A considered look at the patterns that shaped 2025 and the ideas we think are genuinely smart bets as we move into 2026.
Happy New Year, and welcome to 2026.
How was your break? Did you get the reset you hoped for or are you already a little tired just thinking about the year ahead? (lol.)
Some of you are coming in with big ambitions and fresh energy. Others are still easing your brain back into “business mode.” Both are valid. Truly.
Before we dive in, we hope the holidays gave you whatever you needed whether that was a full shutdown, a chaotic family marathon, or catching up on sleep with the emotional commitment usually reserved for a Netflix trilogy. Some of you might still be away, answering emails from a sunny balcony… or insisting you’re not working from your in-laws’ guest room (we see you).
Before the noise ramps back up (the forecasts, the hot takes, the overconfident predictions), we wanted to start somewhere quieter. More useful.
Because every good year starts the same way: not with certainty, but with calibration. A moment to look back honestly at what actually worked, what quietly didn’t, and what’s worth carrying forward before everything hardens into plans, decks, and deadlines, and before you know it, December.
So this isn’t a manifesto. And it’s definitely not a crystal ball.
It’s a considered look at the patterns that shaped 2025; the wins, the blind spots, the shifts that mattered more than they were given credit for, and the ideas we think are genuinely smart bets as we move into 2026.
Think of it less as a roadmap and more as a bearing. Something to steady your thinking before the year speeds up and everyone starts shouting again.
Let’s begin.
The Biggest Brand Mistakes We Saw in 2025
AI Slop Era
Brands flooded feeds with ChatGPT-flavoured copy: overly friendly, aggressively explanatory, emotionally hollow, and padded with faux-empathy. Everything read like it had been written by a very polite intern who had never felt a real emotion but had studied them extensively.
The problem wasn’t AI itself, it was more the lack of taste, direction, and restraint. When everyone uses the same tools without a point of view, output collapses into beige sameness. The excess of em dashes didn’t help.
Founder-as-Influencer Fatigue
Oversharing replaced insight. Vulnerability became the new shortcut. We learned what people had for breakfast, how burned out they were, and what their therapist said, but not what they actually believed, built, or stood for.
Visibility without intellectual infrastructure isn’t leadership. It’s an awul lot of noise.
TikTok Stockholm Syndrome
Tone, visuals, values: all reshaped by whatever happened to perform at 3pm on a Tuesday. Strategy was replaced by trend-chasing, and long-term brand memory was sacrificed for short-term reach.
The result? Brands that feel jumpy, inconsistent, and slightly panicked like they’re being held hostage by their own For You page.
The Rise of Mascot Mania
Mascots multiplied. Fast.
Suspicious blobs. Smiling fruit. Unhinged creatures behaving like they escaped from a children’s vitamin aisle. Mascots became a substitute for brand personality rather than an extension of it.
What started as a play for memorability turned into every day gimmickry. Often lacking narrative depth or cultural logic, many of these mascots aged faster than the memes they were built on.
IRL Experiences That Feel Like Sponsored Content
Pop-ups designed for photos, not people.
Spaces optimised for angles, mirrors, and brand moments but IRL uncomfortable to linger in, awkward to navigate, and emotionally empty. Walking into some activations felt less like entering a world and more like stepping inside an Instagram filter.
When IRL exists only to be documented, it stops being memorable in real life.
The Trends That Shaped 2025 (For Better or Worse)
Continue reading on our Substack, Public Opinion.
