PREDICTIONS
MARKETING, TECH, POP CULTURE & EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN
2015 TREND

PREDICTIONS/TRENDS/LOLS
We’ve taken another light-hearted look at what we think the zeitgeist of 2015 will be for marketing, tech, pop culture and everything in-between.

FIRST, HOW’D WE DO LAST YEAR?
2014 Prediction
Correct
Kinda
Nope
Smart crap
X
Vintigital
X
Can of bitcoins
X
TL/DR
X
Tech in fashion
X
Rift me!
X
3D printed madness
X
2014 Prediction
Correct
Kinda
Nope
Batkid 2
X
Drone ate my homework
X
Consumerism porn
X
Dancing for candy
X
Now streaming
X
Brand acts like franchises
X
Microtransactions
X

HOT OR NOT
Igloo Australia
NFC payments
Twitter feuds
Electric cars
Twitch
Illegal drone racing
Gun control
3D printing
Programmatic Buying boring
Machine learning
●#Hipsters
●Google Glass
●3D TVs
●Racist cops
●Beards
●Charging your watch daily
●Actually owning stuff
●New social networks
●ISIS
●Dedicated servers

RISE OF THE SOCIAL SUPER-AGENT.
Social celebs, vloggers and Instagram stars are becoming more influential than Hollywood.
Follower counts will continue to rise as will their fees as they realise their power to shift product for brands.
The Ari Golds of the future won't make-it-in- Hollywood. They'll be behind the scenes in teenager’s bedrooms across the world.

#PEAKHASHTAG.
2015 will mark a period of peak hashtag use, with 83% of all campaigns featuring nothing more than a prominent hashtag.
Expect to see several babies born in 2015 with a hashtag in their name

NATIVE ADVERTISING GOES ALL OUT.
A new Pulitzer Lion is introduced as the Cannes Lions and Pulitzer Prize unite to celebrate 'Native Advertising'.
Unlike the other categories which are based on merit, this award goes to the highest bidder.
Participants are clearly informed of this discrepancy via fine print on the bottom of the trophy.

INSTAGRAM’S ICONIC MOMENT.
National Geographic photographed the Afghan Girl in 1985.
CNN broadcasted Tianamen Square's Tank Man in 1989.
The world saw the horror of 9/11 in 2001 via the Internet.
Drone’s replaced embedded reporters, making online broadcasting a new theatre of war in the late 2000’s.
In 2015 Instagram will have its iconic moment - a visual so powerful it cements the platform’s place in cultural and media history.

NARCISSISM RUINS HOLIDAYS.
Travel. Concerts. Sunsets… These unique personal experiences now mean nothing unless they’re narcissistically broadcast to jealous friends.
‘Being in the moment’ has been replaced by
‘being captured being in the moment’.
Sadly, ‘stop and smell the roses’ will just be a new start-up that delivers smells via your smartphone.

A MAN SHOWED THIS PREDICTION ABOUT EXAGGERATED, BUZZFEED STYLE HEADLINES TAKING OVER ALL FORMS OF JOURNALISM TO HIS WIFE. YOU WON’T BELIEVE HER REACTION. IT’LL RESTORE YOUR FAITH IN HUMANITY.

COST PER LOL.
With benchmarks like impressions, dwell time and click-throughs becoming less relevant, expect publishers to invent new metrics like cost per laugh, smile-to-frown ratio and the all important ‘stopped looking at their phone to look at TV’ metric.

SWEENS.
A new term is invented to describe the biggest consumers of pop music, reality TV shows, in-game purchases and online media: SWEENS (single-digit aged tweens).
Expecting parents will race to secure the ‘digital property’ for their soon-to-be-Sween. With available social media handles, personal domain names and unique emails now just as important as a baby’s actual (hashtagged) name.

BATTERIES ARE THE NEW BATTLEFIELD.
Forget oil. With products like the Apple Watch, the Tesla electric car and Google Nest, the new battleground is in building longer, more powerful and smaller battery technology.
Buy your shares in Energizer (NYSE:ENR) now.

SPORTS STARS GO IPO.
With athletes getting younger and younger and their income coming from more and more places, expect rising talents to incorporate themselves and go public as a way of kickstarting their careers.
And it won’t stop there… to help overcome rising student debt, expect investing in a university student to become more commonplace.

VR PHARMACEUTICALS.
With Facebook spending $2 billion on acquiring Oculus, Samsung throwing their weight behind Gear VR and Sony launching a VR headset, 2015 is looking like the year VR goes mainstream.
This allows GSK to invent a new drug that helps people wear a VR headset for more than 20 minutes without getting sick.

E INK TAKES OVER FASHION.
‘Fast Fashion’ gets even faster as garments that use E Ink open a new frontier in personalisation and digital retailing.
We’re entering the era of subscription-based fashion, where the latest look is transferred directly onto your garment.
Magazines will be able to offer ‘try before you buy’ by simply tapping ads on pages.
Kanye will be an pioneer with his range of E Ink sneakers featuring his face. They will sell out in hours.

THE TINDERIZATION OF EVERYTHING.
Expect to see less original ideas and more trying to replicate successful social start-ups.
Try it for yourself…
The [start-up] of [industry]
Here’s a few we prepared earlier...
●The Airbnb of pets
●The Tinder of restaurants
●The Uber of child care

FOOD SCIENCE TAKES OFF.
Think your Nespresso machine is fancy?
Soon you’ll be able to design your own cat food, print Michelin starred cuisine on demand or simply stay alive without needing food at all.
If only Willy Wonka were alive today.

As brands run out of new markets to expand into they’ll invest more in mobile gaming to drive a new wave of revenue growth and capture part of the $85+ billion games market.
Why try and sell a real candy bar for $1 when you can sell a virtual one for $1.99.
Meanwhile, in an effort to keep investors happy, expect to see King’s Candy Crush Soda on shelves soon.
BRANDS LEVEL UP.

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