We are proud to have won the TOCii (Top of Class Insights Industry) Award in the Trend & Future Research category, alongside SINUS-Institut & Bonsai Future. Our co-founder Europa Bendig presented STURMundDRANG at the TOCii award webinar.
Our co-founder Europa Bendig presented STURMundDRANG as part of the TOCii Award webinar.
Award-Winning Future Culture Research & Innovation
The German market research industry not only has a flagship trade fair in succeet but now also a prestigious new award recognizing institutes and agencies that set new standards in the insight industry. We are incredibly proud to be among the first recipients of the TOCii Award in the Trend & Future Research category, alongside our esteemed colleagues from SINUS-Institut and Bonsai Future, for our contributions to cultural future research.
Our approach of "researching while innovating" convinced a distinguished jury of experts, including Prof. Dr. Anna Schneider, Ulrich Föhl, and Matthias Fank. It was particularly rewarding to see our work also recognized by the client jury, featuring Lisa Dust, Martin Einhorn, Sabine Menzel, Andrea Wielpütz, and Karin Hagemann.
In his laudatory speech, the highly esteemed Hartmut Scheffler highlighted our unique role in the industry: We are specialists who "research backwards from the future"—focusing on activating imagination and action-oriented capabilities within marketing and innovation teams. Over the past 30 years, German trend and future research has evolved from predictive analytics to possibility-driven transformation research, helping brands and businesses shape their future. Our methodological toolbox is as diverse as it is interdisciplinary—making this field less about traditional market research and more about market development research.
I can hardly imagine a more exciting task today—or in the future—than exploring the future aspirations of people, markets, and societies. In the age of AI, a humanistic approach to future research—one that explores transformative narratives, practices, and aesthetics—gains new relevance and impact. It allows us to rewrite and co-create emerging markets in meaningful ways.
In our studies, we combine expert think tanks, lead user communities, social media analysis, semiotic vision studies, and quantitative prototype research to anticipate future maps and opportunity spaces that brands can leverage for positioning, innovation, and communication strategies. We firmly believe in human-centered strategies for the next economic era—one that operates not just with artificial and technological intelligence but also with cultural intelligence.
This mission is what drives us, and receiving the TOCii Award fuels our motivation at a time when the world urgently needs positive and unifying visions of the future. We are committed to helping companies and brands become powerful cultural transformation drivers—shaping a new kind of consumption for a better tomorrow.