The Gary Pope Column

In the latest of his regular columns for Total Licensing, Gary Pope, CEO and Co-Founder of Kinds Industries and Children’s Commissioner for Products of Change talks about our changing world of virtual versus reality.

A TALE OF TWO REALITIES

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us… I could go on. But I am not Dickens. And that was 164 years ago. But the whirligig of time doesn’t change the human condition and the opening lines of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities turn out to be both prophetic and relevant to today. But then great stories are always timeless.

This year is going to be a weird one. The world has wobbled. The axis has flexed; not quite snapped but it has given the consumer so many things to think about and challenges to face, that nothing will ever be quite the same again.

There are many new realities to be tackled but I want to focus on just two as we kick start the New Year… The first reality for 2023 is the digital realm. The one we’ve known has been coming for years but whose rapid insurgency through COVID has left us all with questions, opportunities and conundrums.

The second reality for 2023 is the physical realm. The one that is hard wired into us, the one that we need to function as a species driving our social impulses, yet is being constantly nipped at. And of course it is the one that until very recently, was the paradigm in which consumer products existed. The thing is, these two realms have become blended and at times we are bedazzled by the digital unnecessarily. It should however serve us, not define us. I am no luddite. I was an early adopter of the Commodore 64 and our house chose the superior BETAMAX technology for our video recording pleasure. But when the world is on its knees perhaps it’s a good time to take stock of what is reality and what is hyperbole. We know that TikTok is omnipotent and the effect of this in our licensing world is that it is driving micro-fandom at incredible speeds. YouTube is waning, and this shorter form is waxing. The industry is going to continue to accelerate and speed to market - as in getting actual products onto actual shelves - in the hyper-fragmented world of 2023 and beyond - has never been more important.

Digital brands have realised this and have adapted by opening physical stores or shifting into physical sales (just think standing in line at Glossier), enabling customers to try before they buy. By 2024, bricks and mortar is predicted to account for 72% of US sales - the resurgence is real. And, if we step back and think about it for a minute, it is totally expected. Isn’t it?

ChatGPT is another big trend to look out for and it looks like it is going to change just about everything. Google it. You’ll be blown away. You can ask for anything. It can write essays, design marketing plans and articulate new scientific theories with eloquence and nuance. The ethical questions are mind blowing. Creating a franchise that resonates with children however needs to be more than a string of 1’s and 0’s based on already acquired knowledge. To break out there has to be the human touch. Doesn’t there? I guess we’ll see. By the end of 2023 we’ll all know what to use an NFT for, we’ll accept that learning is best done in person by a real a teacher and all the over-hyped sentiment of the metaverse will seem comparable to that we experienced with the Sinclair C5 (Look it up Z’s). Just watch and see.

At its heart a Tale of Two Cities cautions that not everything is always as it seems. So, as we step into a brave new world of this year and all the trouble we’ve been told is going to come with it, it is important to look beyond the facade of this blended reality we all now call home.We genuinely have everything before us. We just need to apply a bit of common sense too and we’ll all be stronger, wiser and better this time next year.