2022 YEAR IN BUSINESS REVIEW
BRAND MINDS
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7 hallmarks of 2022 in global business - a short analysis
1. Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion.
50% of the company's global workforce of 7,500 was laid off, other 1200 full-time employees resigned and half of Twitter's top advertisers left the social platform.
Will Twitter survive ‘Hurricane Elon’? Will the employees laid off by Elon come together and start a new Twitter? Next year will definitely be a ‘to be or not to be’ situation for Twitter.?
2. Netflix changed to an ad-supported business model losing its unique selling proposition.
The streaming platform still ranks 1st by number of subscribers and is followed by Amazon Prime Video and Disney+.
To keep the numbers growing, Netflix invested this year $17 billion in original content. But will this be enough? Disney invested $33 billion, twice as much as Netflix, which means next year the two streaming powerhouses will enter a heated battle for Number 1.
3. The Web 3.0 market grew to a value of $13.4 billion and is expected to reach $81.5 billion in 2030.
The third generation of the internet is powered by high technologies: Blockchain, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented & Virtual Reality, NFTs and the Metaverse. Among the Artificial Intelligence platforms the world talked about this year were Dall-E2 (creates original, realistic images and art from a text description) and ChatGPT (interacts in a conversational way).
4. More brands leveraged the power of the Metaverse for marketing & sales including BMW, Nike, Microsoft, Louis Vuitton, Gucci.
BMW’s Metaverse is called Joytopia and is the world where the 100+-year-old brand thinks out loud about the future. The Metaverse won a Webby Award.
Gucci’s Metaverse is an experimental space where the brand rewards visitors with a journey through its history through games and NFTs.
Leveraging the power of the Metaverse to delight customers and drive sales is a great long-term strategy for legacy brands like those mentioned above. A report on the Metaverse and its potential global economic impact by economic analysis experts Lau Christensen and Alex Robinson states that the Metaverse could reach $3.01 trillion in 2031.
5. TikTok became the #1 non-game app by consumer spend.
The app began seeing its user numbers increase at the pandemic's beginning. Confined to their homes, struggling with all sorts of limitations, people turned to TikTok as a new source of entertainment and self-expression.
Built differently than ‘old’ Facebook and Instagram, TikTok soon became the fastest-growing social app. In fact, experts say TikTok is not a social platform, but a short-video entertainment app competing with Netflix, not Facebook.
Brands quickly realized that TikTok was not only an app for funny videos but also a powerful platform driving retail sales. People buy from people and this is especially true for Generation Z which makes up the majority of TikTok users. Clinique’s Black Honey Lipstick launched fifty years ago, sold out in every store, including Clinique, after it went viral on TikTok when Gen Z discovered it.
6. The UK remained the #1 tech hub in Europe with an ecosystem valued at $1 trillion.
The UK is home to 131 tech unicorns and its top 3 industries by value are Fintech ($48 billion), Health ($28.6 billion), and Enterprise Software ($20 billion US).
7. The eCommerce industry increased by 15% thanks to the ease and frictionless features of mobile shopping.
Driving mobile commerce is livestream shopping, the combination of live streaming, entertainment and shopping. China is leading the global shop-streaming market growing from $67 billion to $317 billion in three years. For 2022, it’s estimated that livestream shopping will rake in $480 billion in China.
The rest of the world has seen little success with this type of shopping. There are brands doing live shoppable shows like retailers Walmart and Nordstrom or beauty brand L’Oreal Canada. Some reports estimated that the US livestream shopping market reached $20 billion this year.
What does the livestream shopping market outside China need to take off? What drives the livestream shopping market in China? A type of entertainment specific to China? The technology allowing millions of people to flood one platform?
The future will only tell.?
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We are excited to know that the books we have carefully selected will provide updated knowledge on everything a team of business professionals should explore to achieve business, professional and personal goals: leadership, company culture, human resources, sales, branding, personal development and so on.
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