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!

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. 

Getting Ready for Our Annual Trend Report: a look back at 2020

It's soon going to be one of our favorite times of the year -- and we don't mean Thanksgiving, though that's our favorite holiday.

We're getting ready for our predictions for 2021.

But before we do, we're going prepare our recap for how we did in 2020.

The short answer: Not good. 

If you look at the top stories of the year.

We'll do a fuller recap of the our predictions versus the reality of 2021. We did get some trends correct -- like that more home exercise equipment will offer at-home streaming classes. But we didn't anticipate that Peloton would have a higher market cap than Ford. 

But more on 2020 trends after the election.