Standout trends of 2024: from uncertainty to momentum

What was the standout trend for 2024?

Melissa Sauter, chief executive, Escalent
It has to be the increasing disruption of client-side insights teams, driven by market uncertainty, incredible advances in technology and cost pressures. This creates higher expectations for insights teams to deliver strategic impact and growth. Agencies supporting those teams need to help elevate impact by leaning into the rapid advancements in tech for faster insights, understanding the client’s industry to be able to provide strategic advice, and helping clients develop a deep understanding and empathy for their customer because, ultimately, strong relationships equal strong businesses.  

Amy Cashman, executive managing director of the UK insights division, Kantar
Politically, we’ve seen a tide of incumbent governments being removed from office across the globe. From a research point of view, this says something really interesting about how people are thinking and feeling. It seems that the challenges of everyday life over the past few years, from lockdowns to the cost-of-living crisis and creaking public services, have come home to roost – there’s been a palpable sense of frustration from electorates around the world. Of course, the challenge going into 2025 will be whether new leaders can live up to expectations. 

Nick Baker, global chief research officer, Savanta
Uncertainty, fear of change and a dawning realisation the industry is undoubtedly in a paradigm shift not seen since the emergence of online research methods. AI empowered tools and the accessibility and utility of data outside primary research hothouses is transforming what’s possible, how things can be done and crucially the economic models and norms underpinning pricing and value equations. 

Kelly Beaver, chief executive, UK and Ireland, Ipsos
This year, the Ipsos Issues Index celebrates its 50-year anniversary, so we’ve been looking back at the trends of what Britain sees as the most important issues facing the country to see what’s been remarkable. In the 1970s and 80s we saw the ‘winters of discontent’ with inflation, trade unions and unemployment featuring, into the 1990s it was public services with the NHS and education dominating, and the new millennium was defined by defence/terrorism and crime, closely followed by the 2008 crash. As we moved into the 2010s, the key issue was taking back control in the form of immigration, Europe and Brexit and then in 2020, Covid hit.

What marks 2024 is the volatile and unpredictable mix of many issues, all at once – the NHS, immigration, the economy and inflation are all vying as most important – leaving us with an incredibly complex landscape to navigate, both as an industry, but as well as for business leaders, government and the country as a whole.

Ben Shimshon, chief executive and founding partner, Thinks Insight & Strategy
Considered spend: This year has been about sweating every penny for value (not volume). Whether clients, consumers or governments, there’s been a real push towards getting quality and longevity out of restricted budgets. 

Babita Earle, international managing director, Zappi
A notable trend for me this year has been the movement amongst client-side insight professionals in how they earn a seat at the table. They're reimagining their data, transitioning from fragmented, siloed assets to standardised, connected data sets. This shift has involved investment in systems, processes and change management strategies to cultivate rich and big data assets. 

The real magic occurs when these assets are integrated with AI systems, unlocking the ability for insight professionals to collaborate in ways which have been impossible before. This year has witnessed a surge in curiosity, desire, and confidence in embracing AI. While it’s been a hot topic at conferences, our industry recognises the unique opportunity to lead. We possess the skills and expertise to adapt, and we understand how to harness technology to enhance our impact on the people and organisations we serve. 

Graham Idehen, senior director, customer experience – international, Dscout, and chair, MRS Representation in Research
One standout trend this year that resonated strongly with me was making research more human. From bringing the voice of the customer to life to diving deeper into audience understanding, empathy took centre stage. Companies also started taking participant wellbeing seriously, with a greater emphasis on reducing fatigue and burnout to maximise the quality of insights. It’s been a year of recognising that understanding participants better means treating them better, too. 

Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director, GfK
The product replacement trend. Having tracked the emergence of consumers moving away from upgrading tech and durables products to only replacing when they must, in 2024 we saw this trend become entrenched in certain categories.  This started to emerge a couple of years ago during the height of the cost-of-living crisis, but with many people still struggling to make ends meet, consumers are having to prioritise everyday essentials. 

Paul Hudson, founder and chief executive, FlexMR
Quantitative synthetic data – as distinct from large language models (LLM). It’s still a contentious issue – and will remain so for a number of years – but 2024 was the year where it became a mainstream debating point and where real-world experiments and actual use cases emerged. This is still early days, but without serious improvement in the sampling quality/pricing trade-off, I believe synthetic data will continue to gain ground. 

Ray Poynter, chief research officer, Potentiate
The maturing debate about synthetic data has been encouraging, and in terms of the concerns about panel data quality it is also timely. 

Tatenda Musesengwa, vice-president of audiences, Savanta and co-founder, Colour of Research (CORe)
There’s two for me. The first has been the increased use of peer-led research across the industry. For example, my colleagues have done some brilliant work with Motability, working with young disabled peer researchers to understand the transport needs of other young disabled people. That’s something I’m seeing more of, and it’s an exciting new approach to research that I think is more empowering.

On the other end of the scale, I also see more and more interest in synthetic modelling and synthetic data. Although synthetic data is still in the early adoption phase, it will increasingly form the basis of quantitative research as researchers and clients begin trusting its reliability. 

Emma Cooper, chief people officer, System1 Group
In the marketing arena, the most significant development has been a renewed focus on creative consistency. As Mark Ritson aptly puts it: “The simplest thing you can do to make marketing more effective is to resist change”. This feels especially ironic amid the rapid changes we’re experiencing and the instinct to adapt quickly. However, research from System1 and the IPA reinforces the link between creative consistency and tangible business impact. One standout finding for me was learning that some adverts only air for an average of 15 days — a surprisingly short timeframe. By contrast, the most commercially successful brands in the study aired their campaigns far longer, prioritising quality over sheer quantity. 

Danielle Todd, director, The Forge and lead, Women in Research (WIRe) London
2024 felt like the ‘year of waiting’. Nearly half of the democratic world voted, and we all waited; we waited for elections results, then budget announcements, the list goes on. It feels like we are, now, at the end of 2024, ready for momentum.

Tom McEnery, board director and equity partner, Opinium
Globally, 2024 was no doubt the year for elections. The big trend in many parts of the world has been populations deciding that they've had enough, quite frankly. Change has been the word, with incumbent governments booted out left, right, and centre. The big question is: what next? Will people feel better now that they've held the governments they blame to account, or will we see the blame for declining standards of living shift in new directions as we head into 2025? 

This is the first article in Research Live’s end-of-year series reviewing the developments of 2024 and looking ahead to 2025.