Attention doesn’t drift. It turns.
Every year we sit with thousands of people and watch what they actually choose to look at — not what they say they like. The 2027 Forecast maps six turns in that attention, and where a brand should be standing when it arrives.
3,200 conversations · nine markets · 41,000 hours of viewing diaries
Six signals for 2027
Each signal carries a bearing: how steeply it is rising or cooling across our nine markets. The arrow takes the bearing of the signal in front of you.
-
Smaller rooms
Audiences are leaving the open feed for group chats, close-friends lists and paid circles. Influence now travels through rooms of thirty, not crowds of millions.
-
Slow proof
The review filmed a year after purchase now outperforms the unboxing. People trust what has survived real life — and they are willing to wait for it.
-
The unpolished premium
Lo-fi is no longer the cheap option. Kept mistakes and one-take answers read as respect for the viewer’s time; heavy polish now reads as distance.
-
Borrowed authority
Generalists who endorse everything are losing pull. People now ask who has spent ten years on one narrow thing, and they listen to that person instead.
-
Questions go out loud
What used to be typed into a search bar is now asked in comment threads, voice notes and assistants. Brands need answers that people can quote back.
-
Reach without recall
Impressions are up and memory is down. Media bought without a reason to remember is, in one respondent’s words, paying for weather.
What brands count, and what people act on
Six measures still head most reports. Our respondents act on something else. Here is the trade, one line at a time.
-
From Follower count
to Reply rate
A reply is a promise somebody kept. In our panel it predicted purchase twice as well as audience size.
-
From Launch day
to Day 400
The second wave of reviews, filmed after a year of use, now moves more people than the launch itself.
-
From Celebrity
to Specialist
Fame still opens the door. A decade spent on one narrow subject is what gets people to walk through it.
-
From Feed
to Room
Things are discovered in public and decided in private. The group chat is where the verdict happens.
-
From Script
to Draft
Answers that look unrehearsed beat finished ones, as long as the facts hold up.
-
From Reach
to Recall
We now ask one question before any media plan: what will someone repeat to a friend tomorrow?
Field notes
3,200 conversations in nine markets, from Lagos to Seoul. We asked people to show us their phones, not to describe them.
“I don’t follow people who talk at me. I follow the ones who answer back.”
Manchester — a show watched through four hundred screens Leeds, 26 — reads the comments before the caption Seoul — four friends, one group chat, no talking London — everyone filming, nobody posting until later Lisbon — the front page, read through a shop window
Halyard Ahead: four evenings, argued live
Each evening takes one signal from the forecast and puts it in front of the people it describes. The broadcast is free; the Bristol studio has sixty seats.
-
Next live
Smaller rooms: influence after the feed
Mara Ilves with three group-chat admins who reach more people than most magazines.
Save a seat -
Slow proof: why day 400 beats launch day
Jonah Achebe with a repair channel that reviews products a year late, on purpose.
Save a seat -
Unpolished, on purpose
Inès Duarte on one-take answers, kept mistakes and the end of the perfect post.
Save a seat -
The forecast, argued
The whole team takes questions — and the strongest objections — from the studio floor.
Save a seat
The people reading the wind
Four people write the forecast. They spend most of the year inside other people’s group chats — always with permission.
-
Mara Ilves
Head of strategy · forecast lead
Hosts “Smaller rooms”. Read 140 group chats this year, every one by invitation.
-
Jonah Achebe
Director of research
Runs the nine-market panel and the 41,000 hours of viewing diaries behind every bearing.
-
Inès Duarte
Creator partnerships
Works with three hundred creators a year and argues for the unpolished take.
-
Callum Reyes
Measurement lead
Turns recall into a number a finance director will sign off.
The full forecast, free
Sixty-four pages: the six signals, the data behind every bearing, and a one-page brief for each team that has to act on it.
- 1Smaller rooms
- 2Slow proof
- 3The unpolished premium
- 4Borrowed authority
- 5Questions go out loud
- 6Reach without recall
- 7Method, panel and data
Before you ask
Is the forecast really free?
Yes. Leave a work email and the PDF arrives within a minute. We write once more when the next edition is out, and that is all.
Can I attend a session in person?
Each evening has sixty seats in our Bristol studio, given out in the order requests arrive. Everyone else watches the free broadcast.
Will the sessions be recorded?
Yes. Recordings go up within two days, with chapters, so you can jump straight to the argument you care about.
How is the research done?
A panel of 3,200 people in nine markets, interviewed twice a year, plus 41,000 hours of viewing diaries and screen recordings people chose to share. The method chapter lists every source.
Can you present it to my team?
We run a ninety-minute working session for up to forty people, in person or online, built around the two signals that matter most to your brand.
Point us somewhere
Briefs, invitations and arguments with the forecast are all welcome. We answer within two working days.
Halyard Studio, 1 Example Street, Bristol BS1 0ZZ
Studio hours: Monday to Friday, 9:30–18:00