Enter the ‘unreal world’: digital overload sparks growth in magic

A new trend report from JWT’s futurism and innovation unit, The Innovation Group, has been researching consumer behaviour and its findings urge business and marketers to explore Unreality, the intangible aspects of our lives that defy big data and the ultratransparency of the web.

We live in an age of hyper-reality and transparency overload, when our private Google searches are indexed by algorithms and smartphones offer a window onto the intimate lives of millions of strangers. But what happens when we tire of all this unfiltered faux-reality? Enter Unreality . . .

Lucie Greene (pictured), worldwide director of the Innovation Group, explained: “Consumers are adrift in a sea of user-generated content that purports to offer access to the ‘real’ world. But they are increasingly aware that much of this is highly mediated and misleading.

“Unreality is the clear reaction to this: surreal visuals, unicorns, alternate universes and all.”

The digital overload report explores:

• Magic language
  Why brands are using the vocabulary of the spiritual and astrological worlds to offer enlightenment and escapism to consumers, even if the goal is selling face cream.
• Post-reality imagery
  Surreal imagery is emerging as a reaction to gritty user-generated reality, says the report, as otherworldly and supernatural scenarios meet a need for psychological escapism.
• The new New Age
  Spiritually rewarding experiences with a positive psychological and physical impact are taking the place of prayer as consumers flock to sound baths, crystals and cosmology.
• Surreal porn
  Virtual reality is ushering in a new erotic aesthetic that blends fantasy with surreal sci-fi, with much of it coming from the video-games graphics world.

When hyperbole is stratospheric, where is there that’s beyond awesome? Another world, but one that doesn’t actually exist. Download the free 34-page report here.