Consumer Behavior

“My Hot Take: The return of the physical! ... 2025 will also be the year of The Endowment Effect. ... So watch for a move towards more physical, experiential, in-person and collaborative marketing ‘wow’ moments, as well as things like direct mail and the return of the catalog continued.”

“As we head into 2026, consumers will be asking for more in-person connections and more physical touchpoints with brands. From curated catalogs and sleek packaging to retail and real-world experiences that invite people to slow down and engage. ... Return ON Touch might just be the new ROI.”

“My prediction for 2021 is that business will continue to go digital and retail stores will continue to change or shutter. I think retail may actually shrink in terms of individual footprint, and stores will become "way stations" for exchanges and appointment shopping. ... malls will have to cut individual stores in half, increase occupancy and look at more experiential ways to use the space.”

“it's really surprising, but people always know when it's AI.”

“By 2025, 50% of consumers will significantly limit or abandon social media due to perceived decay in quality, including GenAI integration (70%+ see harm to user experience).”

“But there's no question that a well-intentioned influencer with high integrity and testing the products they recommend is going to drive higher sales and conversions of those products than someone that's just, you know, switching left on every product that they put in place. But you know back to the bottom line the bottom line is are consumers going to like it? Will they already do and you know will they consume more of it? I think will and will they end up buying more products? I think they will.”

“And you know because it's easy to forget everybody's a publisher. There are 300 million influencers. I don't know the number of above 10,000 followers, but it's tens of millions of them have tens of thousands of followers. And they can be very vertical. You know, it's I'm on the angling, I'm on travel, I'm on fashion, I'm on beauty. And there's always brands within those different verticals of followers that are looking to ways to influence consumers. And you know, let's not forget as consumers, I want to know the new products in in the space that I'm passionate about, whether it's photography, angling, fashion, and you know, that's the history of publishing in the in the last 300 years. So, you know, I see that it is evolving. There are platforms really sprouting up to make that world more simple. We've made a couple of bets in the sector ourselves. We may not be 100% correct, but all boats will 100% rise in that consumers will discover more. Influencers will show more and consumers will also buy more.”

“I don't think that [AI for shopping] is going to be huge.”

“In the distant future, O'Meara said she was excited for the day people get used to making big purchases through their TVs. She reminded the crowd how we used to be weary of making big ticket purchase on our phone, and now it's second nature. That same adoption can happen with CTV, which is excellent news for advertisers.”