Via Quartz at Work, Marc Bain:”…For its new report, titled “America’s Next Commercial Revolution: Influence vs. Affluence,” A.T. Kearney examined demographic, economic, and technological trends to predict how US buying behavior will change over the next 10 years. (The firm also released a global version based on surveys with more than 7,000 consumers across seven countries.) The main finding was that a “perfect storm of demographic shifts, changing values, and hyper-connectivity” is permanently altering how we spend our money… The marketplace of decades past had companies at the center. For the most part, information and influence flowed outward from brands to the consumer. A.T. Kearney calls this the “Affluence” model, since brands spent huge sums convincing consumers that their self-worth was based on what and how much they owned. But the internet and social media have dramatically altered this, amplifying consumers’ voices to the same volume as the brands’, as new, online communities coalesced around shared beliefs. A.T. Kearney calls this the “Influence” model…”