Additional Set of Predictions for 2020: A Baker's Dozen of Tech Trends

We realize our first set of trends for 2020, published Jan. 8, was a bit of a downer since it identified "Distrust of Big Tech and media fuels anxiety" and "the loss of local news coverage will continue, and will erode trust." (The third trend was neutral: "Streaming services will get a lot of media and consumer attention.")

Here's our second set — a baker's dozen — of trends and predictions for 2020, some of which are more upbeat. 

1. 5G and facial recognition will get lots of attention. 5G and AI have enormous potential as transformative technologies, and we will see lots of articles about how we’re losing the race against China. Among other things, 5G may improve the ability to protect against cyber threats — although, as the good guys improve their capabilities, so do the bad guys. And facial recognition is advancing and could be in more devices — but there's also a downside to it, including privacy and the fact that the technology has a problem recognizing some faces.
2. Artificial Intelligence will be in everything. AI has reached a tipping point and will be built in to many things that weren’t possible just a few years ago. For example, AI can help with drug development because AI can simulate how molecules in drugs will interact with the body. And AI in the fridge can detect spoiled forgotten foods, and notify you to throw it out and order more. 5G + AI can identify patterns before a factory machine or an airplane will likely breakdown. That said, we expect increased demands for regulating AI. 
3. AI will affect in-store retail.  In prior years, we’ve talked about the “Amazonification” or “retailpocalypse,” and we saw a lot of evidence of that in 2019. That certainly will continue in 2020. That said, we think that AI will change how stores stock shelves because they will have better customer intelligence about how customers shop and what they want. There are lots of people who like to shop in stores, and AI-optimized selection may give shoppers a reason to continue to be loyal to the in-store experience.
4. Software is the once and future king. Hardware and gadgets are always going to be important but it’s the software that will add new features that improve the things we already have. Like smart elevators in office buildings that can decide how to more efficiently route passengers based on floor requests. Or cars that look the same but now feature all sorts of sensors to improve safety or can drive themselves. The ability to code will continue to be important, and AI will continue to be in high demand.
5. Everything will be connected, and voice will be increasingly important way to get things done. This won’t happen all at once in 2020 but IoT-enabled appliances and devices will become more mainstream, and increasingly we will use voice, either indirectly through virtual assistants or directly to the device, to operate those devices, whether it’s our thermostats, lights, security system or what’s cooking in the toaster oven. Expect Amazon and Google to offer new capabilities with their own devices and to build those capabilities into devices built by other companies.
6. Drones will experience significant growth in B2B applications. As a consumer gadget, they seem like fun the first time you use them but then what do you do with them? Instead, drones will be used as a B2B tool for deliveries, maintenance, etc. As the get smaller and quieter, drones will appear in sports and arts events to bring us up close to the action in a way we could not participate in before.
7. Robots won’t take over in 2020 but will be more commonplace. While the market for consumer robots like vacuum cleaners will be strong, we feel that real growth in 2020 will be fueled by B2B applications that will drive pilot programs and purchases. We’re already seeing a slow-moving robot in a local supermarket (though we’re not entirely sure what it’s doing there.) We do expect to see growth especially in 2021 in robotics-related jobs such as data labelers (the people who label things so robots can identify them), AI scientists, even robot managers who make sure robots are working effectively.
8. From customer service to mental health and beyond, chatbots will be there to help us. We expect to see more AI-enabled chatbots to help run things more effectively. In the near future, chatbots will not only answer questions more effectively (rather than posting some links for further information based on the topic you enter to get more assistance) but can help you navigate websites so that you can place an order for train tickets, and in one place provide the details, and have the chatbots identify the optimum itinerary for you. Also chatbots may be preferred to humans because no small talk required and sometimes it’s just easier to interact with a faceless, impersonal (nonjudgmental) chatbot.
9. Robocalls won’t go away. The recently signed TRACED Act anti-robocall bill will increase fines and accelerate call-authentication technology but will likely only reduce — not eliminate — robocalls. The reason: robocalls work, especially with the elderly. And the people behind robocalls will continue to find ways to place robocalls until it becomes too expensive for them to do so.
10. The problem of data collection.  There may be two problems about which everyone can agree: 1) The torment of robocalls and 2) the problem of data collection that means everything we do — whether online or offline — is being monitored by someone, even if we don’t know by whom or what they are doing (or intend to do) with our data. Surveys have found that Americans don’t think the trade-off for convenience is always beneficial — especially since they feel a lack of control over their data. We think data collection and privacy are important issues but we’re not sure how much attention they’ll receive outside of data breaches, which, as an acute incident, will continue to generate media attention when (not if) they happen. 
11. More home exercise equipment will offer at-home streaming classes. This is part of a trend to offer screens on devices that didn’t have them before. We expect brands in addition to Peloton will offer streaming classes to get more out of exercycles, treadmills, rowing machines, etc.
12. The age of plant-based “meats” has gone mainstream. Now that a number of fast food chains offer plant-based meats, it’s time to acknowledge this trend as mainstream. We expect additional growth of materials grown in the lab, replacing faux fur, leather, cotton using recycled plastics. That said, we don't expect a lot of coverage about this since newspapers have already done comparisons of the different brands of plant-based hamburgers.
13. There will be a lot of media space allocated to covering outer space. Or the Space Race, Part II since we're living in an age of sequels. Technology is enabling startups to race to the moon to build a lunar economy, and we expect some of the technology to get coverage but the main story will be about the business models and investment opportunities. Meanwhile we also expect coverage about political and legal issues of space as well as articles about things that just a few years ago would have flown under the radar (we've really been trying not to make space puns) such as the growing awareness that too many satellites are causing a traffic jam in space. This space jam began to get recognition as a potential problem in space in 2019 but we think it will get more recognition in 2020. The risk of collisions among satellites is a problem.
    

We will roll out an additional of societal trends (as opposed to the above list of mostly tech trends) in the next week, along with a set of ongoing trends.

In the meantime, please let us know if you agree or disagree with any of the above trends.  

2019 Was A Tough Year for the Media: Nearly 8,000 lost their jobs. It will continue in 2020

Last year started off badly for US journalism, with more than 1,000 job loses by February. Unfortunately, that trend continued, with more than 7,800 layoffs by December, according to a Business Insider article.

That's a startling number.

For context, BI noted that "it's estimated that some 5,000 media jobs were cut from the market from 2014 to 2017." So nearly 50 percent more losses in one year than were lost in three years combined.

What's surprising is that the layoffs didn't hit only newspapers. (1 in 5 local newspapers have closed down since 2004.)

There were big loses in big-name online sites including BuzzFeed, Vice Media, Verizon Media, Bustle, Quartz, and more. For Verizon's media units, Yahoo, AOL and Huffpost, there had been two sets of layoffs in 2019, resulting in the loss of 830 media jobs. (This does not include 10,400 losses-by-byouts in other Verizon jobs.)

Gannett, which merged with GateHouse Media in December to become the largest newspaper publisher by circulation, cut 400 jobs at its newspapers around the country, including US Today. Entrepreneur laid off four editorial staffer, restructuring on digital offerings. Jet, Ebony and New York Magazine announced lay offs, too. For us, a big sentimental loss was that of Mad magazine, which announced it would stop publishing new content, affecting 10 staffers and hundreds of freelancers.

The Washington Post eliminated its free commuter paper, the Express , after 16 years, because it found that the young readers it was aiming for no longer picked up a free -- that's right, free -- edition as they hopped on the Metro. That's because they accessed news on their phones (something that hadn't been around when the Express was launched). That's not the only free commuter newspaper to fold. Metro Boston, another free commuter paper, suddenly shut down this month after 19 years, after its sister publications, Metro New York and Metro Philadelphia, were sold. Metro Boston had a circulation of 300,000 in 2005 but fell to about 50,000 in 2019, the Boston Business Journal reported. 

Sports Illustrated, which was licensed to The Maven, cut "nearly 40 staffers...(with) plans to replace some full-time positions with contract" writers. And there are serious concerns about quality of the product because contract freelancrs are required to write many more articles for far less money -- especially upsetting because SI has long had the highest standards in sports journalism.

There were also broadcast losses at NBC, ESPN, NPR, CNN, Disney (as the result of its acquisition of 21st Century Fox movie studio).

The Youngtown Vindicator ceased publishing around its 150th anniversary, the Cleveland Plain Dealer laid off 12 additional newsroom employees along with as many as 30 production jobs. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch announced 23 jobs axed, Dallas Morning News eliminated about 20 newsroom jobs and the New Orleans Times-Picayune laid off all its staffers after being acquired by the Advocate, a competing newspaper.

The concern about the loss of local news media is that it has implications for the communities in whcih they operate. For example, local news media tend to be more trusted that national media. Local media help support local organizations in the community, helping to provide a sense of community. And they keep the community informed about issues affecting them.

U.S. news media used to be able to count on advertising and subscription revenue to fund operations but the shift to online or app has reduced both revenue streams, but especially advertising revenue. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, there seems to be no sustainable business model that will help keep news outlets in business. We expect some uptick in revenue in battleground states, thanks to the presidential election but that won't last.

Which means: we expect more layoffs in 2020 and 2021. So we ask marketers to consider finding ways to support media.

Birnbach Communications Issues Top 3 Predictions for 2020

For the 18th 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 3 predictions for 2020:

1.   Distrust of Big Tech and media fuels anxiety. In a divided America, where even advertising decisions can cause Twitterstorms, companies need to find ways to be credible as well as relevant. There’s no simple solution for Big Tech like Apple, Amazon and Google regarding safeguards on the data they collect on all of us — part of surveillance capitalism, in which data is collected, correlated with behavior and monetized —  or for social media because there’s no clear or consistent definition of what constitutes misinformation or how to limit it without infringing on protected free speech. There’s also no easy solution for the media, where even the “facts” may be disputed. Unfortunately, deepfakes (AI-generated fake videos and other images) will make it harder to know what’s real. This will fuel feelings of anxiety, anger, exhaustion, and isolation, regardless of political perspective. We expect many Americans will look for solutions and companies that provide joy, comfort, assurance and reliability to bolster their sense of well-being and connection.

2.  The loss of local news coverage will continue, and will erode trust. More than one in five local papers have closed since 2004, according to the UNC School of Journalism and Media, while others have become hollowed out through layoffs. This is a real problem since local news outlets are often part of the fabric that holds communities together. According to “Losing the News: The Decimation of Local Journalism,” by PEN America, “The connection between local journalists and their communities is essential… Seventy-six percent of Americans report trusting their local TV news, and 73 percent report trusting their local newspapers; by contrast, 55 percent of Americans trust national network news and 59 percent trust national newspapers.” For marketers, fewer journalists and outlets makes it harder to reach customers, partners, investors and employers with their messages.

3.  Streaming services will get a lot of media and consumer attention. HBO Max and NBC’s Peacock will battle for attention and subscribers with Netflix, Hulu, Apple+, Disney+, Amazon Prime, and other streaming services in the “streaming wars.” But it’s not a zero-sum game; there’s room for a range of services that have different strategies in their content libraries, pricing and offerings. We do expect a certain amount of churn/volatility as people subscribe to binge a particular show and drop it till the next season begins. The growing number of these ad-free streaming content services will make it harder for marketers to reach a mass audience.

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

Does Google Interfere With Its Search Results? Check out this WSJ article

Google's search box has been designed to be minimalist but there's a lot going behind the scenes. The Wall St. Journal provided a compelling look at Google in an article entitled, "How Google Interferes with its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results." 

It's worth checking out the article on your own but here are some interesting tidbits:

• There were about 3,200 algorithm changes in 2018 but just 500 in 2010.
• The auto-complete feature -- when you start typing a term, and Google offers predictive search terms -- is different depending on the browser you use: Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo. In some cases, the differences are minor but it suggests that user demographics are different, and Google anticipates that.
• The Journal says that Google "does blacklist to remove certain sites or prevent others from surfacing in certain types of results. These moves are separate from those that block sites as required by US or foreign laws...or to demote spam sites."
• "Google employees and executives, including co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have disagreed on how much to intervene on search results and to what extent. Employees can push for revisions in specific search results, including on topics such as vaccinations and autism." 

Search is complicated and can be controversial. This article is worth reading in full to better understand Google.

Thoughts on Thought Leadership & 7 Elements for Successful Thought Leadership Campaigns

The press release is still a useful tool when you have news, like an acquisition, a new product, an event, etc. 

But with the decline of traditional media (meaning: smaller staffs and fewer print pages) combined with the ascendency of social media, companies must look beyond announcements to communicate who they are and what they stand for as part of their marketing and branding initiatives.

This article is designed to offer some perspectives on Thought Leadership based on extensive experience that includes helping clients generate new business and led to acquisitions in excess of a quarter of a billion dollars.

What is Thought Leadership?

Thought Leadership is a form of content marketing designed to establish a company's senior executives as having interesting insights and perspectives on issues important to customers. Thought Leadership topics must be timely, relevant, credible and interesting, and can include:

• Blog articles (such as this one).
• Social media posts (such as the ones we'll post to cross-promote this blog).
• Contributed articles to key publications and media.
• Newsletters and direct emails.
• Case studies and white papers (though we're seeing more interest in shorter-than-traditional white papers). 
• Podcasts.
• Speeches (which can be repurposed as content for a blog post, a podcast and social media).
• Surveys or reports on interesting issues. (For example, for one cybersecurity client, we offered quarterly updates on key threats. For a nonprofit, we issued an annual look an important issue, based on a consumer survey, facing its constituency; the results were widely picked up and sparked national coverage.) 
  

Really, Thought Leadership anyway you can get your message out to audiences that matter to you. 

Why Should Companies Consider Thought Leadership? People like to know who their buying from, and like to buy from companies whose values are aligned with theirs. Partly that's because, especially with consumer items, we define ourselves to an extent by the items we purchase: our cars, clothes, technology and other items may help to define our self-perceptions and say something about who we are. (Remember the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials?) 

Interestingly, this is true for B2B customers as it is for consumers.

Need evidence of that? On this blog, we've discussed the rise of corporate boycotts: "boycotts by companies in order to demonstrate distance from controversial programs and personalities" and as a way to show support for their customers. 

So it's important to clearly define "who" your company is and what it stands for, and Thought Leadership is a way to communicate that.

What are the Benefits of a Thought Leadership Campaign?
Thought Leadership is a way to engage with customers, potential customers as well as employees and potential employees and partners by providing thoughts and insights on issues that matter to them. 

With an effective Thought Leadership campaign, companies can:

• Establish credibility by showcasing expertise on key topics and encourage innovation.
• Start conversations with prospective customers by addressing topics that are important to them. 
• Differentiate themselves from the competition and raise awareness of the company.
• Define who they are by discussing corporate values.
• Establish a sense of community.
• Provide content that can educate and help to qualify customers. (We had one startup client who said that after a campaign we conducted, "The number of calls coming in did not increase -- but the number of calls from people who understood clearly what we do increased by 90%." This was a significant time savings for them because the calls that came in were from people who were better positioned to buy the product.)
• Improve their SEO rankings by generating more searchable content.
• Provide another way to provide context on a news announcement. (Recently a blog we wrote about an acquisition of a client was repurposed and included by several reporters looking for more detail than was communicated in the deal press release.)
• Make it easier to close sales.

Where Does Thought Leadership Fit into the Sales Cycle?
You may have noticed that the last bullet point immediate above stated "Make it easier to close sales" but not "Closes sales."

Thought Leadership can have a call to action (CTA) -- like subscribe to a free newsletter, download a white paper, schedule a demo or sign up for a free trial -- to turn your audience into a sales lead. 

But -- and this is important -- without the expectation that a Thought Leadership piece will lead to a direct sale. It shouldn't be all about your product or service offerings. That's a turnoff for most people. For example, Rubbermaid has received recognition for helping customers stay organized, with tips that include Rubbermaid products without the hard sell of the ABC (Always Be Closing) of selling. People look for Thought Leadership content that will help them solve issues they're dealing with but they don't always want to be sold to. 

Instead, Thought Leadership is about showing customers that you understand what business problems keeps them up at night and having perspectives on key issues and topics they need to address during the day. It's about providing helpful insight and showing that a company is engaged and relevant and is willing to help. It's about building trust and establishing credibility.

When Should You Consider Launching a Thought Leadership Campaign?
Organizations that don't have a lot of news but have a lot of insight and expertise to share are ideal candidates for Thought Leadership.

This is especially true for clients that have complicated stories to tell because their customers likely have complex issues to solve, and Thought Leadership via blog posts can tackle complex stories in a way that press releases, Twitter and LinkedIn can't.

For example, we had a client CEO -- very smart guy, who felt he didn't have much to say as a Thought Leader. He ran U.S. operations for a global software developer, but the U.S. was one of its smaller divisions. First we had to convince him that a blog was the best way to tell their story because of the absence of hard news that reporters like to write about. reluctantly, he signed off on the blog. Within a few months, we started seeing interesting results. The blog articles were cited by current customers, who helped spread the word. Traffic to the website increased, and we started getting recognition for the blog from the other regions within the company. Our direct clients were invited to the company's exclusive global marketing meeting to discuss the success of the Thought Leadership blog, and our content was frequently picked up by the folks in other regions.

We found that blog provided us with a way to tell the company's story in a way that would not have been as effective if we had focused only on traditional media.

For a biotech client that started off focusing on media relations, we added a social media component to be able to address issues important to their customers. Through its blog, the company discusses trends, industry changes, and mostly, tips on how to work smarter, get projects completed faster and on budget. The client has seen significant growth over the past five years, recognition among its peers for pioneering (in their industry) social media, and validation in the form of being acquired by a billion-dollar global company. The client has told us over the year that awareness among prospects has been high because they see a lot of valuable content. And the acquirer company was interested in part because of the client's successful Thought Leadership campaign. 

What are The Elements of a Successful Thought Leadership Campaign?
Here are 7 important elements:

1. Understand your customers and develop content that addresses the problems they deal with. 

Your expertise is important but Thought Leadership really starts with a good sense of what drives your customers. Some clients have based their knowledge on annual customer meetings, input from sales reps or relationship managers. Whatever works well for your organization, make sure you're focused on issues relevant to your customers' issues.

2. Address customers' questions and offer real advice. 

For one client, where pricing was an issue, we discussed pricing transparently (something not usually done in their sector) and offer a lot of articles about how to save money. If you see this as an opportunity to just sell product, no one will read your stuff and you will lose credibility.

3. Stay relevant and timely. 

We can all get caught up with other aspects of our jobs so that we miss timely connections for Thought Leadership. We generally develop a quarterly roadmap that looks at events and calendar items to connect to blog articles. That said, also make sure to write some content that is specifically timeless – what reporters call “evergreen” because it’s useful now and next year. 

4.  Give your Thought Leadership some personality. 

People want advice but they don't want a lecture so your Thought Leadership should be engaging, convey a sense of the clients' individual personality and interesting. Don't talk down to the reader. 

5.  Make it interactive.  

You can invite customers or partners write a guest blog or include interviews with industry people you respect. It could be a great opportunity to profile a customer or a partner, and enhance their credibility – and yours by showcasing smart people.  

6.  Be patient but also be committed to Thought Leadership. 

Successful Thought Leadership has to be built over time to establish credibility. It doesn’t come with a flip of the switch. You should figure out if you have the time to develop your voice and the budget and resources to launch a campaign. You don’t need to post every day, just find a consistent pattern. But Thought Leadership is something of a treadmill – you need to keep going with it. It’s kind of sad to see an abandoned blog or Twitter feed. The company may still be doing fine but an abandoned social media feed leaves people wondering about the viability and commitment of the company. 

7.  Remember to repurpose and cross-promote.  

You should consider repurposing content to play across different channels. For example, we once took a client’s white paper that had underperformed (written before we started working for the client) and broke it out into nearly 75 different tweets, which included a CTA every five or six tweets. Doing so gave us useful social media content and generated a wave of downloads months after the white paper had been published, which helped justify the costs.

Because you never know where your audience will be, you should cross-promote content across all channels to reach your audience wherever they might be (which could be Twitter on Monday, LinkedIn on Tuesday, LinkedIn on Wednesday and Instagram on Thursday)

Thought Leadership is an important tool for marketers. If you have more questions about Thought Leadership campaigns, let us know what they are, and we'll answer them in a forthcoming post. Or feel free to contact us at blog at birnbachcom.com.

TrendReport for 2019: A Look Back at What We Got Right and What We Didn't

Each year since 2001, Birnbach Communications issues a set of trends and predictions, which we call TrendReport, for the upcoming year.

A lot of people issue trends but we pride ourselves on also looking back to see how well we did with the prior year's predictions. Here is this year's report card: 

1. The growing number of streaming content services make consumers harder to reach. With the launches of Disney+ and Apple TV+, NBC’s Peacock (April 2020), and HBO Max (May 2020), along Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and CBS All Access, consumers will pay at least $60 per month (not including Peacock, which is free for Comcast cable customers). That’s $720 per year before figuring out cable or Internet – and even if you cut the cord from cable, you still need to pay for Internet. All this time watching video on our devices make it harder for marketers to reach consumers. Grade: A.
2. The age of the mass media is mostly over. We said that “It’s a niche world now,” and we feel that is accurate. Marketers can now reach very specific audiences but are finding it harder and more expensive to reach mass audiences. One of the resulting problems is that it exacerbates polarization, even in terms of what we watch. According to Axios, there’s a split in what we as a nation watch. There’s a self-fulfilling aspect to this because we all used to watch the same programs and talk about them the next day. But that doesn’t happen as much anymore, resulting in more isolation. Grade: A.
3. The broken business model for news will cause continued problems in 2019, including an increase in “news deserts.” We said, “It’s not only print media that will struggle in 2019, online media will struggle, too.” We’re sorry to be right about this. We’re seeing many news deserts, communities with limited access to news even in Massachusetts. Although the New York Times, Washington Post and a few other newspapers  are doing well, the business model for the rest of the industry still hasn’t been solved. Grade: A.
4. Social media will continue to undergo scrutiny and it won’t look good. This will continue in 2020, and still there won’t be any adequate solution. Grade: A.
5. More apps will try to combat fake news. Unfortunately, some of the sites – and this is the list we named last year: 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 – did not appear to make it through Dec. 2019. From our perspective, facts and credible news is more important than ever for our democracy as well as for organizations trying to reach and engage their audiences. Grade: C.
6.  The shorter/faster news cycle is distracting Americans and causing news fatigue. We are suffering from news fatigue -- overwhelmed by news notifications on our phones that seems to buzz every hour. One of the most overused phrases on TV news this year has been: “There’s a lot to unpack” about the day’s (or hour’s) latest breaking news story. Expect to hear “news avoidance” to describe people who feel overwhelmed and have decided to follow the news. Grade: A.
7. The incredible shrinking newsroom. This is connected to #3. Unfortunately, we were correct about this one, too: in 2019, “7,700 people have lost their jobs so far this year in a media landslide,” according to Business Insider. Those jobs aren’t coming back. Grade: A.
8. The credibility of news media is under attack. Unfortunately, this is a real problem on social media. We continue to feel that this is a significant 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? Grade: A. 
9. The war on screen time. There will be greater acknowledgment that we’re all on screens too much throughout the day. We’re spending nearly four hours each day on our devices so this is definitely an issue, particularly with warnings to parents about the amount of time their children spend on devices. According to several studies, including one published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, there is an association between screen time and anxiety and depression among adolescents, and we feel there’s a connection for adults, too. The topic didn’t generate as much media attention as we expected it would, which is why we’re not giving us an A. Grade: B.
10. The state of the economy, including a volatile stock market, trade wars, trade deals and tariffs, taxes, deficits and unemployment will get a lot of attention in 2019. We’re still not taking sides, and the topic did get media attention in 2019 but it was not as big a story as we expected. Grade: B+.
11. Brexit, if it happens, will be big news. We thought it would happen but it didn’t happen. It still generated coverage. Grade: C.
12. Student debt levels and Millennial’s financial habits. Will continue to be a theme in 2020. Grade: B+.
13. The state of healthcare will get attention. Outside of a campaign issue, there wasn’t as much discussion as we expected in 2019; we still think it will be a hot campaign issue in 2020. Grade: B-.
14. Election reforms will get discussed on op-ed pages. This did not get the attention we expected. Grade: C-.
15. Climate control and extreme weather will be a big story. This was a big story, thanks to Greta Thunberg. Grade: A.
16. Gun control and the state of the NRA. We said “we do believe there will be discussion/coverage in the media in 2019 about what can be done” about gun control but no progress was made. Grade: B.

That's a B+, which is pretty good. We're now preparing our trends and predictions for 2020, and hope we do as well, and expect many of the 2019 trends to continue. 

Check back soon for more details.