Track Record of Our Predictions for 2018

Each year, before issuing a set for predictions for the upcoming year, we evaluate how we did with regard to the predictions we made for the current year. Without further ado, here are the results for our 2018 predictions.

1. Expect to hear about “the retailpocalypse" as a key consumer sector tries to fight Amazonification. Retailpocalypse probably was included in more headlines in 2018 than Amaxonification but pretty much any news story about the retail sector mentioned Amazon. It was a tough year for the sector, with two to three thousand locations closing, and 125-year-old Sears declaring bankruptcy in Q3. Unfortunately, we expect the brick-and-mortar stores to continue to have a tough time of it even as Amazon opens more retail locations. While the bad news for retail has been covered, did not capture the attention of consumers as much as we had expected. We expect that Amazonification will capture more attention in 2019, and the downward cycle continues, and expect calls for “doing something” to protect failing retail. Grade: A.
2. People will be more anxious and angry. We called this era the Age of Anxiety and Anger, and we got this right. In 2018, we saw lots of anger, much of it political, and lots of anxiety. There were many more references to people needing to take a break from their devices’ notifications. As of Oct., we expect more anger after the midterms — however things turn out — that will carry over into 2019 and people start focusing on the 2020 election cycle. We also expect that people will continue to be more anxious — whether due to politics or not — and that there will be more articles about how to de-stress. From a marketing perspective, look for some consumer brands to try to tap into the need to de-stress.  Grade: A.
3. There will be a debate about whether or not and how to regulate Facebook, Google and Twitter. We got this totally right, particularly when we said, “Expect Congress to continue to hold hearings on the subject – just don’t expect any agreement on the answers before 2018’s midterm elections.” With concerns about disinformation campaigns and data breaches, and claims of censorship-by-algorithm, expect this debate to continue past the 2020 election cycle. Grade: A+.
4. The labor shortage and the gig economy will spark think-pieces about the nature of work. The labor shortage and the gig economy did get some coverage but we didn’t see as many think-pieces as we expected. However, there were think-pieces about the potential impact on jobs that robots will have on the nature of work. We expect more coverage of the impact of robots on jobs in 2019, along with calls to better track and understand the gig economy’s impact on the economy at large. Because we expected more essays about the labor shortage than we saw, we will reflect that in our grade. Grade: B+.
5. Conversations about gender, sexuality and sexual harassment have changed – at least in the media. This was definitely true in 2018. We continued to see a big divide, and lots of anger, and unfortunately, both will continue next year. Grade: A.

Look for our predictions for 2019 before Christmas.

Meanwhile, tell us what you think. 

Bloomberg Validates Our Concerns That Store Closings Have on Real Estate

For the past year, we've been saying that the retail sector is in trouble, and that the potential impact of Amazonification and the retailpocalypse will be felt in other sectors. 

Our primary concern is that as big box retailers often support local newspaper through ads. So that as an expected 2,500 retail locations shut down through early 2019, there will also be a cut in ad buys in local newspapers. 

That downturn in ad revenue will likely hurt smaller local newspapers.

And that may lead to local newspapers either laying off staff, shifting from a daily to a weekly, or from a weekly to twice-a-month, or shutting down completely.

That could lead to an increase in what are being called new deserts -- communities that don't have access to local news. 

All of that has an impact on PR and marketing because there would be fewer outlets with which to reach key audiences.

But we've also been concerned that the number of store closings will also impact real estate, both at malls and in towns. At malls, we've felt the problem is that if an anchor location remains empty, the entire mail will be written off by consumers. And that precipitates more closings, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads to a downward spiral.

In a Bloomberg News article yesterday that was syndicated into a number of papers, including the Boston Globe, "Struggling malls at crossroads as Sears makes exit," reporters Patrick Clark and Justina Vasquez made that same point:

"As Sears shutters stores, landlords will have to overcome the perception that the entire property is failing or risk losing other tenants, said Burt Flickinger, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a retail-advisory firm."

“You’re going to see an epic hollowing out of the retail malls in America, especially the malls that are co-anchored by Sears” and another struggling large retailer, Flickinger said. “It’s creating an accelerating retail ice age and an economic Armageddon of unprecedented proportions in the US.” 

That's got us worried.

Retail is an important sector for the U.S., and not just to buy things. Retail can a communal activity whereas shopping online is not. And Bloomberg has reported on the negative impact on local towns in the U.K., when shops have closed on main street, and residents then have to drive thirty minutes or more to buy things they once could in their home town. Those towns suffer because there's literarily nothing holding people there.

So, a lot of doom and gloom -- and you don't have to be a big shopper to see that this can affect you. We don't necessarily have a solution. But we feel that raising the issue is important, that discussing this can help lead to awareness. If we ignore the retailopaclypse, it's not going to go away. 

6 Cues to Tell Fake News on Social Media from Real News

Hiawatha Bray, the long-time Tech Lab columnist at the Boston Globe, has an interesting article about fake news. Entitled, "Can computers tell if an Internet news story is mostly true or mostly false," Bray's article notes these common features of fake news on the Internet:

1. Lots of capitalized words or exclamation points.
2. Use of words denote extreme certainty such as “absolutely” and “always.”
3. Sentences that tend to be shorter and simpler. (Which makes them easier to read and forward.)
4. Fewer "love" or "laughter" icon clicks on Facebook. (Real news doesn't usually generate such emotion, apparently.)
5. The media sites where these articles originated don’t have Wikipedia entries about them. 
6. These sites, which may be similar to real news sites, have URLs that are long and filled with unusual characters. (Many reliable news sites are much cleaner.)

These are not all 100% accurate; after all the URL for the Globe's article's URL had a lot of unusual characters in it: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/10/15/can-fake-news-goes-way-spam/UuiUfEmZGKxhMupoXV0AJM/story.html.

We can't wait or rely on algorithms to determine fake news, just as algorithms aren't 100% effective on spam. What we need is for people to take responsibility for what they share. This is important since new reports from the New York Times and others indicate that there will be more disinformation ahead of the midterms next month and ahead of the 2020 campaign. 

Disinformation campaigns at this level (perhaps any level) are anti-democratic, and we need all concerned citizens to take responsibility for what they share. So it's important to be aware of the six indicators for possible fake news.

More Doom & Gloom from the Retailpocalypse

We've been focused on the "Retailpocalypse" for about a year now because we feel so many sectors are affected, including real estate (when stores close and locations may or may not find new tenants), hiring (when tens or hundreds of employees lose their jobs), and local media (who had been relying on ads from those local retailers). 

We came to this topic by way of the impact on local media, which is directly relevant to our business.

Unfortunately, while there are new stores launching each year, and other retailers may be expanding, there seem to be more retailers shutting down locations or declaring bankruptcy. The latest is Sears, the 125-year-old retail pioneer, which on Monday filed for bankruptcy and said it will close 142 more stores. That's on top of the 46 locations it announced it was closing back in August.

The company, which also owns Kmart, will have 687 Sears and Kmart locations remaining. The company owed $134 million of debt that it could not pay.

At its height, Sears was the known as the "the everything store" and was the largest retailer in the U.S. In 2006, it had 355,000 employees; today, it has fewer than 140,000 employees.

One reason Sears is failing is because of Amazon. It's ironic that Sears, which started as a catalog business, has lost out to Amazon. Amazon is now "the everything store."

For more on Sears' legacy, check out this NPR story.

The retailpocalypse is not ending anytime soon, and will continue to have a significant trickle-down impact on a range of sectors in the U.S. economy. We don't know if there's a solution exactly, and certainly don't see how government could step in (other than to break up Amazon, which isn't necessarily a good idea). But the health of the retail sector is one that needs to attention paid to it. As we prepare our predictions for trends in 2019, the retailpocalypse will continue to be on our list.

Three Factors Affecting Retail That Should Concern Marketers -- Even Those Outside the Sector

(This article originally appeared in CommPro.biz.)

Amid news coverage about the latest U.S. economic growth and unemployment figures -- both, coincidentally, at 4.1% -- there's a story that hasn't been mentioned. It's not the potential impact of tariffs and trade wars. It's not about whether the coal sector should (or can) be revived.

It's about retail, which contributes $2.6 trillion annually to U.S. GDP, according to the National Retail Federation, approximately 15% of the total economy. That includes retailing companies along with other companies that support the retail industry, such as logistics, including trucking and shipping; warehousing; construction and maintenance; agriculture; manufacturing; technology; and health care. 

Unfortunately, the retail sector has an opposite story to tell: Traditional retailers are not only not growing or hiring, many -- including Macy's, Sears, Gymboree, Lord & Taylor, Foot Locker, Gap, Starbucks, Subways, GNC and at least another dozen -- have announced plans to close more than 2,500 stores over the next year. Worse, Toys R Us (735 stores), Teavana (365) and Bon-Ton (256), among others, are shutting down completely.

I've never been a big shopper but the death of traditional retail -- what some are calling "the retailpocalypse" is bad news for marketers for the following reasons:

1. Laid-off workers may cut back purchases, ignore marketing messages: There are employees at 3,868 stores who will lose their jobs and benefits and will need new jobs. Even if no other store closes -- and after I originally wrote this, Brookstone announced it would close 100 mall store -- retailers have been cutting jobs even while maintaining the same number of stores. According to the Wall St. Journal, Macy's has shed 52,000 jobs since 2008; and according to the National Retail Federation, the sector employed 29 million people in 2012, but that number was down to 15,836,200 as of May 2017 -- almost a 50% decline in just five years. With reports that businesses are having trouble finding good employees, there may be good news for laid off retail staff. But those open positions may not be nearby and almost certainly will require convincing recruiters that non-traditional employees (since former retail employees may not have the necessary experience or skill sets) should not get screened out. Making a career transition is difficult, and we know that some may be unwilling or unable to secure full-time work in another sector. The implications for marketers: when people are out of work, they may not be receptive to marketing, promotions, etc. 
2. Store closings affects malls, local communities: By April 2018, announced store closings projected the loss of 77 million square feet of real U.S. real estate, on pace to surpass last year's record of 105 million square feet, the previously highest loss reported since 2008. These closings have affected prime locations like New York's SoHo neighborhood, malls and small towns. The problem for marketers: is the potential impact on communities and social patterns. According to a Time article, "The Death and Life of the Shopping Mall," from 2017, "The shopping mall has been where a hug swath of middle-class America went for far more than shopping. It was the home of first jobs and blind dates, the place for family photos and ear piercing, where goths and grandmothers could somehow walk through the same doors and find something they all liked." So when malls lose retail tenants, people stop hanging out. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the shift to e-commerce "has devastated" Britain's main streets or central shopping districts. The result: marketers may lose another touchpoint with consumers such as branded in-store merchandising and displays.
3. Loss of local retailers hits local media: Retailers, once an important source for local advertising, have cut back on advertising. Local newspapers have seen a decline in advertising that may be attributable to the drop in retailers' ads, and we continue to see local papers fire staffs and shrink the size of their papers. The problem for marketers: If newspapers -- both print and online -- shut down, marketers will lose important vehicles to reach consumers, whether with paid communications (such as circulars, coupons, and ads) or earned (such as mentions, articles, etc. via PR). 

Unfortunately, we're seeing a potential downward spiral. As more people get laid off from retail jobs, they may spend less so that more stores close. As more stores close, those businesses that support retail -- including, for example, toy makers who used to sell exclusively through Toys R Us -- may also close. Too many shuttered locations sends a negative message to other potential companies, disrupting the local economy as residents either order online or must drive further and further to buy the things they used to be able to find in town. And local media continues to fade away.

Traditional retailers need to know how to compete to offer what customers want, which includes selection, low cost, ease of returns. It takes more than Wal-Mart dropping "Stores" from its official name to show it's an e-commerce player. In the U.K., which has the highest rate of online purchasing according to Bloomberg Businessweek, there have been calls from people like the Chancellor of the Exchequer to "find a better way of taxing the digital economy."

It's important to note that Amazonification -- the dominance by Amazon, which is an often-cited reason for traditional retail's woes -- may not be inevitable. According to the Wall St. Journal's Christopher Mims "Even Amazon, a Colossus, Has Its Limits," part of where Amazon is most successful is in driving down prices of commodity items, not in developing premium devices like an iPhone (its success with Alexa notwithstanding). 

The bottom line: whether or not marketers operate in the retail sector, they need to be aware of the challenges facing retail. Marketers must look to make suggestions how their clients (whether they work in house or for an outside agency) can function during this period of disruption because some of the issues may also impact other sectors.

Five Challenges Affecting Local TV News

A couple of years ago, the demand for hyperlocal information as well as the recognition of marketers that were willing to pay to reach a hyperlocal audience  was seen to be a boon for local media. The trend indicated hyperlocal media would generated more eyeballs and receive more marketing dollars.

Unfortunately, while there's still strong demand for hyperlocal news, local print and broadcast news outlets are facing challenges. 

For local papers, one previously unanticipated problem was the dependence on advertising from local retailers. The retailpocalypse, which describes the sector's meltdown resulting in the shuttering of hundreds of stores (likes Sears, K-Mart) or the bankruptcies of entire chains (Toys R Us, Bon-Tons), has also resulted in a significant drop in local newspaper  advertising. So we've seen local newspapers shrink in size or close. 

It's gotten to the point that Dr. Michelle Ferrier at Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University has developed an interactive map called The Media Deserts Project to "identify areas that lack access to fresh, local news and information. We map layers of daily newspaper circulation, hyperlocal online news sites and other emerging media to identify underserved and underrepresented communities." The vast majority of the country, according to the research, has 0-2 daily newspapers -- and this incudes large cities. New Jersey (is) poised to invest $5 million into local journalism to shore up local reporting.

So local newspapers have to find new ways to get the money necessary to sustain their local journalism. That may mean experimenting with new business models.

Meanwhile, while local TV news may not have been as vulnerable to the loss of retail advertising. they face a different set of challenges. Unlike local news, one of the fundamental challenges to local TV news is the product itself.

1. Local TV news programs compete not only with other local TV news but also with social media. Competition for local broadcast used to be between ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. Now it's from Twitter and Facebook. So news departments are very well aware their competition has expanded significantly. It also means that local TV news is more inclined to broadcast clickbait stories that are quick and easy to tell, rather than more meaningful news that may have more impact on the community.
   


2. They typically have more hours to fill but not more resources. A generation ago, the local news had two broadcasts at 6pm and 10pm or 11pm. These days, local news may air at 4pm, 5pm, and 6pm plus 10pm or 11pm. Unfortunately, news departments haven't gotten larger to help cover more news. So reporters have to repeat the news on different programs, producing a segment at 5pm and another segment offering a different take on the same story at 6pm. Or they have to find two stories, one to tell at 4pm and another at 6pm -- which means they don't have much time to develop either story.


3. Reporters are pushed to post their stories on social media, too. Sometimes the people who are scooping the 6pm News are the reporters themselves who are incentivized to push content out via social media. (Station bosses look at the number of followers for each reporter, the amount of engagement, etc.) So you can see behind-the-scenes aspects of the day's story on their Twitter or Facebook feeds. (These posts often include links back to the station's website.) So while they're putting together a package to be broadcast, reporters also have to keep in mind how to tell the story effectively via social. 


4. Broadcast reporters must be multimedia-friendly. They produce their package, then Tweet about it, then write up a text article for the website,  and then also produce a video that has photos and captions but perhaps no actual footage of the reporter. That last format is ideal for commuters who want to watch video but don't necessarily want audio to accompany it because it's noisy on the subway or commuter rail.


5. The tail wagging the dog is views, likes and clicks, not policy stories. The slogan for local news used to be "If it bleeds, it leads" the broadcast. While that's still the case, story selection is often based on what will get the most viewership, not necessarily what news will affect the community. This result: the further clickbait-as-news that is shorter, cuter, fluffier -- which many reporters don't like but must follow. The more significant kind of news takes more time to research, develop and tell -- and reporters don't have much time; they've got overwhelming and competing demands placed on them. 

There are structural issues facing local print and TV news, and local outlets have to evolve with the times -- and this has been going on, in one form or another since the early 1980s, setting up 1987's "Broadcast News." But this post is in no way trying to blame reporters, producers or assignment staffs. Their jobs have gotten tougher -- no question. 
The intent is provide consumers of local TV news with a sense of what's driving the type of coverage being produced, and to keep that in mind when they watch, read or "like" a segment. It's also to help businesses think about how they approach local TV news if they want to get coverage. 

Let us know if you think we got this wrong or if you have insights into how local media can address the challenges they're facing.

More Problems for Retail

The retail sector is vital to the health of the U.S. economy, and we felt the myriad of problems plaguing the sector would generate more attention in 2018, and unfortunately, we've been see more of those problems in the media.

One of the key issues not getting attention in prior years, we felt, was the impact that store closing would have on the real estate sector. Back in April, Bloomberg Business validated our prediction with an article titled, "The Retail Real Estate Glut Is Getting Worse:  Stores have announced the closing of 77 million square feet of shopping space so far this year."

The article included a chart of the combined square footage lost from store closings going back to 2008, and the trend is bad. In just four months (when the article was published), 2018 has eclipsed full-year results for every year except 2017 and 2008. Keep in mind: 2008 saw a financial collapse of Lehman Brothers and other big finance -- so a significant year. 

And yet. the difference between a full year in 2008 and four months in 2018 us less than 11 million square feet. We're certainly on track to surpass 2008's total and could eclipse 2017, which is only 2.8 million higher than April's losses.

The idea that all stores are going to go away, due to Amazonification, is not likely to happen in the near term. After all, even Amazon, Warby Parker and others have been opening brick-and-mortar store locations. 

That said, the premise that the underlying value of real estate holdings may be more valuable than the retail chain itself may no longer be true -- or no longer true to the same extent, in an era of so-called zombie malls.

The reason: lease values, which are dropping to keep current clients or to entice new ones, are having a downward pressure on the valuation of retail's real estate portfolios. That serves as a disincentive for investors to put less pressure on retail stores to shut shutter more stores.

Another problem, according to the Wall St. Journal: "Retail’s Other Problem: Too Few Clerks in the Store: Macy’s, J.C. Penney and others have cut jobs even more than they have closed stores" Even while operating the same number of stores, Macy's has, according to the Journal, "shed 52,000 workers since 2008."

What that means is if you thought service at retail locations has dropped over the past 10 years, you're actually right! While some of that may reflect new ways consumers shop as well as new store concepts, which are typically smaller or operate with more layers of tech, lower headcount will make it difficult for customers to find a level of service they expect.

“If brick-and-mortar retailers can’t compete on price in an online environment, the only thing that allows them to survive is to provide a positive in-store experience,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of a retail union.

And that may cause more people to abandon other bricks-and-mortar locations, furthering the downward spiral of one of the largest U.S. industries. 

We certainly hope that this doesn't come to pass.  Let us know what you think.