From Olympic Breakdancing to Election Fever, WGSN previews 2024

Joe McDonnell, director of Insight, discusses 2024’s major events and their impact on consumer behaviour. Discover how elections affect consumer confidence. Why it's a year of sport and how that will continue to fuel the outdoor boom. Plus, why consumers in a cost-of-living crisis will still invest in fun.

Election fever

“From a consumer perspective, generally speaking, elections present quite a lot of uncertainty for businesses, depending on which party gets into power. It can result in exchange rate fluctuations – if you’re a business importing, or exporting, it can result in a massive fluctuation. We saw that in the UK with less trust last year huge drops in the value of the pound. And that has real implications for businesses, and supply chain disruption as well, depending on which party gets in. So from a political standpoint, 2024 looks to be one of slight disruption for consumers and businesses.”

A year of sport

“The Olympics is obviously fantastic for a number of reasons, it brings countries together and you get to see a whole range of different sports that you didn't even know existed. It is a huge opportunity for brands as well. All of the main sponsorships have been agreed and signed years in advance as part of multi-year deals, but there is also a opportunity for brands to play around this space.”

The value of festivals and fun

“Fun is so important. Recreation, leisure is so important. What’s going to happen is people are going to keep on attending festivals. They’re going to keep on spending the money, but what they’re going do is cut back on other areas of life, either eating out less, one less takeaway, etc. For brands playing in that space, attending festivals is expensive. This is a really quite serious amount of money for what is effectively a holiday. So for brands it’s about anticipating these events and putting themselves in the consumer’s shoes – focus on value, focus on price and think about how you can support them.”

– Joe McDonnell, Director of Insight

Head to Apple or Spotify to hear the full discussion on our Lives of Tomorrow podcast episode, Olympic Breakdancing, Election Fever and Collective Effervescence – WGSN’S 2024 preview