Emerging Issues Weekly | No. 1 | December 10, 2021
Curating the top ten emerging issues from the week shaping commerce + culture.
ONE
16% of Americans say they have ever invested in, traded, or used cryptocurrency, according to Pew.
+ Men ages 18 to 29 are particularly likely to say they have used cryptocurrencies.
Look for incumbent financial institutions to take crypto more and more seriously, just like Visa, which unveiled a crypto advisory service for its institution and retail clients.
TWO
Shein adds 6,000 new items online each day, far more than any comparable retailer manages.
Plus, it responds in real-time to trends picked up not by fashionistas and designers but by analytics, which trawls through shopping and social media websites.
Shein is also very cheap. The average unit price of their more than 600,000 products is just $7.90.
Look for more fast fashion companies to copy Shein, which has turned shopping into a form of online entertainment.
THREE
Get ready for the Beijing Splinter Olympics.
So far, no government officials from Australia, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Lithuania, or the US will attend the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Look for an increased hyper-politicization of global sport.
FOUR
100m = Number of Americans who signed up for Disney+ within its first 18 months on the market.
Disney executives see streaming as an era-defining opportunity.
Executives at the company say this is the most significant burst of innovation since the 1930s studio gold rush.
Look for increased convergence of entertainment and technology.
Disney alone has said it will spend $33 billion on content (including sports rights) in 2022, while Netflix plans to spend $22 billion and WarnerMedia $18 billion.
FIVE
The first round of the 2022 French presidential election is April 10, 2022.
Voting intentions for the 1st round of the French presidential election 2022:
23% Macron
18% Le Pen
14% Zemmour
14% Pécresse
11% Mélenchon
7% Jadot
Harris Interactive, December 3-6, 2021
Look for no candidate to win a majority of the vote in the first round and plan for a runoff between the top two candidates on April 24, 2022.
SIX
Horns With Heart says it will offer every University of Texas Longhorns offensive lineman on scholarship $50,000 annually beginning next August to use their name, image, and likeness (NIL) to support charitable causes.
Six Texas alumni and supporters founded Horns With Heart.
Look for more school alumni and sports boosters to develop NIL joint scholarship-charitable organizations.
SEVEN
Sales of NFTs reached $10.7 billion in the third quarter of 2021, up more than eightfold from the previous quarter, according to the market tracker DappRadar.
More than half of NFTs sold in Q3 were $101-$1,000.
Look for more gaming-related NFTs to surge with the development of "play-to-earn" for blockchain-based games.
EIGHT
About 49 percent of prepandemic moviegoers are no longer buying tickets. According to a study by Quorum, some of them, roughly 8 percent, have likely been lost forever.
"The research clearly shows that theaters are suffering because the pandemic intensified, accelerated, amplified all of the nascent trends that were already underway." -- Linda Ong, brand strategist @ Cultique
Look for theaters to offer better food and drink offerings with lower prices for classic concessions, newer seats, and better audio experiences.
NINE
Investment bank Cowen states that sneakers are emerging as an alternative asset class for Gen Z.
The sneaker resale sector grew by $4 billion in the two years to 2021, according to US bank Piper Sandler; Cowen estimates it has the "potential to reach" $30 billion by 2030.
A survey last year by the Harris Poll showed that 23 percent of US adults have or plan to purchase limited-edition sneakers, and 37 percent of these said they were motivated by the investment opportunity.
Look for more specialized online marketplaces to reduce the risk of counterfeits with authentication services.
TEN
Ralph Lauren is debuting its first digital fashion line in Roblox's virtual world.
Offering a "Winter Escape" experience in the online universe, Ralph Lauren's items will cost 125 to 300 Robux, or about $1.25 to $3.00.
Players often change the appearance of their avatars, with 1 in 5 doing so daily, said Christina Wootton, Roblox's vice president of global brand partnerships.
Look for online players to try on items in Roblox, then click on a button to get them delivered in the real world.
