Trust and ethics have now got to a stage that they are required for every organisation, whether you’re recruiting, fundraising or delivering a strategy to your board and shareholders. We now live in a world that has moved beyond transparency and into a more sustained way of thinking about business and the environment around us, and this fills me with hope for our futures.

Brands will stop getting ripped off by selfish agency models and look for genuine long-term partners that are looking beyond the ‘campaign’ into much longer and sustained marketing projects. The projects that will win people over will be the ones that put those publics into the limelight, as the stars of the show. With the rise of agency’s like TRUTH, we are finally moving to a much more robust sustainable way of working with clients, and media agencies like the7Stars are leading the way in promoting a transparent and ethical media landscape.

Equality across every part of business is fast becoming a key starting point in terms of strategy, its crazy that it has taken this long for enterprises to finally admit to inequality in their organisations, at last, they are speaking up, and people are aware which gives me hope that we are on the right track to make this world a much fairer place to live and work. Consumers require equality too, so businesses are proactively taking steps to fixing inequality, and this is driving a better culture for the brand and deeper connections to consumers.

Consumers will invest in more expensive but ethical products and large corporates will start to follow suit. Yes, I feel the tide is finally turning on both consumers realising the true value of the products they buy, and this goes as far as where the martial for the product is sourced, to large corporates also spending money on more expensive but ethical sourcing to deliver on their promise. This as always, is being driven by consumers themselves, and it’s a really exciting time to surface these real-life stories of how people are engaging with brands.

VR & Block chain, is quickly making Stephen Spielberg’s new film Ready Player One, a reality, before it’s even released – we’re not quite there yet on VR and I’m not sure that everyone will launch deeper and deeper into virtual worlds’ – I believe that more and more people will learn to unplug and value time away from the net – and as the VR and Block chain worlds get larger, so will the industries that are building up around ‘mindfulness, meditation, culture building and chilling out’.

Ethics come to Bitcoin processing in new and exciting ways Apart from the amazing PR that owners of Bitcoin’s are creating, which is driving their own destiny into a very valuable bubble – the environmental impact of Bitcoin is shocking and needs to be addressed. Coins need to be managed with their own sustainable energy network, which is fast appearing to be the next innovation for coin companies, like the awesome Vienna-based HydroMiner who’s leading the way.

Your Audience’s Audience Becomes your No1 goal. As Tom Goodwin puts it, your influencers are not that influential. Smart brands are now not looking for ‘expensive and limited’ influencers online but the percentiles below them; they are the ones that are making the most difference and impact. The 75th percentiles seem to be the sweet spot for both Facebook and Instagram.

A true hope for the future and inspiration to change the world around us with technology. We’re seeing an increase in technology that has our true nature of sustaining and improving the world around us becoming our No1 drive. Tesla has built solar tiles that are cheaper than normal tiles for roofing and the fastest car in the world is now electric. We’re moving to a more remote flexible working relationship with our ever global employers. Brands are finally seeing past simple marketing metrics of clicks and impressions to what is delivering business impact, even Cannes Lions had an overhaul to be more inclusive and accessible, which is really exciting.

Richard Edelman stated, “The growing storm of distrust is powerful and unpredictable. Trust in institutions has evaporated to such an extent that falsehood can be misconstrued as fact, strength as intelligence, and self-interest as social compact” – Accenture recently put a number on the trust issue stating that distrust is costing brands $756B/year

Which reads like a communications nightmare and global meltdown of trust, however, these are some of the most amazing opportunities for brands to grow and innovate.

User Generated Content (UGC) is entering all parts of the marketing mix, for both external and internal engagement, we’re seeing that consumer-led marketing is becoming normal, and putting communities into the centre of communications is driving the deepest engagement across the world. I’m looking forward to what 2018 will bring, and feel an amazingly positive outlook for how marketing and technology can change the world.