Non-Trends for 2016- A focus on what isn't changing.

In the rush before the holidays we hit peak 2016 trends.

And that’s a very good thing, we need to focus on the big new opportunities and the potential threats that lie ahead. This is our rare chance to look forward and be prepared. I love looking forward, I wrote that every company should have a Chief Futures Officer and I will myself be making a trends presentation and I will share it here.

Yet before we put all our eggs into SnapChat, mobile commerce or renting a Vine “star”, how about a bit of context and how about a small focus on what’s not changing?

1) Radio and TV continue to thrive

More people watch more TV now than ever before, both in the U.S. and U.K., and they watch it more often and for longer; as a result, TV advertising has never been more valuable.  Audiences are more thinly scattered, true. People consume TV content on more devices.  Despite the doom and gloom about ad-skipping, most are still viewed.  TV is here to stay, but we’d be wise to migrate our way of thinking from TV to video. The notion of “television” generates false boundaries to what’s possible with video advertising when you now consume video in so many new ways. So TV isn’t dead, we just need to think of it as Video. 

Similarly we listen to more radio than ever before, and in more places and on more devices. It’s just highly likely that a lot of younger listeners will be streaming music, not “tuning in”. A distinction of vital importance to advertisers, but none whatsoever to listeners.

2) Native Advertising will remain very big and very exciting.

We’ve always had native advertising.

Sometimes it was brand funded television from Soap companies, sometimes it was sponsored guides from Michelin and sometimes it was sponsorship or content marketing or branded Apps. We’ve long had useful marketing like the Furrow magazine from John Deere, launched in 1886, which now reaches 1.5 million famers in 40 countries. 

So in 2016 brands will be working with publishers to create content, just like they’ve done for decades with what we used to call advertorials.

The lines between editorial and publishing will continue to blend, just as PR professionals have known for many years.

We've got a digital canvas, we've got more keen publishers willing to give more, we've got more conferences about it. But let's not think of this as new.

3)Brands will tell stories.

I’m not entirely sure of the whole Brand Storytelling movement.

Part of it is because I refuse to accept that DFS or Best Buy or Nivea is really telling me a story when they’re merely shouting that there is money off dining chairs in January or a new product formulation that helps reduce the appearance of fine lines. 

The other concern is again this isn’t new.

From SuperBowl ads to the Nescafe saga, from John Lewis’s Christmas TV spot to Old Spice, the very best ads in the world have always told stories, we've always called TV's words "scripts". 

 In 2016 people will still be buying  brands as a reassurance of quality or some brands to reflect who they are and many  people, many times, will buy stiff for no reason except they freaked out a the point of purchase or saw some money off. Pretty much everything about how we hear of brands, how we make decisions, where we buy, isn’t different today from 1976.

4) People will primarily be buying things from physical stores.

Online retail is incredibly exciting, growing steadily and an area for most brands to be showing incredible interest .We all need to understand new retail, especially mobile.  But the fact remains in the USA online shopping has grown from  2% of all transactions in 2004 to 7.40% in 2015. This is significant but not a sign that life is radically changed. If you’re selling toilet roll, instant coffee, frozen peas, gasoline, firewood, spaghetti, shampoo, dog food, the reality is that the very same people, may be watching the same sorts of ads, walking into the same stores and buying the same things in the same way. 

5) iBeacons and QR codes won’t work. Drones will be left in cupboards.

The next big thing isn’t always the next big thing.
3D printers are on display around the stores of the world next to pointless blue plastic trinkets they’ve proudly fabricated, press releases proudly boast about ever larger, less practical applications of things you could print, but never would choose to.
Drones are great, for 10 mins, on Boxing day.
iBeacons have never been a solution to a consumer problem.

Now one day some of these amazing things will advance, they could own the future, but for 99.999999% of people in marketing these for the next 3 years are nothing other than a distraction. Maybe focus on basics of 2016 before attempting a move from 2026. Is your mobile website fast? 

6) Mobiles are big.

We spend our whole lives staring at these things, they are responsible for creating more incremental media than anything ever made.

These are space time machines allowing us to do more and anywhere. But this isn’t new.

Anyone who has ever owned an iPhone 4 should be aware that this the greatest opportunity in advertising, in marketing and in business the world has ever known. But don’t think of it as new. We’ve had Smartphones for 10 years already.

7) We will all like a bit of nostalgia.

Yes, some stores are selling Vinyl and Adele sold a lot of CD’s.
Yes we like Polaroids at parties.

Trends have an always will been stories that people like me want to write. We use single data points that help a trend writer make a story. If we see a typewriter in Starbucks and a old Nokia in Urban Outfitters, Bam. RetroCommunication is born. Just because something is backed by select data doesn't make it meaningful.

In fact every trend has a equal and opposite reaction. A time of great speed means some people escape and slow down.  The move to electric cars mean some celebrate hot rods. The move towards eCommerce means stores aim for better experiences.
So in this case nostalgia has always been big, and always will be.

8) Digital will be used as a filler word.

Nobody in the real world uses the word digital any more. 

They don't use Digital photographs or watch Digital TV. They don't "go online" to shop, they don't "stream" digital music. I don't even think they use "social" media. These are not "digitally connected" consumers, these are not "social shoppers", they are not buying things because of an omnichannel strategy. 

These are people. People have always been connected, they have always been social. These are people who buy things, watch things they love and tell their friends about things. They just do so in the modern world. Our industry will continue to talk about digital innovation and digital strategy and digital advertising, while the world carries on not giving a crap about how things get to them. They won't be going online, they just live in a world where online is an irrelevant strand in the background of the world they experience each day. 

And more.

In addition slightly more people will be using adblocking, but not that many more.

More people will probably be taking more selfies, but this isn’t new.

Kickstarter will still exist, but won’t change everything.

Electric cars will get more popular, but remain a tiny niche.

Please add your non trend in the comments.