Birnbach Communications Issues Key Media, Business and Tech Predictions for 2022: Trends in supply chain, healthcare, infrastructure and cybersecurity will dominate media landscape

To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we're issuing our 20th annual list of top media and marketing trends for 2022.

Here are four of the agency’s top predictions for 2022:

1. Supply chain issues will be at the forefront of corporate communications. The state of the nation’s supply chain will continue to receive coverage, until it becomes more reliable – probably in 2023. Understocked shelves will remain an issue due to scarcity of truck drivers, raw materials and semiconductors, and due to pent-up demand. The implications: Companies that effectively address supply chain issues can gain competitive advantage. They need to regularly communicate with customers about when they expect supplies to get back to normal, otherwise, consumers may try a new brand and not look back.
2. Infrastructure investments and smart cities will spur sustainable tech. Beyond much-needed investments in ailing bridges and roads, look for cities to improve their tech infrastructure as they develop plans to revitalize themselves. The implications: Cities will look more at smart and sustainable technologies, like more electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, solutions to manage food and package deliveries, intelligent traffic light systems that can adjust to traffic conditions, devices improving energy efficiency, and systems to improve safety, as well as smart sensors to gather data about pollution and other environmental data.
3. More data and bandwidth will help healthcare, but fitness trackers may not. In addition to the ongoing focus of healthcare reporters on COVID-19 this year, bioinformatics, which combines biology and computer science, will attract more media coverage. Powered by AI, bioinformatics is becoming more relevant because it collects and analyzes biological information, which will help transform the study and treatment of diseases and chronic conditions including neurological and psychiatric diseases. At the same time, expect that fitness trackers will get more scrutiny in terms of their accuracy, the data they capture (which may not be the data the user actually needs) and their inability to enable users to share the information with their healthcare providers. The implications: Bioinformatics companies will have more opportunities to inform the public about the timeliness and significance of their technology, while companies selling fitness trackers need to be prepared to address the issues that might arise about their offerings.
4. Cybersecurity will continue to dominate the media as companies search for solutions. The increase in the number of hybrid employees opens new security risks, and companies will need to establish new solutions for users accessing their networks remotely. The implications: Ransomware and other cyber-disruptions won’t go away this year so expect ongoing media coverage in 2022, especially involving government agencies and big companies with access to lots of personal data.

For our 20^th anniversary, we identified 20 trends. The complete list, including 16 additional predictions, will be rolled out on our blog, PRBackTalk.

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. 

Track Record 2020: How Accurately Did We Predict Key Trends for 2020, Part 2

This is the second-part of our look back at the trends for 2020 that we predicted last year. (The first part is available here.) We think it's important to look at what we got right and what we got wrong so that we can improve our process in time to make predictions for 2021. (There were, of course, plenty of trends that we completely missed, and we look at how to address any foreseeable trends that we did not see -- though to be fair to us, a lot happened this year that few actually predicted.)

Again, we're grading how we did with our second set of trends.

1.  Too many podcasts eventually will overwhelm listeners. We said that “Probably by 2021, we will have reached podcast saturation and there will be a backlash, both from advertisers and from listeners so that the proliferation of new podcasts will slow down, if not actually decrease.” We certainly didn’t reach the saturation point in 2020; as far as we can tell, the number of listeners has not declined this year. That said, we think listeners are overwhelmed by choices. Grade: C+.

2.  The expectations of well-design products will include connectivity and voice control. We think that consumers do expect Bluetooth connectivity and voice control but we’re not seeing those capabilities built-in in as many items as we’d like…for example, you can’t navigate your PC like the crew on “Star Trek” was able to. At least not yet. Grade: C.

3.  The trade-off between convenience and data collection will get recognition. This trend did not get much attention in 2020. Grade: C-.

4.  There will be a lot of media space allocated to covering outer space. We overshot this. There was some but not as much coverage as we expected. Grade: C-.

5.  5G and facial recognition will get lots of attention. We got this correct but there wasn’t much doubt about that. Grade: A.

6.  Artificial Intelligence will be in everything. We said, “AI has reached a tipping point and will be built in to many things that weren’t possible just a few years ago.” We think that was right. Grade: A.

7.  AI will affect in-store retail.  We said that “AI will change how stores stock shelves because they will have better customer intelligence about how customers shop and what they want,” but we don’t know if that was true in 2020, due to the pandemic, which hurt retail, especially the kind requiring customers to enter stores. We stand by this trend but we may not see significant movement until 2022. Grade: C-.

8.  Software is the once and future king. We said that although “hardware and gadgets are always going to be important … it’s the software that will add new features that improve the things we already have.” Grade: A.

9.  Drones will experience significant growth in B2B applications. Drones did not get as much attention as we thought in 2020 so we feel this trend may take place by 2021 or 2022. Grade: C-.

10. From customer service to mental health and beyond, chatbots will be there to help us. This did not get the attention, and thus make the impact we expected in 2020. Any progress may have been behind-the-scenes. Grade: D.

We're not too thrilled with some of the C-s and the D but we're trying to hold ourselves accountable so we did not give ourselves an A+ this year for any trend, and tried to tamp down any sense of grade inflation.

We have more trends to evaluate. Check back later this week for our continued look back at trends that did or did not have an impact in 2020

Track Record 2020: How Accurately Did We Predict Key Trends for 2020

One thing for sure: 2020 won’t be easily forgotten.

It’s been a year that sadly redefined a new normal in how we live and work. We continue to track deaths resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and see ongoing violence against people of color that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.

We won’t be doing a comprehensive recap of the year – including the lives lost or disrupted, although our hearts go out to all of them – because that’s outside the scope of our trend analysis.

As we’ve done each year for nearly 20 years, we will review the trends we identified the previous year and grade how we did for each prediction.

1.  Distrust of Big Tech and media fuels anxiety. We got this one right – noting that “This will fuel feelings of anxiety, anger, exhaustion, and isolation, regardless of political perspective” – though we underestimated the scale of the distrust or the anxiety. This is a significant problem because American generally live in one of two news bubbles, ones that communicate vastly different narratives so that we don’t operate with a single set of facts. This will continue to fuel distrust and anxiety in 2021.  Grade: A.

2.  The loss of local news coverage will continue, and will erode trust. According to Axios, “In the first 6 months of 2020, more than 11,000 newsroom jobs have been lost. That's nearly as many as were lost in all of 2009.” We’ve also seen many local papers reducing the number of days they publish, scaling back their print editions or going out of business. We were right about the continued loss of local news; we have not seen data yet about the impact of that loss. But we know that the trend impacts how local news gets reported and what kinds of local news gets published. This trend will continue in 2021. Grade: A.

3.  Streaming services will get a lot of media and consumer attention. We said that the so-called streaming wars is not a zero-sum game, that American consumers will choose to subscribe to several streaming services, not just one, and we got that right. Streaming services became even more important in 2020, with some like Disney+ premiering movies that would otherwise have been released first into movie theatres. We also believe we were correct when we noted that, “The growing number of ad-free streaming content services will make it harder for marketers to reach a mass audience. Even ad-supported services will be out of reach for local and regional organizations so they will need to look for other ways to reach local customers.” Grade: A.

4.  The Gig Economy isn’t just for millennials. We said to expect older Americans to enter the gig economy, and they may have but the pandemic hurt the gig economy. The gig economy did not get as much attention as it should amid huge losses of traditional jobs this year, nor did the impact on gig workers who don’t get benefits like unemployment checks when their jobs dried up. We believe that after the pandemic – whenever that is – the gig economy will recover, but gig workers will want a safety net to help them in case of future job losses. Grade: C.

5.  Consumer spending patterns are shifting. We said consumer spending would shift from owning to renting things like ZipCars, Citi Bikes and any number of sites that rent the latest fashion trends. On a short-term basis, spending did shift though that was due to the pandemic. Long-term we think that what we call the “non-ownership economy” or the “convenience economy” will continue. Grade: C.

6.  The sharing economy will become more expensive. We said to “expect (that companies will pay) more attention to gross margins (a measure of profitability), detailed financial models for startups looking to raise money, and a focus on discipline” as opposed to focusing only on growth. Instead, many companies focused on survival in 2020, which included pivoting to offer new products and enter new markets. That said, Netflix recently announced it will increase its monthly rates, and we think others will follow. Grade: B-.

7.  Streaming — but not owning — content increasingly means you might not be able to access the version you want. We said, “Consumers will become increasingly aware of the risks of streaming, which include ongoing monthly costs that will increase; content that disappears when a streaming service loses its rights even if you were in the middle of the program); and services that might disappear or abruptly shut down. Grade: A. 

8.  Going cashless will also affect consumer spending. Driven by the pandemic, contactless was huge in 2020 as almost everyone shifted to Venmo, PayPal, Zelle and other services. Many of us have hardly used cash all year. We can’t tell if contactless affected spending since retail was hurt by the pandemic. We do stand by the statement that “An increasingly cashless society will make it much more difficult for the poor, who may be unbanked (as the banking industry calls it) and can’t get a credit or debit cards.” Grade: A.  

9.  Robots won’t take over in 2020 but will be more commonplace. Robots will likely see a boost om a post-pandemic environment but we did not see as much coverage in 2020 as we expected. Grade: C+.

10. The age of plant-based “meats” has gone mainstream. This was a significant food trend though not the biggest of the year (that was cooking at home). Grade: A.

These were our initial sets of trends. We will post the next set on Monday, and will give us a final grade for the year. 

Pew Research Validates Fragmentation As An Ongoing Trend

According to a new Pew Research Center report on media polarization, Americans place their trust in two nearly inverse news media environments.

According to Pew, not surprisingly, 65% of Republicans and those leaning toward the GOP trust Fox News. By contrast, Democrats and those who lean that way, 67% trust CNN, 61% trust NBC, and 60% trust ABC. 

Again, without taking a stance either Republican or Democratic, this is not surprising but provides some context for what we predicted back in January (which feels like a different era): further fracturing and fragmentation of the media and the country. This Pew report confirms our prediction that Americans are divided by news sources, and that further fragments our country.

Companies need to find ways to talk with both sides. Not to be cynical about it but to be successful, marketing functions will need to be able to tell their stories in two ways, to tailor the story to appeal to two different sets of news teams to reach people on both sides of the aisle.

That's not always easy to do, of course. But it does speak to developing customized pitches (as opposed to sending out a single generic pitch) to the media. It takes more time but could expand coverage of your story.

More on the Death of Retail

The economy may chugging along but the retail sector is falling behind.

Way behind. 

As of April, 2019 has seen more store closings (or announcements of store closings) than all of 2018. According to Coresight Research as reported in the New York Times, there have already been 5,994 store closings by April, exceeding the 5,854 stores that closed in all of 2018. The good news: we still have a ways to go to reach 2017's record of store closings of more than 8,000.

There is one bright spot: the number of discount or dollar stores is booming because they are less susceptible than other retailers to e-commerce. (On a recent college tour in upstate New York, one of our team members saw plenty of dollar stores in some of the more rural areas.) 

But total store openings are stalled. There have been 2,641 store openings announced compared with 3,239 openings last year.

As an agency, we don't handle retail clients -- although the head of the agency spent several years supporting a provider of retail technology -- so you may wonder why we're so focused on retail.

We think it's the canary of the economy. There's clearly a shift in how people shop and purchase, and often it's away from bricks-and-mortar stores even as once web-only retailers like Amazon or Warby Parker now open retail locations.

But the trend seems to be more store closings, which leads to shrinking local ad revenues (because shuttered retailers don't take out ads to promote sales), which hurts journalism. In rural area, there's been a decline in local news coverage, according to the Pew Research Center. That's a real problem because that kind of local coverage is unlikely to return.

Behind the somewhat self-interest in the state of journalism, shuttered retail locations means fewer people working, and a potentially emptying out of main street stores and nearby malls. You can see the negative impact even in places like Manhattan's SoHo district, and it makes a difference, not only affecting real estate but communities beyond. A Bloomberg Businessweek article a while back depicted the problems faced by some towns in the UK, where retailers had left, which meant residents had to travel twice as far to buy things. Which meant that new residents are less likely to move there.  And that could cause a further spiraling effect.

None of which is good.

We don't have a solution, and we're not suggesting drastic measures to curtail Amazon and others' market power.

We just think it's an important issue, and one we've been regularly mentioning in this blog for the past several years. We also discuss other topics that impact journalism and PR. 

John Oliver Validates Our Prediction about Robocalls

Back in Feb., we published a blog, 4 New Predictions + 17 Ongoing Trends for 2019 that identified robocalls as "an issue everyone can support. We all get too many robocalls, whether on our cell phones or land lines."

A month later, in March, John Oliver caught up with our prediction.

In fact, he described the situation this way:

"Everybody is annoyed by robocalls. Hatred of them might be the only thing that everyone in American agrees on now."

He then goes into greater detail about why robocalls have gotten more prevalent. And then leads to a hilarious partial solution...at least to get the FCC's attention to the matter so that the agency puts in place solutions to address the robocall problem.

Enjoy!

Bloomberg Businessweek Says To Reduce Loneliness And Anxiety, Throw A Party

Screen addiction is a real thing, and is something that leads to anxiety and loneliness, and is something we've been writing about for several years now.

We've talked about living in an age of anxiety, and that's not diminishing, unfortunately.

We've recommended that when appropriate, companies should consider emphasizing how they can help reduce stress. (Even B2B companies can consider talking about how they help reduce stress for decision makers.) 

We've also noted the rise of mindfulness and apps to help guide people -- last week, three different people urged us to download the same mindfulness app, and it seemed like a cult. (We tried it but had difficulty with it, and kept urging the narrator to speed things up, feeling like the 10-minute session was taking too long. Clearly we've got work to do.)

Meanwhile, Bloomberg Businessweek has a suggestion: "The World Depends on You Throwing a Party. More connected than ever, we are also lonelier than before. The case for being a host." Key quote from the article:

At the very least, let's agree: The more time we spend with our devices, the more time we need with actual human beings."

Interesting, the article notes, retailers and real estate developers are commissioning designs that turn places into gathering places. For retailers, that's an advantage over online retailers. For developers of commercial buildings, offering "lots of greenery, soft seating and even carefully chosen accents and music," are succeeding in "inviting tenants and guests to interact."

So Bloomberg Businessweek is validating our prediction. But in the interest in helping reduce our readers' stress, we're going to keep this blog short so that you can turn off your device, and start interacting with real humans.

Have fun!

BuzzFeed, Gannett, HuffPo All (Unfortunately) Validate Our Prediction About Media Layoffs

In our blog from Dec. 19, 2018, "4 Additional Media Trends for 2019: including 'News Fatigue,'" we noted, "Digital media isn't the sure thing it was once thought to be, despite the lack of traditional media's baggage (like lack of printing presses)."

Specifically, we predicted:

The incredible shrinking newsroom. A decade ago, most newsrooms used to employ more reporters to cover the news, and the amount of pages that newspapers and magazines had to fill was larger. Today, news reporters have to cover more news with fewer resources and less space. Locally, at the Boston Business Journal, a terrific weekly, staff reporters typically file four or so stories a day, may have a weekly newsletter they produce and then must write a longer article for the weekly printed edition. Radio reporters now also have to write up a print story for the website in addition to producing their stories for the radio. All of this is to say that there are fewer reporters and they have to produce much more. This makes it challenging for them to take meetings, cultivate sources, uncover stories that need to be told. According to the UNC School of Media and Journalism's Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, the result of all this is that "Many newspapers have become ghosts of their former selves, both in terms of the quality and quantity of their editorial content and the reach of their readership."

Unfortunately, that prediction was validated by Axios in January: "More than 1,000 media jobs lost in one day." Many of those jobs cuts were handed down by BuzzFeed, which eliminated 250 jobs; Gannett, which cut more than 20 jobs; and Huffington Post, a division of Verizon. Overall, Verizon Media cut 800 jobs, approx. 7 percent of its global workforce. Axios also noted job losses at Vox and Refinery29, two digital-only media sites.

According to Axios, the shrinking newsroom "exists at the local, national and global levels, and across digital, print and television operations." For another article about the problems of newsrooms, check out AdWeek's "Layoffs Likely to Continue in This ‘Wrenching’ Period for Media Industry."

Axios also sees the impact on "the cheap sales of websites that had raised tons of money, like Mic.com and Mashable.

Those two sites are still producing interesting, good journalism but their troubles may be self-fulfilling. In conversations this past week, we were asked about getting into Wired, the Times, Wall St. Journal and TechCrunch by several new and prospective clients. But no one asked about Mashable -- which would have been on that list two years ago.

We're not trying to throw shade at Mashable; again, we're fans just as we're fans of Re/code.

Our point is this: good, credible journalism is only one factor you need to have a successful news organization.

There are a number of variables news organizations need to have a profitable, sustaining business model. You need to figure out the costs and resources (editors, reporters, tech people and infrastructure to deliver the news) and how to pay for that (paywall, phased paywall or no paywall; subscriptions, advertising, native ads and clickbait, sponsorships and underwriters for nonprofit outlets.

Unfortunately, while there are many news sites and tech news sites, very few have made it work. Which means that we expect the newsroom to continue to shrink. And we wish we weren't right about this.

We certainly don't have an answer to the business problems plaguing the news sector. But do you? Let us know if you have any suggestions.

4 Additional Media Trends for 2019: including "News Fatigue"

We live in a media-centric world. And by "we," we certainly mean Birnbach Communications but we also mean Americans. That's true even as:

• Traditional media has been facing a tough time because their business models have been failing, despite a significant uptick in the demand for news.
• Digital media isn't the sure thing it was once thought to be, despite the lack of traditional media's baggage (like lack of printing presses).
• Local media outlets have been shutting down, despite the common wisdom that hyperlocal was a solution.
• People aren't reading newspaper content on paper (but on screens) or watching TV shows on TV (but on screens).

Last week, we issued our top five media trends that included: the rise of streaming content; the age of mass media is dead; the broken business model and the rise of "news deserts"; social media under scrutiny; and more apps will try to fight/block fake news.

But we have more -- yes, more -- media predictions. Keep in mind that some of these are based on predictions we made for 2018 but it's important to note that we believe this trends will continue, which is why they didn't make our top 5 but why we're included them here:

1.  The shorter/faster news cycle is distracting Americans and causing news fatigue. We're suffering from news fatigue -- overwhelmed by news notifications on our phones that seems to buzz every hour. There’s never enough time to process significant news before we’re buzzed by the next alert (that may not be relevant). News is so pervasive it overtakes previously non-politicized events like sporting events, entertainment industry award ceremonies, family holiday meals, etc. That buzz is so addictive that people actively check social media to get the latest shocking news. Even reporters who don’t cover politics flood their social media timelines with political news (regardless of their political beliefs), making it harder to get their attention when pitching them. The 24/7 distraction also makes it harder for people to pay attention to your story – so it may take more touchpoints to break through the clutter.
2. The incredible shrinking newsroom. A decade ago, most newsrooms used to employ more reporters to cover the news, and the amount of pages that newspapers and magazines had to fill was larger. Today, news reporters have to cover more news with fewer resources and less space. Locally, at the Boston Business Journal, a terrific weekly, staff reporters typically file four or so stories a day, may have a weekly newsletter they produce and then must write a longer article for the weekly printed edition. Radio reporters now also have to write up a print story for the website in addition to producing their stories for the radio. All of this is to say that there are fewer reporters and they have to produce much more. This makes it challenging for them to take meetings, cultivate sources, uncover stories that need to be told. According to the UNC School of Media and Journalism's Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, the result of all this is that "Many newspapers have become ghosts of their former selves, both in terms of the quality and quantity of their editorial content and the reach of their readership." (See credibility issues, below.)
3. The credibility of news media is under attack. There is at least one area of commonality between liberals and conservatives: each group has key media it favors (due to confirmation bias, i.e., their echo chamber) and those outlets whose reports they disagree with and don't believe. Americans increasingly hate either Fox or CNN; the New York Times or Wall St. Journal, for example. With Trump and others calling articles they don't like "Fake News" or "the enemy of the people," and people on the other side pointing to Hannity (who had said he wouldn't campaign for Trump but then came out on stage at Trump's last rally before the midterms), etc., the problem is that the credibility of journalist and media outlets across the spectrum is now being questioned.  That's a real problem for PR functions and agencies who work with reporters, editors and producers to tell their clients' stories. If there are those who disbelieve the New York Times or Wall St. Journal, will they believe your organization's news in those or other outlets? Seems doubtful. 
4. The war on screen time. There will be greater acknowledgment that we’re all on screens too much throughout the day. It’s a problem for everyone, not just adults. We expect more people – suffering from news fatigue, will turn off notifications on their phones so they don’t get interrupted/distracted as much. And somewhat ironically, there will be apps, like Apple’s "Screen Time" and Google’s "Family Link," a parental controls app, that will help you manage your screen addictions.

We've previously mentioned news fatigue in posts about living in the "Age of Anxiety" and are including it in our 2019 set of predictions because we think both will continue (we're not out of the anxiety woods yet and were going to continue to suffer from news fatigue for some time to come.

We will post more of predictions over the next few weeks. Let us know what you think.

3 Wall St. Journal Articles Validate Our "Age of Anxiety" Prediction

Back in Nov. 2018, we blogged about a new prediction: "Age of Anxiety to Continue into 2019." 

The factors leading to the Age of Anxiety include:

1. What can seem like a continuous cycle of breaking news. Each hour we got another notification on our phones about another piece of news. The notifications can feel like they're hitting so often that we don't have time to process what happened an hour ago, leaving us feeling unsettled.
2. The continued proliferation of fake news, by which we mean disinformation -- intentionally false news spread deliberately (not merely news that one politician or another disagrees with) -- is succeeding in creating an atmosphere of distrust of news, politicians, institutions and each other.
3. The spread of misinformation -- wrong or incorrect information that is spread but not necessarily with the intent to deceive -- on social media is polarizing and causes distrust, which leads to anxiety. Social media also spreads anger as people inside one bubble get increasingly angry at people in another bubble.
4. Uncertainty about the economy, the future of healthcare (including key features people like: keeping kids on parents' policies until age 26 and coverage for people with pre-existing conditions), etc. leave people anxious.

There are other factors but for this blog, the key point we also made in that prediction is:

Consumers are looking for less stress, and we expect articles about unplugging and de-stressing. We also expect that companies that can position their products or services as helping to reduce stress, will see those messages resonate with consumers (even if that approach is not necessarily newsworthy on its own, i.e., it might not generate media coverage even as that approach could be effective). 

We are advising our clients to look at how they can help reduce stress and anxiety through their products and services. 

Meanwhile, here are three Wall St. Journal articles that appeared yesterday and today that validate our prediction:

1. Inner Peace Is a Booming Business though the columnist adds a cynical perspective: "Voices calling you to ‘find your escape’ are likely seeking a buck like everyone else." We think cynical plays won't work but the headline affirms our prediction.
2. The Battle to Control Your Mindfulness: A pair of apps preach relaxation to millions of customers -- but the competition between them is anything but Zen.
3. The Benefits (and Risks) of the Mental-Health Day. More workplaces are allowing time off for employees facing stress, anxiety or depression, but not all bosses are understanding of their workers’ needs.

Mindfulness has been getting increasing play over the past few years, and we expect that to continue in 2019.

Please note: we realize that by pointing out that we're living in the Age of Anxiety, we're not necessarily making people less anxious. But we think it is important to understand the moods and trends. 

Please also note: When we say "validated," we don't mean that the Wall St. Journal saw our prediction and said, "Yes, those folks at Birnbach Communications are correct." We mean that we made the prediction, and then the Wall St. Journal wrote about articles that touched on a particular trend, proving we were right in making our prediction.

Birnbach Communications Issues Five Media Predictions for 2019

For the 17th year, here are our top media, social media and marketing predictions for 2019. It is a disruptive time for the media, bringing both chaos and opportunities.

Without further ado, here are five of the agency’s top 5 media trends for 2019:

1.      The growing number of streaming content services make consumers harder to reach. The number of people who stream content as well as the number of apps providing on-demand content is rapidly growing. Already 61 percent of Americans, age 18 to 29, regularly watch or listen to what they want, where and when they want it, according to Pew Research. Apps for CBS, TBS, NBC and ABC are ad supported – only by national brands – but more dominant services including Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Go, Hulu Plus, YouTube Red, and Spotify Premium are ad-free, putting their subscribers out of reach for marketers.

2.      The age of the mass media is mostly over. It’s a niche world now. Partly that’s because marketers can now reach very specific audiences, along with nanoinfluencers, since online media can tailor content by gender, age, interest, political persuasion, etc. (Unfortunately, print media also is increasingly becoming niche, due to an ongoing reduction of the number of pages and size of their news staff combined with an increase in subscription rate.) In 2019, it’s complicated and expensive to reach a broad audience so marketers need to consider targeting key audiences through niche media.

3.      The broken business model for news will cause continued problems in 2019, including an increase in “news deserts.” It’s not only print media that will struggle in 2019, online media will struggle, too. The reason: online subscription fees are lower than print subscriptions and online ads generate less money that print ads (even though online ads provide much more useable data). We expect, unfortunately, more layoffs, smaller printer runs, smaller and less frequent issues – both online and in print. In 2019, we're going to see a growing number of "news deserts," defined by the UNC School of Media and Journalism's Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, as "a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level." News deserts are a problem because it means communities aren’t getting critical information related to civic life, government services, etc.

4.      Social media will continue to undergo scrutiny and it won’t look good. And despite that, people still won’t quit Facebook, Twitter, etc. amid growing concerns about privacy and disinformation campaigns. We expect Congress and the EU, the UK and other governments to look to regulate social media. But we also expect that most won’t be able to regulate effectively because most politicians don’t have a firm grasp of how social media works. There will be more hearings but not many solutions because it’s a complex issue that algorithms alone can’t solve.

5.      More apps will try to combat fake news. Already there are at least a dozen initiatives – with names like The Trust Project, News Integrity Initiative NewsGuard, The Journalism Trust Initiative, Accountability Journalism Program, Trusting News, Trust & News Initiative and the oddly named Media Manipulation Initiative. Many are funded and staffed by journalists and also use algorithms to detect fake news. We hope they succeed but suspect they’ll be as successful as Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter have been to fight hate speech -- which is to say: not very effective but better than nothing. (A.I. will get a lot of attention but trust in algorithm will decline.) In the meantime, Axios’s Jim VandHei offered some suggestions: Stop using the term – it doesn’t help. And people should “Quit sharing stories without vetting them.” (We don’t think that will happen, either.)

In addition to these media predictions, we will roll out additional trends focusing on technology, fintech, artificial intelligence, retailapoclypse, the labor shortage and gig economy, and other topics here on our blog at blog.birnbachcom.com.

Please let us know what you like or disagree with. We'd love to hear from you. As usual, next November, we will evaluate how we did with this year's predictions.

Wall St. Journal Validates Our "Business Model as Innovation" Predictions

When we recently evaluated our predictions for 2018, we gave ourselves a C for our prediction that said, "Innovation often will come via business models" (part of our "Key Predictions for Trends in 2018, Part II). 

Our basis for that grade was:  

We expected, for example, that upscale restaurants with a delivery-only business model (relying on mobile-ordering apps) would be a bigger trend than it turned out to be. There was some coverage of that sort of innovation – not so much of technology but in the use of technology – but it wasn’t a top story. 

However, in a Nov. 2, 2018 Wall St. Journal column that was published after we posted our grade, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a regular contributor who formerly worked at IBM and served as a strategic advisor for Citigroup, HBO and Mastercard, actually supported our prediction about the importance of business models. The column makes the case that "It’s All About Business Model Innovation, not New Technology. New technology, no matter how transformative, is not enough to propel a business into the future." (In the interest of disclosure, I worked with Irving back in the days when IBM was a client at a former agency.)

According to his article,

Surveys show that most executives agree, and in fact, many believe that business model innovation is even more important to their company’s success than product or service innovation. 

Another key quote further validates the point we made in our initial prediction:

New technology alone, no matter how transformative, is not enough to propel a business into the future. Nor, for that matter, can past success justify existing business models. The business model wrapped around the technology is the key to its success or failure, argues Mr. Johnson, senior partner at Innosight, the strategy consulting firm he cofounded with Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. 

Irving also outlines four key attributes of a successful business model:

1. Customer value proposition.
2. Profit formula.
3. Key resources.
4. Key processes.

He also identifies how tech can enable business models such as through

1. e-Commerce. (This was something that Irving pioneered at IBM.)
2. Digital platforms.
3. Models that turn data into assets.
4. Automation-enabled services.

You should check out his article to learn more and get more details on the eight bullet points. It's worth reading.

And, for us, while we won't go back in an improve our grade for this prediction, it's nice to get validation. 

New Prediction: Age of Anxiety to Continue into 2019

We generally wait until all predictions are ready (we predict the list will be ready by early December) but we want to discuss a trend we identified for 2018 that we feel will be a key trend in 2019 and beyond.

Until about mid-2016, we didn't truly understand the apparent (because there's no proven source for it) ancient Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.

Now, of course, we live in extremely interesting times. 

We've said it before: the news cycle is broken. Once, a major news stories would break and that would be the top story for the next few days, as the country would come to terms with whatever the event/incident was.

Today, major news breaks hourly. We learn about it by notifications on our phones. By what's trending on social media. And then that story is replaced by another story. With no time to process or assess the implications.

Yesterday, for instance, we had five major news stories:

1. The follow-up from the midterms and sorting out winners, losers, races-to-close-to-be-called and lessons.
2. Sessions resignation/firing as AG in an undated memo and the naming of an unconfirmed-by-the-Senate acting AG and the implications for the Mueller investigation.
3. Trump's combative press conference, including the White House's withdrawing of CNN's Jim Acosta press pass and access, along with implications for free speech and the freedom of the press.
4. The tragic shooting last night in Thousands Oakes that left 12 dead including the shooter and a sheriff's deputy, and trying to ascertain the shooter's motives.

Today, there's more news about the latest shooting and Ruth Bader Ginsburg's fall -- and that was before 11am.

The chaos of our current politics and the impact on our society of a constant stream of news is having an affect on Americans. 

We're seeing news fatigue because we're all overwhelmed by trying to stay on top of the news. (There was a front-page New York Times article,"The Man Who Knew Too Little, The most ignorant man in America knows that Donald Trump is president — but that’s about it. Living a liberal fantasy is complicated," about an Ohio man with a self-imposed news blackout since Trump won the 2016 election; and he seems happier than the rest of us. 

We think the age of anxiety will continue into 2019 and throughout Trump's administration because of his governing style. And that this is not a Democrat or Republican thing. 

The age of anxiety is bipartisan (and we think it will continue past his time in office, unfortunately).

Technology definitely abets our anxiety levels because many of us are now trained to click on the latest notifications. Some of which isn't really news, like the latest celebrity insult or feud, which is designed to make one side or another get upset. 

Social media plays a key role because -- while politics was once something people were told not to discuss (along with salary/wealth/money and religion) -- that's no longer true. People feel the need to express themselves (as we are doing now, so we're part of the problem, too) on social media or in blogs about their perspectives.

And there's great commonality, actually, across political believes, and that is this: we all believe the other side is stupid, short sighted, biased, closed minded, etc. Take your pick (and there's more, we realize). Social media fuels the spread of anger. We read something that we don't like, and then feel compelled to not give the other person the benefit of the doubt -- like their post was intemperate, poorly worded, doesn't really reflect their thinking -- and then post something in opposition; then the other person sees our response, and feels that it is stupid, hateful, condescending, out of touch -- pick your choice -- and posts a snide comment to our snarky post. And so it continues.

We've seen angry, bitter comments to tweets from @RealDonaldTrump and @PressSec as well as to @JakeTapper, @PeterBakerNYT and @Acosta and many others in between. Many are truly nasty and unpleasant, no matter which side you're on. What's worse: you can't always tell what's being posted by real people and what's coming from trolls. (And we're trying to not to provide false equivalencies here.)

The point is this: after the midterms, with a divided congress, the likelihood of continuous dysfunction and internecine battles across the aisles in the Senate and the House, threats of investigations into White House activities and counterthreats of a "warlike posture" against Democrats and retaliations -- we expect that the age of anxiety will continue well past 2019.

The news cycle will continue to hit many times a day; the stories will be supplanted by the next breaking news to grab our attention, and so on. And that social media will continue to fuel anger and incivility so that neither side can talk to the other. The fact that few are able to talk or listen to people with opposing views -- whether in real life or, especially, on social media -- is a real problem that adds to the distrust and fuels anxiety for this other reason: we can't even agree on the same set facts. Was a video that the press secretary posted doctored or not is a question that fuels what the tech industry used to call FUD: fear, uncertainty and doubt. And this is true whether you believe she did just as much as it does for those who believe she did not.

Knowing that we're living in interesting times -- aka, the age of anxiety -- is important for marketing and PR functions because we are dealing with a polarized society, where withdrawing advertising from controversial media may spark a counter boycott/protest. (We saw that happen in starting 2017 and continuing in 2018 and beyond, which was another prediction we made.) Consumers are looking for less stress, and we expect articles about unplugging and de-stressing. We also expect that companies that can position their products or services as helping to reduce stress, will see those messages resonate with consumers (even if that approach is not necessarily newsworthy on its own, i.e., it might not generate media coverage even as that approach could be effective). 

At the same time, we think consumers will look to purchase from corporations that share their values -- so it will be important to figure out what your values are and how to navigate an increasingly polarized consumer base. We do expect a growing chorus of people asking for more civility in public and online communications.

In the next several weeks, we will post other predictions, hopefully some of those will be more upbeat.

In the meantime, let us know what you think about this. (We just as that you be civil, whether you agree or disagree.)