Early in 2020, as the pandemic was getting underway, Americans flocked to their TV sets at a rate unseen in years. Initially, US households were glued to the news, as uncertainty over the coronavirus drove viewership. In the following weeks, the TVs mostly stayed on, as the initial wave of lockdowns kept Americans stuck on the couch with lots of new time to kill.

Gen Xers will be ages 41 to 56 in 2021, making the oldest of the cohort within sight of retirement—or, at least, within sight of an age at which they might like to retire. Whether they’re saving enough to make retirement feasible is another matter, especially given the pandemic.

As WeChat enters its second decade, Allen Zhang Xiaolong, chief architect of the super app, pledged at an annual conference to make videos its cornerstone in the coming years. More specifically, Zhang spotlighted Channels, its short-form video feature, and a more seamless user experience with official accounts and miniprograms (lightweight apps within WeChat that require minimal downloading and disappear after use).

Home is where the work is

UK programmatic digital display ad spending increased in 2020, despite the incredibly challenging conditions. The shift to programmatic trading will further accelerate this year, but certain methods are performing better than others.

Social media memes have been around for over a decade, but the last twelve months have solidified their position as a staple of digital communication. While the topics themselves are no laughing matter, lighthearted humor about shared struggles has become a coping mechanism—or simply a much-needed distraction—for many.

In 2021, expect to see a convergence of content and commerce, led by the likes of Peloton, Lululemon, Nike and Apple. Amazon and Google are also getting into the act as well with Halo and Fitbit, and emerging services offerings.

Consumers in Europe increasingly see brands in a much broader context. The public is becoming more alert to the ways companies and brands go beyond advertising and marketing to make other positive contributions—or not. The converse also applies: Brands that don’t step up to the plate, or are linked with counterproductive actions, can easily lose consumer approval.

The emergence of new companies selling direct online has been a big story for some time. Mattress brands Casper and Emma, luggage maker Away, beauty company Glossier, and garment retailer Happy Socks were among the first highly successful direct-to-consumer (D2C) firms, many of them based in Europe.

When asked about their priorities for the year in SEMRush’s “State of Content Marketing” report, the most popular answer, with 79% of marketers agreeing, was generating quality leads.

Advertiser demand for video impressions has always outstripped supply, but supply has gotten a big boost as consumers started adopting streaming video viewing in larger numbers—especially on CTV devices—and more of those impressions have been made available programmatically.

Retail ecommerce sales in Western Europe rose by 26.3% in 2020, to €481.54 billion ($539.18 billion). The pandemic is fueling other shifts in the retail landscape, too, such as a greater focus on buying local.

Despite a challenging year for retail in 2020, we estimate that worldwide retail ecommerce sales posted a 27.6% growth rate for the year, with sales reaching well over $4 trillion. This represents a substantial uptick from our mid-pandemic assessment that global ecommerce would decelerate to 16.5% growth and demonstrates the remarkable extent to which consumers transitioned to ecommerce last year.

The eMarketer team deliberated extensively to select the 10 key digital trends to watch in 2021 from a list of 43. Which trends narrowly missed the cut? Here’s our first in a series of additional transformative developments that ought to be on your radar in the year ahead.

Even as total worldwide retail sales declined by 3.0% in 2020, retail ecommerce growth boomed to 27.6%. Ecommerce growth will decelerate substantially in 2021 to 14.3% as brick-and-mortar sales recover.

Incumbent insurers have accelerated their use of mature AI deployments in the past year to meet changing customer expectations and better compete with insurtechs. They’ll now need to infuse the tech across their business segments to unlock the full potential—including enhanced personalization, cost cutting, and stronger risk management—of AI-driven digital transformation.

With many retail stores temporarily closed during the pandemic, and more consumers turning online to buy goods, major social networks have taken steps to improve their ecommerce offerings.

Click and collect has been a growing trend for some time now as US consumers found they enjoyed the convenience and cost-savings of purchasing online and picking up their order on the way home from work or while running errands.

With the pandemic causing unprecedented spikes in unemployment, many boomers have chosen to retire rather than remain in the workforce.

Rapid-fire event cancellation notices and invites to (poorly produced) virtual events littered the inboxes of B2B audiences at the start of the pandemic. Luckily, there are plenty of learnings for organizers and sponsors to implement as the landscape continues to transform.