Jane Frost, chief executive, MRS
It must be the spectacular way David Davis has managed to try and trash the importance of evidence and expertise in excusing the lack of impact assessments for Brexit. Whatever way you voted, this is just wrong.

Pippa Bailey, senior director, Ipsos Mori
Political crises and continuing uncertainty – Brexit, Trump and political elections across the globe. Need I go on?

Zlatko Vucetic, president and COO, FocusVision
The Federal Communications Commission’s announcement to roll back the core protections of net neutrality in the US was a huge disappointment. Net neutrality is an important pillar in communication and innovation in the tech space and to many small enterprises and start-ups in every area of business.

Tom Ewing, head of communications, System1
The rush to neatly analyse and package ‘Gen Z. The presentations I saw on this were uniformly inane and reeked of bullshit. Nothing against today’s tweens and teens, who live fascinating lives, but boxing all millennials together into a clichéd package was a mistake, and we’re making the same one again.

Frédéric-Charles Petit, chief executive and founder, Toluna
In terms of product launches, the Apple IPhone X is another example of falling victim to its own success. The delay in product release and high price point didn’t go down well with brand loyalists, with initial sales falling short of that expected. Stock price also dropped with concerns around the facial recognition features offered.

Will Galgey, UK CEO, Kantar TNS
After the Pokemon Go phenomenon of 2016 thrust AR in front of the world, AR hasn't really taken off as a marketing mechanic in the way I expected. There have been a handful of interesting campaigns, notably Ikea, but it feels like there is still a lot to come from brands and AR.

Caroline Frankum, global chief executive, Lightspeed
The fact that researchers are still talking about how to be ‘mobile first’ when mobile should be a ‘business as usual’ implicit consideration in everything we do now.

Andy Brown, CEO, Kantar Media
The continued decline of the print advertising business. And I don’t just say that from a standpoint of being concerned about my clients, but also as a consumer and the impact it’s having on fact-based, quality journalism.

Peter Totman, head of qualitative, Jigsaw
The ongoing reluctance of research marketers and communication industry to adopt evolutionary psychology as additional lens – people and brands are, perhaps understandably, scared of the subject.

Jane Bloomfield, head of sales and marketing, Millward Brown
John Lewis’s Christmas ad! It had such a strong platform from which to launch this year’s offering, but it felt like the creative missed the mark in terms of great storytelling.