Track Report 2021: Which trends we got right, which ones we didn't

Every year, we issue a set of trends and predictions for the upcoming year and -- unlike most prognosticators, we evaluate how we did at the end end of the year.

Which is now.

So here's a look at our top predictions for 2021:

1. We will all become more aware of supply chains. We were right about this. Supply chains became a front-page story everywhere. Until 2020, supply chains were a trade story, a topic non-trade publications rarely touched but this year, The New York Times made supply chain a focus for economics reporter Peter S. Goodman. Supply chain issues will continue into 2022, especially if Omicrom or subsequent variants continue, which seems likely. Grade: A.  
2. The workplace of the future will be your home. We said that "a significant percentage of employees will choose to continue to work from home – which has propelled some to move to cheaper, less dense neighborhoods. Companies will have to rethink HR, recruiting and team building as well as reconfigure workflow, collaboration, and customer support to address the realities of the new workplace." So far, as many companies are halting return to the office initiatives, our prediction that work from home would continue into 2022 seems correct. We did not predict the Great Resignation, in which people resigned to pursue something else but we believe we were right that companies need to rethink, still, workflow, collaboration, teams (actual teams, not Microsoft's Team software).  Grade: A.
3. Cities will need to reimagine downtown business districts. We continue to see underoccupied buildings and empty storefronts. We continue to think that "local hospitality businesses and retailers need to focus on delivering customer experience, not just commodity service" and that "to overcome stories about closures and stagnation, stimulate the local economy and give people a reason to visit, cities will need to revitalize downtown areas by expanding cultural activities." The problem is: we're not seeing much movement or coverage about rethinking downtowns. We think this is a critical issue that should get more attention. We hope this gets more attention in 2022. From a media coverage, however, this did not generate the proverbial ink we think this topic deserves. Grade: B.  
4. Telepresence, industrial robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) will get more attention. Companies did experiment with video conferencing solutions like Zoom and Microsoft Teams and others but we did not see as much about telepresence as we thought. Same with industrial robotics. That doesn't mean that telepresence and industrial robotics did not gain strength in 2021 but we didn't see much evidence in news coverage. We did see tremendous interest in AI, however. Overall, from a media perspective, we overstated this trend. Grade: B.
5. Telehealth becomes a preferred option, not an alternative. We said "Telehealth will become the preferred option, particularly for therapy or appointments that don’t require hands-on treatment." Subsequently, we heard that medical insurance companies scaled back coverage for telehealth appointments. We said we expected "to see stories on the delivery of healthcare to those who don’t have access to telehealth and whether patients will get the same level of care and attention via virtual sessions as they do with in-person visits," and we did not see much of that. One reason: the continued focus of the ongoing shapeshifting Covid virus. That said, we think telehealth is a great option, and we expect to see some of the coverage about the delivery of health care to occur in 2022. Grade: B-.   
6. Big Tech’s role will be scrutinized. Not surprisingly, this was a big story throughout the year. Grade: A.
7. The streaming wars will continue with no real losers. We said we thought that streaming services launched by networks trying to optimize their content will continue because streaming is a way to monetize their content library. One of the new services we didn't expect to like but do because of its quirky old library is Pluto TV; it's a free, ad-supported service leveraging CBS and Paramount's content. While the streaming wars did not get as much attention as we expected, there was a lot of attention to various offerings on many services, and always a lot of interest in Netflix's business. And we were right when we said that the contraction of non-network-based services (Crackle and Tubi, for example) won’t happen in 2021 -- but could happen within 24 months. Grade: A.
8. In a post-truth era, media polarization will continue and media credibility will decline. Things got worse in 2021 in terms of media polarization, and we wish we were wrong about this. We expect this will continue, especially on the anniversary of the Jan. 6th insurrection -- we saw on Twitter today that there are people disputing that characterization despite the video, despite the sentencing of perpetrators who pled guilty -- and any ongoing investigation into what led up to that day. We also said that we expected "the phrase post-truth to be used quite often in articles that look at the current lack of unity inside the U.S.," and we think that was right, too. Please note: for the purposes of this blog, we're not interested in the politics or the drivers of polarization. The reason we're interested in media polarization is that it makes marketers job much harder, and credibility more challenging to achieve, because ads placed on one network may be construed as an endorsement of the media property's perceived political perspective, whether FOX or MSNBC, so companies need to find a way to dance around this issue. Grade: A.     
9. The news flow won’t diminish in the first half of the year. We said, "we expect the news flow to continue at its current levels through the fall due to the ongoing pandemic, its impact on the economy and continued volatile political situation. We also expect Doomscrolling will drop off but not fade away in 2021." We have some some media engagement by readers to be on the decline this year but the amount of news has not diminished, and we're still doomscrolling as much as we had hoped to break that habit.  Grade: A.
10. From a business perspective, the media sector will face a challenging year. This is a problem for advertisers and publicists because newspapers are publishing issues with fewer pages despite the crazy amount of news flow. We've seen coverage of SPACs and Alden's relentless mission to purchase storied news organizations only to decimate newsrooms, diminishing the role these media play in their hometown communities. Grade: A.
11. More newsrooms will be shuttered. Another prediction we would prefer to have gotten wrong. Grade: B+.
12. Substack won’t save most reporters. We said, "An email newsletter platform designed to enable reporters to turn readers into paying subscribers, Substack has lured dozens of prominent reporters with the claim of a better business model for journalists to control their destiny and make money." Some reporters have indeed done well on Substack. Long-time Bloomberg Businessweek economics reporter has an interesting column in the New York Times. But others -- like former New York Times privacy project reporter Charlie Warzel -- left for Substack and then jumped ship to the Atlantic. We think newsletters may help media properties reach readers interested in a specific perspective but we don't think it will make it easier for reporters to make gobs of money. We see newsletters as this year's podcast. Many people have them, enjoy producing them, but most aren't making money solely from their newsletter or podcast. We believe we got this right. Grade: A. 

Overall, we got an A- for this year's TrendReport. We are working on our predictions for 2022. Stay tuned!

What We Can Learn by Looking at Past Predictions

We were cleaning up our office last year, sorting through paper files if you can believe it, when we saw a document entitled "Social Media Predictions 2009" -- a simpler age, or so it seems from a near-post-pandemic period.

So we thought it would be fun to see what some of those predictions were, from the perspective of being able to determine if that future ever arrived.

• They were talking about Web 2.0 back then. The prediction was that social media would bring about a "culture of rapid response." That certainly seems like that occurred. Social media spreads news -- accurate or not -- much more rapidly, often scooping traditional news sources. We do now expect quick response when we post a complaint about a service or product. That was from David Armano, then with Logic + Emotion.
• One prediction said that in 2009, marketers would move from assigning "responsibility for social media strategy to the most logical person in the communication team" to allowing the most passionate individual from any division to lead social media efforts." Even now, that sounds like a smart move. But the reality is that social media marketing is often handed off to the youngest team member, based on the hope that they understand this social media thing better than Boomer bosses.
• That same prediction also said marketers would go from reaching "out to the biggest bloggers you could find" in 2008 to targeting "the most relevant bloggers for your campaign, (offering) them something of value and build relationships." Again, interesting idea. But we've seen clients who want to reach the biggest bloggers and podcasters (something that wasn't a thing back then) and shy away from those who are passionate but don't have broad reach. Influence can't always be measured by reach, and podcasters often don't have (or prefer not to share) metrics, the way traditional media does. We think it makes sense to target relevant bloggers and podcasters even if they don't have huge numbers but it's important to justify the executive's time or else walk away from the opportunity.
• Another prediction was that "2009 will also be the year we rediscover the appeal of 'live intimacy,'" live conversations with online consumers and also that we will "see more companies doling out good old fashioned hand-written notes and letters" based on the premise that "intimacy touches emotion." We think that was a swing and a miss. Not that hand-written notes and letters might not break through the clutter -- we think they would. But it takes time, special talent and more time, to be able to hand-write notes to customers.
• One pundit said "TV will be a big focus, because viewership in aggregate is actually going up." Perhaps it did. But more than a decade later, TV viewership even of once-major events like the Oscars and the Super Bowl, are in decline.
• Chris Brogan had two interesting predictions. He said there would be a rise in Velvet Rope Social Networks -- sites that "aren't 'come one, come all.'" We don't think that's entirely true but Clubhouse certainly fits that. He also said there would be "Lots of Consolidation and Shuttering." He was right about that, too. For a client interested in reaching regional business-oriented podcasters as well as national innovation-based podcasts, we found that many ideal podcasters stopped production as recently as 2020 but there were tons of reasonable podcasts that ceased production in the three years prior. 
• One prediction was that while clients "are eager to explore the benefits of social media engagement, (many) are absolutely terrified of the potential downsides...The tipping point has not only not been reached could still tilt away from social media if negatives outweigh positive examples." We think it would be interesting to return to a world before social media mattered, where companies could walk away from social media. But that's not the world we live in. So most companies, even complex B2Bs, do need to find a way to engage via social media.
• Ann Handley of MarkteingProfs said that companies will increasingly craft content. That's certainly true. With traditional media shrinking (as it has for much of the past decade), companies must generate their own content.
• Scott Monty, then at Ford, had a couple of accurate predictions, including: "Twitter will continue to achieve legitimacy." It certainly has. He also said, "Online video will come into its own." That also became true and I don't think it was so obvious back in 2008.  
• Other predictions:
• Google would buy Twitter.
• "Blogger outreach from PR pros will get better, but not much." We think this one from Jason Falls, is accurate.
• Better metrics. That may have come true but we still need better, more accurate and faster metrics.
• eCommerce will go social by allowing "consumers to use the critiques from people they don't know." 
• "People will rally to support companies they love when hard times hits." We think this prediction from Andy Sernovitz came true.
• "We finally settle the debate over whether PR or Marketing 'owns' social media." Sorry, we did not. Although we've seen PR functions integrated into Marketing, which means Marketing probably does 'own' social media after all.
• One pundit said that "After much election season talk about Obama's social media presidency,'" many will "realize that his win had less to do with his innovative use of social media than we'd thought." Well, that may have been true. But we did see how Trump's use of social media was vital to his visibility and reach.  

The conclusions included: "We understand the technologies but need to employ them with a human empathy" and that measurement and relevance are key to success. That still seems to be the case. We guess this is a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Bloomberg Businessweek Validates Our Supply Chain Prediction

 Back in January -- which, like so much of our time during the pandemic, seems like ages ago -- we issued our annual set of predictions. This year, among our predictions, we said that "We will all become more aware of supply chains."  

 There have been many other articles about supply chain issues -- like we're running low on semiconductors in part because of strong demand for cars and running low of sheetrock because of a rise in the number of renovations -- but Bloomberg Businessweek described what's going on as Fear of Running Out (FORO). 

It's worth checking out the Bloomberg article because this is likely to affect all of us. We have several new clients this year, and we've already been asking them how they will prepare for possible supply chain shortages. 

It's an issue that businesses need to prepare for because their suppliers may be already affected.

6 Additional Media Trends for 2021

Of course the biggest story in 2021 will continue to be COVID-19 pandemic, the rollout of vaccines, the reopening of businesses, gathering at sporting events, holidays, family celebrations and getting back to normal.

Though we're not sure what "getting back to normal" will actually look like.

We do know that reporters, who had to adjust to covering the impact of the pandemic on their particular beats, will continue to cover both their beat areas and the pandemic. For example, sports reporters continue to cover games, trades, etc. while also reporting on games cancelled because of athletes who tested positive. What might be different is that they're testing positive to COVID, not to steroids. (As compared to a decade or so ago when steroid use in baseball was a big problem.)

In this post, we will look at six additional trends we think will be important this year. If they look familiar from 2020, they are. These are long-term trends affecting the media world, and are important to note because they address the daily circumstances that affect reporters. With an understanding of some of the variables reporters contend with can help when pitching stories to the media, developing marketing campaigns with media outlets, etc. 

1. In a post-truth era, media polarization will continue and media credibility will decline. For years now, Americans have been living in a post-truth era – in which there’s a lack of shared, objective facts. Unfortunately, the growing distrust of the media and the chasm between media bubbles will get worse in 2021, especially on social media. This is bad for business because it exacerbates polarization and diminishes the credibility of all media outlets – making it harder for marketers to reach broad population segments while making it easier to unintentionally alienate parts of the population. Bonus thought: we expect the phrase post-truth to be used quite often in articles that look at the current lack of unity inside the U.S., fueled by social media and conspiracy theories and the immediate past administration.     
2. The news flow won’t diminish in the first half of the year. The chaos of news over the past few years boosted engagement with news sources as people tried to keep up and make sense of it all. Despite a change to a presumably more-disciplined/boring administration, we expect the news flow to continue at its current levels through the fall due to the ongoing pandemic, its impact on the economy and continued volatile political situation. We also expect Doomscrolling will drop off but not fade away in 2021. The implication for marketers is that it may be hard to get the attention of reporters and producers as well as from consumers while they continue to be distracted by the latest developments.
3. From a business perspective, the media sector will face a challenging year. Although we’re confident about demand for news will stay steady, we know demand by itself has not been the panacea for the media. In broadcast news, there’s a battle for viewers between Fox versus NewsMax and OAN plus a possible new threat if Donald Trump launches or buys a media property. Meanwhile, among newspapers and magazines, the New York Times, Wall St. Journal and Washington Post, and People are doing well, but the rest haven’t found a sustainable business model, especially because retail advertising has dropped due to COVID. Keep in mind: despite the strong demand for news, thousands of newsroom positions were cut in 2020, especially at local media, and that, sadly, will continue in 2021.
4. More newsrooms will be shuttered. Since the start of the pandemic, most reporters have been working remotely so some companies have decided to save money by shuttering physical newsrooms including New York Daily News, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, and other big papers, much less at smaller, regional papers. That’s not a good thing because we feel there is real value in training junior staffers, which becomes harder when they’re working remotely from mentors. It also makes it harder for PR functions because it’s much harder to call reporters when they’re working from home, and have given up or rarely check their office voicemail.
5. There are fewer reporters working, but it seems like there's more news than ever. Especially at local media, which increasingly seem understaffed, reporters are overwhelmed. They have to file more stories with fewer resources and less time between in which to develop stories. In years past, they would have had time to talk to the executive and get an original quote and add some insight into the announcement. We're not blaming reporters -- we blame the economics that have resulted in the layoffs of tens of thousands reporters over the last few years. Given smaller staffs, there's just not enough time to interview every executive. At some outlets, reporters are told they must file a certain number of stories per day. And when they're done with a story, they need to cross-promote it via social media. 
6. Substack won’t save most reporters. An email newsletter platform designed to enable reporters to turn readers into paying subscribers, Substack has lured dozens of prominent reporters with the claim of a better business model for journalists to control their destiny and make money. Some, like historian Heather Cox Richardson, have thousands of paying subscribers and generate significant money via their Substack newsletter. But it’s not a solution that will scale and save the industry or even help most reporters. For PR professionals, it will mean evaluating new media targets and explaining to clients why a Substack newsletter represents a worthwhile opportunity.

All these issues still remain in force in 2021, and PR functions need to be aware of them in order to be successful in dealing with the media.

TrendReport for 2021: Top Trends for This Year

For the 19th year, here are our predictions for the upcoming year.

As always, we will be rolling out other key trends over a series of blog posts but here are our top 7 predictions for 2021:


1. We will all become more aware of supply chains. While supply chain and logistics are vital, they rarely get mentioned in the mainstream media because they’re typically invisible to consumers. Because the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines encountered significant challenges and there were shortages of key consumer goods and appliances, we will all become more aware of supply chains issues this year. We expect more coverage if key shortages arise.
2. The workplace of the future will be your home. Experts predict that a significant percentage of employees will choose to continue to work from home – which has propelled some to move to cheaper, less dense neighborhoods. Companies will have to rethink HR, recruiting and team building as well as reconfigure workflow, collaboration, and customer support to address the realities of the new workplace. For grocery stores, restaurants and retail locations, expect short-term changes like plexiglass dividers, asking people to socially distance, etc. to likely remain into 2022.
3. Cities will need to reimagine downtown business districts. Office buildings will be emptier in 2021 as many businesses re-evaluate office needs and try to get out of leases. Local hospitality businesses and retailers need to focus on delivering customer experience, not just commodity service. To overcome stories about closures and stagnation, stimulate the local economy and give people a reason to visit, cities will need to revitalize downtown areas by expanding cultural activities.
4. Telepresence, industrial robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) will get more attention. Companies will experiment with deploying telepresence and robotic solutions and integrating AI to be better able to weather the next pandemic. This is an opportunity for industries like manufacturing that require onsite employees but haven’t updated processes. There will also be articles noting concerns about the impact of robots in the workplace on jobs as well as advances in AI.
5. Telehealth becomes a preferred option, not an alternative. Telehealth will become the preferred option, particularly for therapy or appointments that don’t require hands-on treatment. We expect to see stories on the delivery of healthcare to those who don’t have access to telehealth and whether patients will get the same level of care and attention via virtual sessions as they do with in-person visits.
6. Big Tech’s role will be scrutinized. With antitrust suits against Facebook and concerns about Section 230 – the FCC rule that protects social media companies from being sued for the content posted onto their sites – 2021 will be a tough year for Big Tech. Forcing Facebook to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp won’t solve the real problem: the polarizing nature of social media and the impact of disinformation in the public square. But everyone has an opinion, and we expect to see think numerous stories exploring the topic this year.
7. The streaming wars will continue with no real losers. With the exception of Qubi, a standalone service that closed in six months, most of the new streaming services were launched by networks trying to optimize their content. The currently expanding number of streaming services have benefited from people staying home, but there are too many different providers to be sustainable. Contraction of non-network-based services (Crackle and Tubi, for example) won’t happen this year but could happen within 24 months.


As always, let us know if you agree or disagree with these.