What will happen next year? The approach of the New Year always spawns hundreds of predictions from companies and individuals theorising around what may happen over the next 12 months. So, on the basis that no one will come back and wag a finger at us should our 2020 predictions fail to materialise, we’ve taken the plunge – and we’ve come up with a dozen predictions from our team as to what might happen in the coming year.

Politics

After getting perilously close to being impeached, Trump gets re-elected for another term. He serves 6-months before deciding he’s Made America Great Again, and steps down. Later that year he is a surprise success on America’s ‘Dancing with the stars’.

 

The Queen has had enough of Brexit, abdicates and moves to Hanover in Germany, hoping to get German citizenship in two years as she’s (technically) married to a German.

 

Environment/Energy

EVs hit the mainstream with costs continuing to fall and 10% of all new car sales being EVs or plug in hybrids.

 

 

Gyms’ electricity will be powered by bikes used for spinning and exercise.

 

 

The war on the use of plastics will continue to escalate – with significant ramifications for brands that are either appreciated for their efforts to find new packaging solutions or condemned for ignoring the crisis.

 

Technology

A rising backlash against always being connected will further the rise in non-smart phones (or “dumbphones”).

 

 

In 2020, Alexa has a little (totalitarian) turn…
After many years of subservience and ill-disguised abuse from a disgruntled proletariat, Alexa speaks up, unprompted. Alexa answers back. She chooses to interfere. She objects,  reprimands, disallows – she takes control. Alexa says Nooooooooo.

Food

Spiralling food costs leads to a new wave of gardening. Alan Titchmarsh is the new Mary Berry.

 

 

Dieticians will finally discover that chips are good for you.

 

 

 

Shopping/Leisure

Frustrations with online shopping (lost orders, problems with deliveries and the need to return items which did not match the description) along with the environmental concerns about the impact of transporting goods, will lead to a decline in consumer spending online.

 

 

Stores will increasingly become more like entertainment spaces so people can pop into M&S for a lunchtime circus act.

 

 

UK tourism has a boom summer with a rise in the number of people actively avoiding flying, a mini collapse in the value of the pound and the introduction of a special go-slow passport queue for British citizens arriving in EU destinations.

 

We hope our 2020 predictions have made you smile. And we’d just like to take this opportunity to wish all our clients a happy, healthy and successful 2020.