People love predicting what the future holds in milestone years, so here are some things to expect in 2025: astronauts will land on one of Jupiter’s moons, “all wealth” will be in “feminine hands”, and we’ll have sessions with virtual therapists – which come to think of it, might be coming true after all…
Scroll down to read about the ice cream bloc, the fallout from "Fallout”, and the less-than-frothy craft beer market.
Stats to power your week
❗ A French banker hit the jackpot by predicting Donald Trump’s win in last week’s election, thanks to a poll he ran asking people who they thought their neighbors would support. We found a similar pattern in our own research: what turned out to be our most accurate election poll asked who people thought would win, rather than who they’d vote for personally. GWI Zeitgeist
📵 A tech detox might be on the table for 2025. Compared to last year, the fastest-growing New Year’s Resolutions are spending less time on social media (+22%), volunteering more (+22%), and reading more (+10%). GWI Zeitgeist
🟩 As many would’ve predicted, the Collins Dictionary has picked “brat” as its word of the year. They define it as someone with a “confident, independent and hedonistic attitude” and they might have a point – the number of 16-24 women who describe themselves as confident has risen 22% since 2020. GWI Core (UK)
☢️ The last few years have seen a number of game franchises adapted to TV shows, and current evidence suggests they attract people back to the games themselves. “The Last of Us” had a boost following release in 2023, and “Fallout” is the latest to benefit, with a 27% increase in players year-on-year. GWI Gaming (US/UK)
🍺 The past decade has been something of a golden age for craft beer, with all kinds of IPAs and imperial stouts hitting the market. But tastes are changing, the market is saturating, and the tap might be running dry – the number of Americans who call it their favorite type of alcohol has dropped 13% year-on-year. GWI USA
What’s on our radar
At the start of the year, many felt (in a record-breaking year for elections) that AI and deepfakes might provoke a misinformation crisis. As 2024 closes, we can probably accept it didn't pan out as predicted – though not without some intervention.
For those interested in a cozier night out, listening bars – drinking venues with a focus on the music and sound systems – continue to pop up in New York and London.
Almost five years after the first Covid lockdowns, the battle for the future of remote work continues. More companies are asking their employees to come back to the office, but recent research highlights how virtual calls allow workers to bond by learning more about their personal lives.
A strong signal about the potential use of generative AI in gaming – Netflix has appointed a “vice president of GenAI for games”. Meanwhile OpenAI has hired a new executive to lead its efforts in robotics and consumer hardware, and Apple is exploring a push into smart glasses.
The voice of esteemed chat show host Sir Michael Parkinson, who died last year, will be used to front a series of podcasts with today’s celebrities. It raises an interesting possible side-effect of AI – if the leading talents can work effectively forever, what happens to the people who would otherwise replace them?
Chart of the week
Following last week’s presidential election, you might be wondering which groups were key to the Republican win. As our platform allows us to analyze pretty much any audience, we can trace these movements at a deeper level.
Other polls have found similar swings to the ones highlighted in our research – a red shift among non-college graduates, African Americans, Latinos, Gen Z, and even traditionally true-blue parts of New York.
But we’re also picking up shifts not widely covered elsewhere. Any post-election analysis should consider the people working multiple jobs, prospective Marines, couples expecting their first child, farmers, and environment sector workers. These audiences, and the goings-on in their lives, point the way toward economic and social shifts that are changing how people vote.
So what’s with the swing among “ice cream nevers”? It’s more likely to be down to geography or personal circumstances, but it’s still a bizarre coincidence to see such a big movement among people who don’t eat Joe Biden’s favorite food.
Local lowdown
Music downloads are alive and kicking in East Africa
There’s a conventional history of how people buy music – vinyls were replaced by CDs, which were replaced by downloads, which were replaced by streaming. But this doesn’t capture the nuances in some areas of the world.
In parts of Africa, downloads are still the main way music is consumed. In fact, consumers in Kenya are more likely to pay for music downloads than any other country. The reasons why are interesting, and remind us that internet access looks very different across the globe, shaping local economies accordingly. In Kenya incomes are relatively low, and data can be expensive – for many, too expensive to stream music. But if you download a song, you only have to pay for it once.
With this in mind, music-streaming apps like Mdundo have come up with clever freemium models, where ads are played at the start of a song downloaded for free. As its CEO Martin Nielsen says, it’s a good example of marketing to local habits, rather than trying to force through the “correct” way of doing something.
