The future is the great unknown. Er, actually, the future is now! No, no, no—the future is yesterday, old timer!

My first thought upon reading Caleb Mynatt’s article “How Digital Marketing Will Change: 14 Predictions for 2021” falls under what we might call Newton’s first law of internet editorials: For every suggestion or prediction, an opposite of equal assurance will be claimed (i.e. any diet recommended online can elsewhere be fully refuted). Where some of this article’s predictions assert a recommitment to perennial, fundamental, foundational marketing tactics, others claim companies that don’t “get with the times” are going to be left behind—that the old ways are just that. Then again, change and evolution were always perennial features of marketing. To add more nuance, none of these predictions foresees a retreat from the recent embrace of e-commerce, rather some predict a re-embracing of traditional commerce, where others envision e-commerce…