The Primacy of Me
Why Your Experience Strategy May Be Obsolete
Welcome to a fresh midweek edition of your go-to source for experience strategy and emerging thinking.
I combine 30 years of my global consulting and various leadership roles with research and thinking to turn the spotlight on the shifts redefining consumer behaviours, experience strategy and brand dynamics and engagement. If you're serious about where experience strategy is heading, then you're in the right place.
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The Primacy of Me
Three out of four people say what they value most has fundamentally changed in the past five years.
This isn't drift or a trend.
It's a rewiring of consumer behaviour. And it means that your experience strategy may be stuck in an outdated operating system.
I've been tracking this shift for five years. I’ve coined the term consumorphosis®, referring to the constant, context-driven fluidity of consumer identity and new behaviours.
Consumorphosis is the foundational building block of everything else happening in the world of experience strategy today as linear, funnel, journey’s and demographics collapse.
And we’re now starting to get data that confirms what I've been saying.
It means our traditional playbooks are obsolete.
When forced to make real trade-offs, people prioritise deeply personal, intrinsic needs over everything else.
A new global study on consumer values reveals something that should prompt every CXO and CMO to pause and reconsider the effectiveness of demographics targeting, cause-driven marketing, segmentation, and traditional loyalty playbooks.
It’s not brand love. Not social causes. Not status symbols.
But Safety. Health. Happiness. Control.
Consumer mindset are about the Primacy of Me.
Fluid identity isn’t new, of course. Liquid identities were spotted quite a few years ago. But it’s been massively accelerated over the last five years. And it’s the most impactful shift in consumer behaviour since digital disruption changed everything.
And if you're serious about relevance in this new landscape, you need a roadmap.
The Value Collapse Is Already Here
Social value and societal value, our long-time darlings of purpose-driven marketing, now rank dead last when consumers face real choices.
At the same time, emotional value has doubled in importance across every demographic.
But "emotional value" isn’t feel-good brand stories or Instagram-worthy moments.
And understanding that is where many brands will be falling short, because:
The emotions that drive decisions are now inward-facing ones:
Security over uncertainty
Progress over stagnation
Autonomy over dependence
Meaning over noise
This maps well to dimensions of time-based value:
Time Saved: Secure, efficient, practical experiences that respect my cognitive load
Time Well Spent: Enjoyable, enriching moments that feel personally worthwhile
Time Well Invested: Effortful but meaningful progress toward who I want to become
Consumers are now calculating value in units of time. Asking: "Is this worth my energy right now?"
Not: "Does this align with my values?"
Not even: "Will this make me happy?"
But "Does this earn the time I'm giving you?"
Consumorphosis® Confirmed: Identity Drives Everything
Here's the most crucial finding buried in the data: value preferences shift because identity is fluid.
I've long been calling this consumorphosis.
The idea is that we're no longer consistent consumers with stable preferences.
We're shape-shifters moving through different identity states throughout a single day, with our changing contexts and we’re flexing modes, as in these examples:
Protective mode —> I want security, simplicity, and trust.
Aspirational mode —> I want access, growth, and status signals.
Overwhelmed mode —> Just get out of my way.
It destroys the foundation of traditional segmentation.
It means we can’t assume relevance by targeting "health-conscious millennials" or "busy professionals."
Consumer: You're only relevant if you match who I am right now—and who I'm trying to become in this moment.
The Control Economy Has Arrived
I wrote about this here two weeks ago.
I've been thinking this for a while: we've entered the Control Economy.
We’re trading time and energy only for outcomes that can influence us or experiences that enhance our sense of agency.
"Treats people well" now outranks "treats the planet well" in consumer priorities.
We haven’t stopped caring about the environment. It’s just that we’re overwhelmed.
When we can’t control outside forces, we default to what we can influence: our immediate well-being, family's safety, and our progress.
When brands understand this, they stop asking, "How do we build loyalty?" and start asking:
What identities do we help people express or develop?
What kind of control are we giving back to our customers?
What progress are we enabling that feels personally meaningful?
Which emotional states are we designed to serve?
The winners understand that relevance now requires real-time responsiveness to identity shifts, not just demographic targeting.
Relevance scales. Love not so much.
In the consumorphosis® era, loyalty isn't built through repeated exposure or emotional storytelling. It's earned in moments of identity-brand alignment but lost instantly when that alignment breaks. Love can happen, but it often occurs in moments of relevance.
The Personal Meaning Revolution
Personal meaning is now our motivational architecture.
But don’t confuse personal meaning with personalisation.
Customising my content feed doesn't mean you've earned my attention. But does it help me feel competent, secure, or seen? That buys you time.
It's asking "why do you care" before the "how you serve it."
This requires a fundamental shift from us, asking "What's our purpose?" to asking "What does this do for the person I want to serve—right now, in the identity state they're in?"
When Netflix suggests my content, they're not just matching my viewing history. They're trying to read my contextual signals:
Time of day (AM energy vs. PM wind-down)
Device (phone for commute, TV for family time)
Recent behaviour patterns (binge-watching vs. browsing)
Social context (alone vs. with others)
They try to serve different recommendations for every version of me, each with its own emotional needs.
Industry Signals You Can't Ignore
I think what’s most exciting about the opportunities for us is that pivoting to competing on relevance will probably widen your available market, outside your traditional categories. You're competing for relevance within identity states.
From Strategy to System: What Works
Stop thinking in terms of customer journeys.
Start thinking in terms of identity support systems.
Map Identity States, Not Demographics
Identify the 3-5 core identity states your customers rotate through. For each state, understand:
What does progress look like?
What feels like a threat vs. an opportunity?
How do they prefer to spend their time versus invest it?
What trade-offs are they willing to make?
Design for Transitions, Not Just Touchpoints
The most valuable moments aren't when someone is stable in an identity, but when they're shifting between identities. The transition.
We need to see those signals and respond.
So design experiences that help people transition smoothly from "stressed parent" to "focused professional" to "health-conscious individual."
Build Time-Conscious Value Architecture. For every experience, be explicit about which type of time value you're creating:
Time Saved: Reduce friction, eliminate steps, and predict needs
Time Well Spent: Create moments worth the attention investment
Time Well Invested: Enable progress toward aspirational selves
Create Contextual Relevance Systems
Instead of static brand messages, build systems that respond to:
Identity signals (what mode is this person in or transitioning into?)
Context signals (where are they, what constraints exist?)
Progress signals (what are they trying to achieve?)
Energy signals (high-engagement vs. low-cognitive-load moments?)
The Strategic Choice: Adapt or Become Invisible
We’re at an inflection point.
The forces driving consumorphosis®—identity fluidity, time consciousness, control-seeking behaviour, personal meaning prioritisation—aren't temporary trends. They're the new consumer operating system.
Clinging to demographic targeting, static personas, and purpose-driven messaging without personal relevance will systematically lose us access to customers' attention. It’s not about inferior products, better marketing, service optimisation or wow ads.
It’s about strategic assumptions becoming obsolete.
Redesign your entire customer relationship around identity responsiveness. Build systems that recognise shifts in customer identity states and adapt value propositions in real-time.
This is about building a fundamentally different type of business. One that grows with your customers' evolving selves rather than trying to capture and categorise them.
The primacy of me is the new competitive landscape.
The only sustainable advantage is deep, dynamic relevance to the person your customer is becoming.
Everything else? Just noise in an increasingly personal world.
Question:
Do you know what identity states your customers are between?
More importantly, is your brand designed to serve them?
Any gaps are where relevance is won or lost.
Try the workshop audit toolkit to help you communicate and workshop with your teams to develop your thinking. It’s a fun workshop, as well, and clients love it.
And if you need help, feel free to message me.
Thanks for reading me.
Michael