With so much change happening, the ‘review and looking forward’ blogs that come out at the beginning of each year seem to be easier than ever to write. Here are our thoughts on some things to look forward to.

1.    Influencer marketing starts to mimic the horrendous days of female and male gender role models of the 1950s causing a decline of social engagement from paid product endorsement. This change makes way for true UGC and ‘actual’ engagement, not just reach.

2.    Enterprises will demand that influencer marketing (as we know it) look to move share prices or be rejected as a practice. Here are some influencers that have changed the share price across the world with one tweet. Notice they are not from models or super curated photoshoots, but true influencers that effect the bottom line for listed companies.

3.    People will start to reject brands that are not socially responsible. Yes we all know that trying to save the planet is a key area for brands now, but this acceleration will not be driven by brand strategy or agency advice, but by communities themselves.

4.    More companies will see remote working as a way to increase loyalty and lower costs, and in turn the company retreat business will start to boom.

5.    Facebook will be forced to start developing new tools that are not based on customer data or It’s core platforms. Owning the largest dataset in history is proving to have its own price, Facebook’s core strategy of connecting people is all good, however they will start to develop ways to do this that does not rely on selling reach and customer data.

6.    Interactive marketing will start to be truly GDPR compliant and new tools and services will emerge to meet this challenge.

7.    VC backed start-ups will start to be dropped in favour of venture equity. VC backed startups with no proven customer base or audience will stop being invested in.

8.    Plastic based products will start to be rejected from mainstream companies and accreditations will emerge for the non-use of plastic within corporates.

9.    Block-chained based media businesses will continue to grow and the holding companies will have a fierce acquisition fight to acquire the leaders in the space.

10. The big four consultancies will lose to more agile advisories for 6 figure accounts

11. FTSE 100 brands will struggle to engage people with marketing that’s made up, and we will see growth with brands that are embracing community-based creative from real people.

12. One of our close friends has recently taken up ordering milk from a milk ‘person’ – with all the talk about plastics and saving the world, some of the ways we did things in the past like delivering milk in glass bottles and foil recyclable tops will come back. Some technologies, like real books and vinyl are coming back naturally as they provide better technology, usability and sustainability.

If you would like to discuss any of the points above, please reach out and we would love to help you be the best brand you can be.  stu@tintup.com +44(0)7896639511