button to experience it yourself.
Case Study: Critical Horizons Podcast
I also created the brand’s Critical Horizons podcast. The idea was to take a deep dive into the mind of a world-renowned thinker whose ideas challenge the status quo and shed light upon emerging behaviours that will drive seismic shifts for brands and consumers alike.
The first episode's critical thinker was Douglas Rushkoff. Named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, he is the author of 20 books including Team Human, which is also a podcast series.
In the podcast, Rushkoff and I discuss the future of Universal Basic Income, AI ethics, persuasive design, and even some limbic consonance for good measure.
All images and videos © The Future Laboratory
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Find out more: thefuturelaboratory.com + lsnglobal.com