Ongoing Trends for 2018

Not all significant trends next year will be new ones.  We always look at ongoing trends that will continue to impact the media, marketing and tech worlds.

The first 14 of the 18 trends listed below include an explanatory sentence. The final four are, we feel, self-explanatory.

1.  The news cycle will continue to speed up. There were days in which there was major news several times a day. We expect that to continue in 2018 – and that when there’s a slow news day – let’s say only one big news story – consumers of news anxiously click on refresh, thinking they must be missing some additional news. Regardless of political views, people, including late-night comedians are finding this exhausting.

2.   2018 will be tough for traditional and online media. We hate writing this but the layoffs and shutdowns affecting traditional print (Boston Herald) and cool online outlets (BuzzFeed) that occurred the last two months of 2017 will continue in 2018. Despite living in a time when staying on top of the news (throughout the day) has never been more important, with more people than ever following hourly developments, fewer people seem to want to pay for the news. This is true also for hyperlocal media (like DNAInfo and Gothamist, both shutdown), which for a time was considered to be an exception since people seemed to favor local news about their communities that weren’t getting covered by regional or national media. Great reporting takes lots of effort and resources (as does debunking fake news, as the Washington Post showed us when it reported on a failed attempt to offer a false narrative by the Veracity Project). The problem for traditional and online news sources is, increasingly, Americans turn to social media for news. So traditional and even online media need to develop a new advertising and subscription business model. So far, great journalism is helping the New York Times and Washington Post attract and retain subscribers. But it must be frustrating for them to see hat purveyors of true “fake news” (those that are not based on facts and don’t correct mistakes once they learn of them) can generate tens of thousands of page views when real, serious news doesn’t get clicked.  Another aspect that will affect traditional and online media will be if either or both of the AT&T-Time Warner and Sinclair Broadcasting-Tribune Media deals go through.

3.  Fake news won’t fade in 2018. It’s still easier and more lucrative to generate totally fake news than it is to produce real, fact-based news. Some players are doing this for financial gain and others for a different, more sinister reason, and we expect both to continue in 2018. If Facebook, Google and Twitter all have trouble dealing with the fake news scourge, how will regulations and Congress be able to solve what the social media giants can’t? (For more on this, check out "Why the Fact-Checking at FB Needs to Be Checked: Some measures may not work all that well.") 

4.  Cord cutting will continue but still won't save money: Streaming will continue to be popular but consumers will at some point realize they are not saving money. There will be more streaming services, making it complicated to watch what you want on your TV (remember those?) and you’ll still have to open different apps to find the movie or TV show you want to watch.

5.  Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality still won’t be everywhere. Both VR and AR are making progress but neither is there yet.

6.  IoT will continue to be victim to cyberattacks. We think there will be more IoT cyberattacks, as IoT and Smart Homes go mainstream. Perhaps the only advantage of having to get up and walk over to a light switch is that hackers can’t hack your home.

7.  The future is still looking cloudy. This may be the one tech trend that has yet to experience a backlash.

8.  Driverless cars attract significant coverage. There’s lots of interest in driverless cars because driving is such a part of the American persona. While there’s been great momentum forward, we’re also seeing new challenges that need to be addressed: insurance-related, business model, infrastructure, and tech issues. Do you need Uber and Lyft if you can own or rent a driverless car? If you can rent, why do you need to buy a car? If Uber and Lyft deploy driverless cars, what happens to their former drivers? Meanwhile, we’re also seeing a push for electric cars; China announced plans to eliminate all new combustion cars and trucks by 2030 so we expect to see the rest of the world to follow, which one challenge being ensuring there are enough charging stations.

9.  There's never enough cybersecurity/privacy. There’s still not enough of either. The European Union has proposed the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to strengthen and unify data protection for individuals within the EU but it also will affect companies outside the EU. So expect that U.S. companies will need to look at and evaluate how to meet GDPR.

10. NFL ratings will continue to decline. We don’t know whether it’s because of too much football (we’ve never liked Thursday night games) or because of severe injuries or because of the protests but we expect this to continue.

11. Corporate boycotts & consumer boycotts will continue. These are boycotts by companies in order to demonstrate distance from controversial programs and personalities. We also expect boycotts of companies that are boycotting those controversial people and programs.

12. Drug pricing will continue to get a lot of attention. But there won’t be an easy solution so don’t expect much except outrage.

13. Wearable tech will still not be as mainstream as people in the industry were hoping. But wearable will make quiet inroads so that before you know it (probably not in 2018, though), lots of things will have built-in technology.

14. STEM will continue to be important. With a looming labor shortage (in some fields), businesses are looking for employees with a firm grasp of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). We think funding for STEM will continue to keep U.S. businesses competitive.

15.   3-D content, 3-D TV and 3-D printers will still not be as popular as they are cool.

16.   Artisanal will still be a hot concept.

17.  e-Wallets still will gain traction in 2018 but mostly for Millennials as opposed to their parents.

18.  Content management remains king.  

Recap of Our Predictions for 2017, Part II

We identified 16 trends for 2017, and graded the first 5 here. Here's how we did on the second set.

1.      2017 will be a tough year for traditional media. 

Again, unfortunately, we got this right. We identified several key variables – including the ascent of fake news, which has damaged traditional media’s most important value: credibility. We’ve seen layoffs and buyouts at the top of the food chain (i.e., New York Times, Wall St. Journal) and among the cool kids (Mic), including complete shutdowns (Gothamist, DNAInfo). In prior years, we thought local news would do fine because there’s been a big interest in hyperlocal; with the demise of Gothamist and DNAInfo, both owned by billionaires for whom the budgets were rounding errors, we now think local media needs to find new ways to make money.

Grade: B+

2.      Social media addiction becomes recognized as a thing.

There are, of course, quizzes you can take to see if you are addicted, from reliable sources like Psychology Today. It’s definitely a thing, and we really don’t know anyone not afflicted.

Grade: A

3.      Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality still won’t be everywhere.

Last year, we said, “We don’t think VR or AR like the faddish Pokemon Go will be ubiquitous yet in 2017” because of problems like clunky VR headsets and a lack of compelling VR and AR content to encourage people they need to have it. At its Biennial this spring, NYC’s Whitney Museum offered a VR exhibit entitled “Real Violence” but according to the New Yorker, “Early reviews called the work disturbing, horrifying, repellent, nausea- and P.T.S.D.-inducing, but also a gratuitous trick, tin-eared and cheap.” So not yet ready for prime time, we think.

Grade: A

4.      Expect a cloudier 2017. 

This is an easy one. This is ongoing tech trend will continue beyond 2018.

Grade: A

5.      Artificial intelligence will continue to surge. 

AI became a huge story in 2017. We said, “we expect to see AI built into all sorts of consumer and B2B environments – and to be featured in more Hollywood movies and TV shows.” If anything, AI and robotics became one of the biggest tech trends of the year, and we see that continuing in 2018 and beyond.

Grade: A+

6.      Drones still won’t take off. 

We said, “Consumer drones look like fun – for a couple of hours. We think the real market will be B2B, not just for deliveries (which we think is still a couple of years off).” We believe we were right about both sides of that.

Grade: A

7.      Globalization will be a hot topic. 

Globalization was discussed in in 2017 but mostly in terms of tariffs and trade deals, nativism and globalists (which some felt is a bad word). But it was not a major topic by itself in 2017. That said, we expect trade deals to be more of a topic in 2018.

Grade: B

8.      Interest in voice speakers will turn up.

Last year, New York Times tech columnist Farhad Manjoo predicted gadgets were dead, and we said he was wrong, pointing to interactive speakers (in our original piece we called them “voice speakers, not sure why) like Alexa and Google’s Home as bright spots in the tech world. We were right.

The interactive speakers incorporate AI to serve as virtual assistants, and AI, along with IoT and smart appliance connectivity, will likely go mainstream in 2018. If anything, we underplayed how significant this trend is; for consumer tech reviewers, interactive speakers are now a must-review gadget.

Grade: A+

9.      Boycotts Will Be Big Trend in 2017 – but by big brands and there could be implications for their marketing functions.

We think we were right to predict that boycotts would be a trend in 2017 – boycotts by corporations not against them. We said, “the big brands (will) seek to avoid controversy so they are trying to avoid placing ads on or working with sites that don't resonate with their consumers.” This certainly came into play this year – and is significant in an increasingly polarized society that some things are not acceptable. This will continue into 2018.

Grade: B

10.   The death of retail.

This was a later addition to our initial set of trends but we think the Amazonification of retail is a real thing – destroying traditional retail. Amazon’s retail power continues to grow, and the impact both on how we shop, our expectations for shopping and the negative impact on the real estate market (especially in small communities) and on the decreasing number of retail jobs, is substantial and has long-term implications that no one is discussing. And yes, we used the word, “Amazonificatin.” We feel this is an extremely important story that will continue to play out in 2018.

Grade: A+

11.   Expect to see more about "Universal Basic Income."

According to the New York Times, "The basic idea behind it (Universal Basic Income) is that handing out unconditional cash to all citizens, employed or not, would help reduce poverty and inequality, and increase individual liberty." As the tax reform bill works its way through Congress, this may be a topic that gets more attention. So far, we think we overstated this topic.

Grade: C

Let us know if you agree or disagree. We have one more set of grades coming up.

Why Advertising Boycotts Are Being Conducted By Corporations

Last week we made a prediction about boycotts with a difference -- those conducted by big brands by withholding their ads that support now-controversial media outlets.

This weekend (after we made our prediction), the New York Times wrote about Fox News' top-rated personality, Bill O'Reilly, host of the $100 million-generating "The O'Reilly Factor," in an article with the headline, "Bill O'Reilly Thrives at Fox News, Even as Harassment Settlements Add Up." He's been sued multiple times and has paid out more than $13 million to settle cases -- and there are new allegations him.

Although the Times reports that O'Reilly "denies the claims have merit," this time something's different because advertisers are pulling their ads from "The O'Reilly Factor," according to a Times article, "Fox Losing More Advertisers After Sexual Harassment Claims Against O’Reilly." As of Wednesday, nearly three dozen companies had decided to pull their ads.

According to HuffPost, what's going on this time is:

The O’Reilly boycott seems to have accelerated more quickly, both in terms of advertisers taking the initiative ― some announcing their decisions on social media ― and in terms of sustained coverage online, which wasn’t as much of a factor in 2009, much less 2004. 

Here's another article about the situation: "Advertisers want their Google ads off offensive content" (that appeared in the Boston Globe courtesy of the New York Times).

Social media is playing a role, allowing people to vent about controversies that a decade ago might not have lasted past the initial news cycle. Now, the news covers the outrage -- that becomes the news. 

But that's not the only reason. 

We've had pervasive social media for the last five years but what we think is happening may be that Americans on all sides are already upset (again, this is across the political spectrum) and now more easily and quickly express their outrage. And that's something brands have to take seriously.

So we think top brands will be more responsive to avoid controversies that don't play well to their customers. (Talking to you, Pepsi and Kendall Jenner.) In some ways, these are preemptive boycotts: brands boycott to avoid contact or relationships that will anger their customers so as to prevent a consumer boycott. 

There will be some brands that will decide to take on the controversy, much the way some small companies take a risk by purchasing an ad during the Super Bowl. But we do expect these preemptive boycotts to continue.

Boycotts Will Be Big Trend in 2017 -- but by big brands and there could be implications for their marketing functions

It's still early in the year so we're going to issue some additional trends for 2017.


We now think that boycotts will be a big media trend in terms of coverage.

And actually, we're not even talking directly consumer boycotts.
We're actually talking about corporate boycotts.

We think there will be more emphasis over the next few years on how to help brands better manage their online programs. It remains to be seen what impact that will have on public relations.


But we're not talking about consumer boycotts, from the left and the right because we're not interested in taking a political perspective on this.

Instead, the boycotts we're talking about here are by big brands not against big brands.

The big brands seek to avoid controversy so they are trying to avoid placing ads on or working with sites that don't resonate with their consumers.

For example, we see concerns about controversial content on YouTube, porn content on Snapchat that are testing advertisers' tolerance for risk as well as concerns about advertising on potential fake news sites or politically biased sites.

One challenge for big brands is that the automated nature of online advertising known as programmatic advertising has made it easier and more efficient to get their ads out there. At the same time, the programmatic aspect makes it more difficult to control where ads appear. So a brand may have decided to not place ads on what it deems to be a questionable site but the way online advertising works, an ad may be placed ad on that site anyway. 

This is the aspect that interests us.

These big brands won't stop advertising but until there is a new tech solution combined with a business model that provides more control over where online ads appear, companies may want to consider changing the mix of their marketing activities since other marketing disciplines may be able to get the messages out without associating with the media brands that companies seek to avoid.

Further, PR and social media may be better positioned to help brands respond to concerns from their customers about ads placed on questionable sites.

While the tools don't exist quite yet to manage ads to the degree that big brands want, we expect that big brands will continue to avoid advertising on questionable sites, and will continue to need to communicate the core values that matter most to them (while avoiding online sites that do not mesh with those values). We expect the trend of big brands to boycott to continue.