We have just entered the second Carolean age.

But if we look to the past to make sense of the future, what can we learn from the first?

Through our lens of Brand Design, we interpret the first Carolean age as 60 years of ‘purification’ followed by ‘enlightenment’;

A ‘purification’ made necessary by the indulgences of Charles I.

And the reasoned ‘enlightenment’ that followed with the reign of Charles II.

If we then also accept the vastly increased speed of 21st Century information and knowledge, through televisual, digital and social media, we can accelerate our brand thinking thinking tenfold, with 60 years now becoming 6 years.

We could conclude that the years between 2023 and 2026 will ‘purify’.

Why? Because a prolonged recession and cost-of-living crisis will indeed purify brands as they cut away excess and focus on core brand meaning and core product.

And we could forecast that the years between 2027 and 2029 will ‘enlighten’.

Why? Because as we come to terms with the implications of the credit crisis, the climate crisis and the cost-of-living crisis, enlightened consumers will see these not as three crises, but as three distinct chapters of the same crisis;

Credit consuming property we can’t afford.

Climate consuming products the Earth can’t afford.

Cost-of-living consuming services we need but now can’t afford.

We believe enlightened consumers will see one crisis; a consumption crisis.

And we believe new enlightened thinking will consign consumption culture to consumption history.

Enlightened consumers will live the change that they want to be, and buy the change they want to see.

Enlightened brands will have to reorient around these enlightened beliefs.

To have less to do more.

To work less to be more.

To venerate youth less and venerate experience more.

The best brands are already beginning to absorb this paradigm shift.

Brands that are cogniscent of these global consumer mega trends. Brands that understand that consumers now drive the agenda. Brands that connect with the consumer in the new era of responsibility.

These are the brands that will resonate in the national Carolean psyche.