The Future is a scary place. It’s inherently unknowable and the unknowable frightens us. Nobody likes uncertainty.
And that’s why trend reports are great: They give us a map of the mysterious world of next year or next financial quarter. They reassure us that we humans are truly in control of the world around us.
But they’re mostly based on only slightly-educated guesses, author biases and preconceived notions. They endlessly reference each other in a circle of unchecked footnotes* and unsubstantiated claims. Predictions are vague enough to be accurate for some areas, some demographics and some in-groups.
Predictions are never wrong - they’re just not true yet.
You can download a PDF of this document here or access it on Slideshare here.
2018
There is both increased regulation around how publishers, celebrities and influencers need to disclose what is an ad or paid placement as well as increased ignorance and defiance of that regulation from advertisers.
The majority of commercials on TV exist solely to drive viewers to a website to learn more. The others implore you to sign up to learn more via one simple text message.
In both cases, the end game is your registration in a CRM database.
Content and advertising become increasingly difficult to separate, leading to consumer confusion. Trust in journalists, publishers, brands and platforms continues to erode.
More than 1/3 of the "30 under 30" list for advertising consists of freelancers or people who don't work at a traditional agency/marketing team. The industry celebrates the “gig economy” while top talent continues to drain out of big agencies.
2019
Advertising industry publications reach a tipping point: there are now more articles about agencies trying to reinvent the model or disrupt the industry than any other category of story.
The Guinness Book of World Records becomes nothing more than a catalogue of brand attempts at viral videos. The first, fastest, tallest, etc. They continue to do a booming business shipping copies to creative departments for research and clients on behalf of agencies.
YouTube eclipses TV for "Most Advertising Minutes Skipped.”
Advertisers continue to devote countless resources to their pursuit of the Holy Grail of online video: the unskippable ad.
Researchers report that more than 95% of web traffic is bots. Digital strategists further shift their focus away from optimizing communications towards human eyes and more towards how to organize, appease and rank for the automated site visitor.
2020
All content is free. The catch? You have to pay to communicate with your friends and family. Social networks and media companies report record profits.
Everyone is an influencer: you influence two people, who each influence two more. The entire world is a pyramid scheme of influence.
Television programming as we know it ceases to exist. "It was just a distraction from online advertising," one of the executives behind the decision was quoted as saying.
Artificial Intelligence researchers have a massive breakthrough and develop a tool capable of blocking both digital ads & real-world ads via augmented reality.
They immediately sell access to a white-list, enabling brand ads to continue to be shown, even with the blocking technology enabled.
2021
Holding companies begin demanding that their agencies start to sell off the 3D printers purchased in 2013 as well as the Bitcoins mined by IT departments on company servers in 2012.
We’ve reached peak Cannes: There are now more award categories than there are eligible campaigns.
Literally everything is an ad.
And I’m ahead of the curve. This document is basically an advertisement for my services as a witty brand consultant and digital strategist. Seriously - you can click here to visit my site to learn more.
Autonomous vehicle technology truly takes off, but only in the form of rides subsidized by brands in the form of stops at specific stores prior to delivering passengers to their destination.
2022
Media agencies and ad technology platforms perform one final, dark ritual before disappearing into the digital space between display advertising & landing page visits to become an entity known only as The Programatic. The clues had been in front of us for years - we just weren't paying enough attention.
Gangs of influencers roam the streets, shaking down brands for products to review and money for sponsored posts.
“It would be a shame if anything were to happen to your positive sentiment,” one said. Brand managers huddle in cellars, praying for an end to the Influencer menace.
The planet is burning to the ground on one side and drowning on the other while some of the world’s greatest minds sit in air-conditioned boardrooms drinking pitchers of ice water and room-temperature soda as they discuss the exact role their client’s brand plays for consumers during the End of Days.
Yet another end of year article declaring “Advertising Is Dead” is circulated and shared. As if in defiance, Advertising itself emerges from our collective brain power as a fully-formed being. It laughs an evil, hateful laugh and slowly squeezes the life out of the last remnants of culture and humanity.
A lot of what I’ve predicted is obviously not going to come true (except maybe that thing about influencers in 2019).
What is true is that mass, digital and social media (and the advertising dollars behind it all) will play an increasingly important role in shaping the world around us.
We have a responsibility to understand this. And we have an opportunity to channel our passion, our creativity, our resources and our efforts towards creating a future that we want to live in.
If you made it this far, you either enjoyed this document or just flipped through the pages super quickly. Either way: great job.
I’m based in Vancouver, Canada but frequently travel to provide brand and strategic consulting services to clients that interest and excite me. I’m always interested in new conversations. Reach out to me here.
-Parker Mason
*“On Footnotes and Reference” - Parker Mason, 2017 http://ParkerMason.net/footnotes