LSN : News : Foresight Friday: Fiona Harkin, director of foresight

Sephora and Lady Gaga reframe beauty through belonging

Sephora, Global

Global – Sephora has unveiled a campaign with Haus Labs by Lady Gaga, spotlighting beauty as a force for belonging and self-acceptance.

Launched in June during Pride Month, the campaign is now being rolled out across the US, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia.

At its centre is a film where Lady Gaga and others narrate authentic testimonies about beauty, confidence and community. Cast members were chosen for their lived stories, with the voiceover created from their own words.

The campaign spotlights initiatives such as Sephora’s Classes for Confidence – a programme that brings community members together through a love of make-up – as well as Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation.

In our Resilience Branding report, we underscored how brands are affirming their commitment to inclusion through purpose-driven marketing strategies. Sephora is positioning retail beauty as cultural infrastructure for inclusivity, inspiration and mental wellbeing.

Strategic opportunity

Leverage beauty’s cultural capital to design campaigns, spaces and experiences that blur commerce with care to position your brand as a tool for self-expression, confidence and inclusive community building.

Foresight Friday: Fiona Harkin, director of foresight

Every Friday, the Future Laboratory team offers an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and viral moments we’re all talking about. Here, director of foresight Fiona Harkin tries to make it all make sense…

: I honestly don’t know where to start this week. Outside my door the roundabout painters have been busy reclaiming, I don’t know – their stupidity? Meanwhile, in my social media sphere, a pocket of friends and family are mindlessly regurgitating agitative, divisive, bot-driven, shadily financed content. If South Korea is the latest to ban smartphones for kids, the thought brewed in one of the darkest corners of my mind that we could do well to ban social media for over-70s. But then I reminded myself that most pro-Palestine protestors detained by police in the UK recently are over 60.

: While Insta’s new Friends Reels feature is wickedly revealing, my FYP veers from starving, trauma-riddled faces to ads for NMN supplements. Are we just too busy shopping to notice our collective inurement – our individual agency - slipping away? Because you sure as hell won’t find it while hugging a Labubu, asking AI Jesus or your Etsy Witch. The dissonance is real, and I want to scream. What in the just-release-the-Epstein-files-already is going on?

AI imagery by The Future Laboratory, UK

: But it was a different kind of flag that resonated with me this week – an ad for the British Red Cross’ Bridging Divides series. It tapped directly into the team discussions here at The Future Laboratory around a New Mutuality. We regularly re-assess our Global Drivers – the foundations of our methodology – and the signals pointing to this potential future horizon are offering opportunity; zero sum games and binary arguments are the symptoms of a clash of social, political, economic, environmental and technological systems that no longer serve a world that is moving beyond global thinking.

: It is an opportunity for a better future, one that requires a reclaiming of human agency to take root – a headwind to knock the lulling cradle of our algorithmically flattened culture. We touch on this potential for disruptive friction in our current age of convenience in the New Codes of Value macrotrend; we note in our Synthocene Era report the rise of noetics and an impending reassessment of what it means to be human; we explore the tension between tech-enabled experiences and the need for offline liminality in our upcoming Optimised Odysseys travel report; it forms the basis of our in-progress Health, Beauty & Wellness macrotrend where we track the strategies jolting us out of a homogenous beauty sector; and you can view its creative influence in Human By Design, reminding us that in a world of Helveticas, it’s good to be the Wingdings.

Quote of the Week

‘For decades, we imagined democracy to be a supermarket, where you popped in whenever you needed something. Now we remember that democracy is a farm, where you reap what you sow’

Anand Giridharadas, author and writer (source: Medium)

Stat: Great wealth transfer looms for young Americans

MoneymBag$ by Mackenzie Freemire, US

US – A new survey from insurance agency Choice Mutual reveals that two-thirds of Americans aged 18–43 expect to receive, or have already received, an inheritance, with an average windfall of £247,000 ($335,000, €287, 262).

‘The Great Wealth Transfer is surely on its way,’ said Choice Mutual CEO Anthony Martin. The findings also suggest that younger generations are not only anticipating inheritance – they are planning around it. Among respondents, 73% said they would save the money, while 57% are looking to invest. Many expect to use the funds for housing, debt repayment or their children’s futures.

Most anticipate inheriting cash and real estate, with some citing investments and business assets. Notably, 61% have already spoken with their parents or seen legal documents about an expected inheritance.

Yet the optimism is tempered by strain; 53% expect to shoulder financial responsibilities for ageing parents, while 60% already feel anxious about the burden. For some, the expectation of inheritance shapes present behaviour, from taking on more debt to feeling less urgency to save.

For more insights on the redistribution of wealth and cross-generational mindsets on spending, read our The Great Wealth Transfer macrotrend report.

Strategic opportunity

In anticipation of The Great Wealth transfer, develop products and services that help younger consumers balance optimism and anxiety around inheritance by developing financial tools, wellbeing support and guidance for cross-generational planning.