MindMatch

Abstract

The world that organizations today are forced to navigate is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous - a VUCA world. Their long-term survival is continuously endangered. A strong brand positioning is important to secure survival and deeply connect with customers. However, changes in consumer needs and expectations call for new ways to stay relevant and stay ahead of these changes. At the same time, it is important to look ahead and make informed predictions regarding the direction society and customers are moving. Thus, future studies - more specifically strategic foresight - has gained growing attention within both academia and industry. With the amount of data collected today, novel ways of analysing and predicting customer behaviour and trends are emerging. Artificial intelligence (AI) has recently gotten a new breakthrough due to its ability to gather, monitor and analyse these vast amounts of data. The intersection between the three - branding, strategic foresight and AI - holds great potential to create and maintain a strong brand positioning. Therefore, this thesis aims to investigate this main question; how can artificial intelligence and strategic foresight be applied to the improvement and/or maintenance a future-proof brand positioning? This project is done in collaboration with Deloitte Digital who consults a number of well-established brands. Thus, this project is relevant for Deloitte Digital as it can future-proof the brands of their clients. Through a literature review and eight expert interviews regarding the three areas and the relations between them it is discovered that there is potential in further focusing more specifically on (1) the emotional connection between brand and user, (2) the Generic Foresight Process and (3) natural language processing (NLP). These insights are translated into design requirements and a design vision which then guide the creation of a solution. The solution proposed is called MindMatch and falls into the category of social listening tools. The digital platform contains three main USPs; (1) an analysis of the match between brand identity and brand image, (2) sentiment analysis and emotion recognition and (3) digital co-creation connected to the analysis insights. An interactive prototype of both a marketing website and the digital platform was developed and iterated upon based on feedback from Deloitte colleagues. When finalized, the solution was validated through interviews with three Deloitte colleagues and one crown jewel client, DSM. MindMatch embodies the answer to the main question of this thesis. By applying NLP techniques (including topic modeling, sentiment analysis and emotion recognition) and the Generic Foresight Process (including the six steps of the process, weak signal detection and forecasting) to social media data, the solution assists Deloitte Digital in improving and/or maintaining the emotional connection and co-created meaning between brand and user - resulting in a future-proof brand positioning.