Trendapalooza
I refer to this edition of the newsletter as Trendapalooza – a round-up of all of the decks, docs, and sites published over the last month that predict the year ahead for marketers. It’s interesting to see the themes that bubble up across different sources – this year it’s the metaverse, wellness, privacy, social commerce, AI, and marketing ethics. Lots of interesting stuff. Below are the 10 sources that I found most useful:
1. dentsu Media Trends: Interesting report on how the media landscape is changing and what brands should do about it. It covers content, commerce, and community and includes specific recommendations for brands. Highlight: Gaming is now mainstream (think Wordle, Heardle…basically all the -rdles) which provides brands with new canvases to advertise and new opportunities for platforms / publishers to attract audiences and build first-party data.
2. GWI Global Trends: Includes useful data and trendlines across different facets of online and digital media use over the years. The report uses the GWI global consumer survey data, which is all super recent. Highlight: The average adult is awake for 15 hours a day, and in that time 6 hours and 43 minutes are spent online. However, online time is actually starting to decline from record highs during the pandemic. I’ve reviewed time-spent-online charts for 20+ years, and this is the first time that I can remember that the line has not gone up and to the right.
3. Trend Hunter 2023 Trend Report: Super interesting report that outlines 11 categories of trends with examples and smart workshop questions. Each trend is also scored according to popularity, activity, and freshness. Highlight: The Health & Wellness Insights section has a huge cross-section of examples that illustrate how technology is helping people with everything from moods, physical fitness, physical intimacy – followed, of course, by parenting.
4. Contagious 2022: Contagious reports are always great to catch-up on the most interesting and buzzworthy creative campaigns for the year. There is plenty covered in here that blurs advertising with product. Highlight: The case study on the Contagious brand of the year - Liquid Death. Covers the philosophy behind its bold and PR-worthy campaign ideas, such as its Dismembered Momentsluxury candle.
5. Pinterest Predicts: A fun, visual report that covers global consumer trends based on search behaviour on the Pinterest platform. Highlight: Loads to choose from here, but my favourite trend is ‘All Aboard’ – people are increasingly searching for train travel and train travel aesthetic. This is leading to the rise of one of the least pretentious flexes of all time - “train bragging”.
6. Mintel 2023 Global Consumer Trends: A smart, data-backed report on 5 global consumer trends (Me Mentality, Power to the People, Hyper Fatigue, International Localism, Intentional Spending). It includes short and long-term extrapolations for each trend. Highlight: Me Mentality represents how consumers are eager to refocus on themselves coming out of the pandemic. For many, consumers are apparently “re-entering the post-pandemic world keen on redefining themselves”.
7. Foresight Factory Trending 2023: Provocative report that hypothesizes that the dominant consumer trends are coming from a place of rebellion (from perfection, authority, surveillance, and restraint). Highlight: The Rebellion Against Surveillance section is super interesting, with research that illustrates how more people feel that anonymity is important online. Related trending services include platforms for anonymous online search and “automatic mouse movers” for remote workers looking to avoid detection from their employers monitoring their activity.
8. Next Atlas Predictions for 2023: A set of trends based on an interesting methodology - an analysis of unprompted social media posts from early adopter profiles. The report also visualizes how each trend started and will evolve over time.d Highlight: Scaling-Down – a trend that involves consumers reducing spending and brands minimizing packaging for environmental reasons. Also referred to as “Reducetarianism” - because a trend isn’t a trend until it is given a cringy name.
9. Deloitte TMT Predictions 2023: A round-up of predictions from across the technology, media, and technology space. The screens and media section has some great perspective on advertising and commerce within a changing media landscape. Highlight:Social shopping– which is projected to surpass $1USD trillion globally in 2023. Some useful data here that points to more people buying products on social, right after they discover them via influencers.
10. 99designs Graphic Design Trends: As a non-designer, I love these roundups of graphic design trends. I find it helpful to put names and language to different designs that I come across. This report has a wide variety of 12 graphic design trends with examples. Highlight: It’s a toss-up for me between the Mix Dimension and 90s Space Psychedelia trends. My design expertise stops at choosing fonts for PowerPoint SmartArt so perhaps don’t follow my lead.
If you’re not ready to look forward to 2023, check outthis awesome NYT featurethat captures the Internet-driven ‘micro-news’ from 2022. You can also check out last year’s highlights frompeople using TikTokand from peoplesearching Google. I’d share mySpotify 2022 Wrappedbut I’m afraid it would lead to a spike in unsubscribes.
Finally, a big thank you to all of my readers, clients, and collaborators from this past year. 2022 was a challenging year, and I appreciate all of your feedback and support. Have a wonderful holiday.
Time for eggnog.