Middle fight back

 The great middle starts to fight back against the far edges in all directions.

1. A back-to-basics culture and movement will start to emerge and define itself. This movement will come from the people who are tired of DIGIBABBLE, Fake News, Incitement, and the lemming marchers following the Pied Pipers (who’d have us believe that only they have the answers and the vision for the future).
2. Meanwhile, the tug of the algorithm will be strong and social media will be flooded with hate and vitriol.
3. Governments will be more intentional about regulation regarding what’s a media channel, what constitutes currency and investment, and what defines antitrust. 
4. The “New Normal” will continue to elude us as the environment remains in flux.

As to specifics…where does one start?

• So-called Big Tech will not recover the stock heights and the valuations that created the hubris and arrogance that has driven so much of our economy and behavior. They will start being judged more for the categories they are in—for example, retail, media, and auto—and real profit will, shockingly, start to actually count.
• Tesla is a great company that helped to catalyze an industry. But are they really more Big Tech than Ford, for example? Be honest. Keep your eyes on the real Big Companies—with huge sales and bases. The recent cold snap in the United States has made it clear that EV performance is not yet there. And I’m not just talking about the hype of autonomous driving and needless deaths; but rather, the simple fact that cold weather is not EV’s friend. There’s lots of work still to do.There will be more EV entries and hybrids, but pure gas is still in the picture. 
• Elon Musk will continue to play and plague us—because he can. And my bet on Twitter? The US election cycle will keep it healthy, fueled by the general news media that needs the drama for its own 24/7 cycle.
• There will be a proliferation of Twitter “killers.” Mastodon will consume us for a while as well as BeReal and others yet to be named. Don’t count anyone out yet, especially not TikTok (challenged as they are and will be by their Chinese roots and connections). 
• Major Brand advertisers will finally admit that Meta and Twitter are not that important, for them, as brand advertising platforms (different than their actual use of social media in more organic or direct ways for the right products and services). They will continue the search for better channels.
• In the same vein, the best and most successful Advertising and PR Agencies that offer a return to basics (see filter #1 above)—that is real marketing ideas—will flourish in what many agency heads are predicting will be a tough year. 
• Streaming will follow the cable model, and we will see more and more bundle offers with more advertising options while we see less mindless content but more quality with better advertising opportunities. In other words, TV for a new era. 
• Speaking of which, the myth of the death of TV will persist, amongst the ignorant, while the open-minded will follow the lead of AMAZON, Google, and Meta and test their way back in like the best DM folks are doing. 
• Faster/cheaper will be seen for the gas-lighting it is. It's not a reason to choose an Ad Agency when the content neighboring the fast/cheap work is the best and most expensively created content ever. Who wants their ads to look like ST next to Yellowstone? Smart/efficient should be the mantra.
• Data always has been and will always be important. Targeting will get better—maybe—but HUMAN INSIGHT will return in force.  
• Programmatic will continue to have a place, but specific publisher deals will gain prominence.
• Out of Home of all sorts will continue to grow, and the smart brands will learn how to use it from the best practitioners and not the DIGIBABBLE crowd.
• VR will not drive our meetings while we sit at the same tables or in the same space, and it won’t replace ZOOM (used in its generic sense), but the right use cases will start taking off. Gaming is an obvious piece of this…no need to predict! AR, like QR codes, will find its level with smart use cases.
• Gaming is not dying; it’s just finding its proper level. Advertising will add importance to the platform (including live events looking for a business model that works), and of course, VR.
• All sorts of live events will continue to get bigger—even movies as more people come back to see great movies and, once again, enjoy the experience of the big screen with a  crowd.
• Big bet here: The hybrid office experience will grow with an expectation of in-office days. The losers will be the companies that continue to waffle and the folks who feel entitled to their gym time whenever they choose. 
• Sports will be as powerful as ever; soon Amazon will charge us for their sports streaming.
• Retail. We can’t forget retail. Stores are not dead, but traffic patterns will morph as we return to the ancient art of retail entertainment.