🔮 Return to Real: The Marketing Trend to Watch
Marketing feels louder and emptier than ever. Consumers are tired of following brands. Social feeds overflow with AI-generated sameness. And yet something new is happening...
Hi 👋 I’m Florian Schleicher. This is the FutureStrategies newsletter. Thank you so much for reading along 💚
Being a strategist, I always collect signals, trends and insights on what is happening in marketing, consumer behaviour and where leading brands tap into new categories of branding.
Over the summer I took some time to work on one of these observations that has drawn on me for quite a while.
This led to my very first marketing trend report of my own, which I call PULSE.
And the theme of this first report is “RETURN TO REAL”.
It’s 75 slides structured in 5 chapters.
So, what is my first marketing trend report about?
I believe the next wave of brand growth won’t come from louder ads, digital media or smarter AI. It’ll come from deeper presence of marketing, real belonging, and doing less - better.
Where does this come from?
Over the last years I have seen marketing becoming even louder, penetrating (!) attention spans. Up to a point where they seem to be close to 0.
Now AI produces even more content and in many conversations friends, clients, survey participants have told me again and again:
“We are tired of digital media.”
Maybe digital media has become the new TV?
Good to reach a lot of people. But inefficient to really cut through the noise, because it has become the noise.
It feels like marketing’s loudest moment, is also its emptiest.
That’s the initial thought that sparked this report.
Then I went deep into research, data points, signals, reports and observations - to develop something that counters this movement.
Here are some of the key points that I outline in my 5 chapters:
1. WAKE UP ✴ Tensions
Phones give us everything we think we need, but the joy is gone.
Scrolls feel endless, but empty. Gen Z is reporting record levels of digital fatigue, and the promise of social platforms has thinned into obligation.
57% of Gen Z wish social media was never created
26 % are engaging in full digital detoxes
56% express fatigue from social media content
We are more connected than ever. And more alone than we’ve ever admitted.
