There is a comfortable certainty that many companies gradually settle into: the belief that they know who they are speaking to. They have their persona, their historical target, their loyal customer base.

Yet markets never stand still.

And sometimes, it is the customers themselves who decide who you are, long before you have figured it out for yourself.

When the Market Slips Away… Or Reveals Itself

Crocs was founded in 2002 around a simple concept: a shoe for sailing enthusiasts: functional, lightweight, water-resistant. The target was clear and the vision well-defined.

What its founders had not anticipated was that the first people to truly embrace the product would not be boaters at all, but nurses, chefs, and gardeners… professionals seeking comfort during long hours on their feet. Then, through a cultural turnaround no one had seen coming, Crocs became a symbol of counter-culture, of self-aware humor, of anti-conformism. Featured on runways, reimagined through collaborations with Balenciaga, the brand is now massively embraced by Gen Z. In 2022, Crocs' revenue reached $3.6 billion, with year-over-year growth of +53.7%.

Airbnb followed a similarly unexpected trajectory. Originally designed for young urban travelers seeking an affordable alternative to hotels, the platform has watched a segment emerge that it had neither targeted nor prepared for: seniors. Today, people over 60 represent the fastest-growing host demographic on Airbnb, with more than 400,000 senior hosts active worldwide. The number of travelers aged 60 and above booking on the platform grew by 66% in a single year. A vast market that surfaced almost on its own.

These examples point to a reality worth pausing on: today's customers are not necessarily tomorrow's customers, and sometimes, your true future customers are already here, simply invisible for the moment.

Failing to Anticipate: Three Concrete Risks

1. Gradual Disappearance

Kodak is one of the most striking examples. At its peak, the company held more than 20% of the global market share in photographic film and employed over 140,000 people. What its leadership failed to read in time was the deeper shift in how its own users related to photography: a move toward convenience, instant sharing, the democratization of the image. The digital camera had actually been invented in-house at Kodak as early as 1975. But the company was watching its current customers. Not its future ones.

2. Losing Control of Your Brand Image

This is one of the least visible risks, and yet one of the most damaging. When a brand does not actively steer the evolution of its audience, its audience ends up defining its image, for better or worse. Lululemon, founded in 1998 as a yoga brand for active women, has seen its product adopted well beyond its initial target: men, teenagers, urban seniors. This expansion has fueled spectacular growth (revenue today exceeds $11 billion) but it has also forced the brand to urgently re-pilot its identity, its messaging and its collections. When an audience evolves faster than a strategy, the brand ends up chasing its own image.

3.The Opportunities That Slip Below the Radar

The reverse is equally true. A brand that does not look beyond its current customer base simply cannot see the revenue it could be generating. In Airbnb's case, the senior segment (whose travel spending growth has outpaced every other age group over the past 15 years, according to analysis by Bernstein Research) emerged almost spontaneously on the platform. Airbnb had the clarity to observe it, to nurture it, to dedicate content and features to it. A foresight that paid off.

What Applies to Products Is Equally True for Services

It would be tempting to limit this reflection to consumer brands, but the same dynamic runs through services, organizations, and institutions.

A consulting firm that built its reputation serving large industrial companies may find itself, without having anticipated it, increasingly approached by startups, NGOs, or local governments, with expectations, codes, and collaboration styles that are radically different. A private clinic that historically served a senior, affluent patient base may see its demand shift toward a younger clientele focused on preventive medicine and wellness. If these evolutions are not read and integrated strategically, they quickly become blind spots.

Understanding Who Is Waiting for You, Before They Find You

The real question is no longer "Who are our customers today?" but rather "Who will be here for us tomorrow, and what will they expect from us?"

This question requires a different posture: less observation of historical data, more exploration of weak signals. Fewer inherited certainties, more capacity to challenge one's own mental categories.

This is exactly what we do at Hypevision. We help companies and organizations move beyond the snapshot of their current customer base, in order to anticipate the cultural, sociological, and behavioral shifts that will redraw their audiences tomorrow. Because a truly future-proof strategy does not start with what you sell, but with what your future customers live, feel, and look for - often long before they even know they need you.

💬 Want to better understand who your future customers will be and build a strategy aligned with these shifts? We would be delighted to discuss it with you.

Sources

• Crocs Inc. Annual Report 2022 / Latterly.org – Crocs Marketing Mix 2025: A Case Study
• MatrixBCG – Customer Demographics and Target Market of Crocs, 2023
• Airbnb Newsroom – Ageless Travel: The Growing Popularity of Airbnb for the Over 60s
• iPropertyManagement – Airbnb Statistics 2026
• Bernstein Research, cited in Airbnb Newsroom (analysis of UK travel spending, over-65s)
• BusinessModelAnalyst.fr – 7 brands that ignored their weaknesses, 2025
• Cairn.info / Revue Marchés & Organisations – Kodak's Missed Opportunities in Digital Imaging, 2024
• BusinessModelAnalyst.com – Lululemon Target Market, 2026
• Brand Vision – Lululemon's Success and Marketing Strategy