In the first 2025 issue of Sunday Strategy, we look at five stories to think about next week, including: Instagram Calls Time on Polished Social, 2025’s Year in Review, Breaking Up with Screens, Reddit’s UK Rise and a Fear of Dancing.
In addition, we have ads from: McDonalds UK, Ouigo, PostNord and Microsoft.
// Stories of the Week:
1.) The Final Call for Polished Social Media?
Have we lost social media to AI generated content? Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri’s end of year post seems to signal that we may have – with implications for social media and its traditionally polished aesthetics. Mosseri believes that as AI content refines and becomes more realistic, ‘authenticity is becoming a scarce resource’ and we may be better off signposting what’s not AI vs. signalling what is.
He claims that as camera companies try to make everyone look like a professional, flawed and imperfect images are the only authenticity signal (and even it isn’t fully defensible). The shift sees the platform envision the type of content shared normally in DMs (imperfect, quickly taken and honest content) pushed out to the main feed. While this transition has been occurring for years, the acknowledgement of it from the platform itself marks a new milestone in where AI will take social media, creators and content. When we can’t believe that anything on the platform is real, flaws become a reassuring pratfall. Whereas we looked for mistakes (six fingers on a hand) to identify GenAI content previously, flaws will, at least for a fleeting time, signal humanity.
Mosseri’s note doesn’t just acknowledge how social has already shifted, but it takes a strange tone towards who is contributing to it. His note treats AI as an inevitable tide, which it may now be, vs. something companies have created. Meta’s push to integrate greater AI into creators’ lives and users’ feeds contributed to this tide – making his resignation towards where Instagram is going all the more surprising. When social platforms say the quiet part out loud about AI, we have to recognize that things have progressed so far that we’re well beyond the point of return. Where that leaves Instagram is an open question – as the platform known for selling aspiration has yet to show where it goes now.
2.) The 2025 Year in Review.
With 52 issues of Sunday Strategy under our belts from 2025, we first want to say thank you for reading! Looking back, we pieced together 6 shifts that we captured throughout last year. From AI and social media through to how we build careers – 2025 saw subtle shifts and big changes to marketing and culture. Our 2025 wrap-up below dives into each, including:
1.) 🤖 The Connection Crisis & Synthetic Social Media
2.) 🔥 Brands Seeking Friction or Friction Finding Them
3.) ⌛ Our Nostalgic Safety Net
4.) 🃏 Everything Became Gambling
5.) 🏳️ AI vs. Authenticity Signaling
6.) 🧑🏭 No More ‘Side’, Just Hustle
3.) Is 2026 the Year We Break Up with Screens?
With OpenAI reportedly consolidating teams around the impending launch of an audio-led AI device in 2026, are we finally ready to move away from screen usage? AI has already continued the work that smart speakers began, training consumers to think of audio as an interface for more tasks. 32% of global internet users reported using a voice assistant weekly in 2024, with AI voice model refinement and voice notes increasing audio’s value since. However, screen time is still at a global high, with the average person spending 6 hours and 45 minutes looking at a screen.
There is clearly a lot of share for audio UI to take, but is it a matter of stealing or complimenting? Few environments are naturally audio only, such as in-car and even an OpenAI audio-led device will share a person with a smart phone or watch. Instead, we may be seeing a growth of multi-modal interaction that grows overall interaction time vs. stealing screen only time. Starting on an OpenAI audio device before moving to a phone when detail or privacy is needed, seems more realistic than seeing us significantly shift away from screens.
4.) Reddit Overtakes TikTok in the UK.
Ofcom’s 2025 UK user data shows that Reddit has overtaken TikTok as Britain’s fourth most popular social media service. The platform now sees 60% of Brits ‘encounter’ the site, up from 33% in 2023. Reddit’s unique nature, tapping into sub-cultures effectively and moderating discourse at a user level, is key to its success – but integration into AI results may be the greatest accelerant.
The platform has struck deals with OpenAI and seen significant coverage in Google’s AI results – with Reddit content training the models and being one of the most frequently cited platforms. The combination of humanity (through tapping into user interests and sub-cultures) and AI (through results and training) means Reddit’s growth looks to continue in 2026.
5.) Why is Everyone Afraid to Dance?
Concerts in the social media era may be less like a house party and instead featuring stationary crowds that feel more like a ‘chamber music recital – with a sizable weed budget’. In an age where expressions of dance and movement can instantly be recorded, shared and potentially shamed – we’re seeing phones pull crowds and not just those recording out of the moment.
With videos of celebrities from Austin Butler to Jon Hamm serving as cautionary tales about ‘being lost in the moment’ at concerts – dancing is going away and with it the chance for free expression and enjoyment of an experience. This shift isn’t new, with everyone from Malia Obama to various Ibiza memes in its wake. However, with artists already increasingly fighting against phones at shows, often under the guise of protecting artist expression and privacy, are we poised to see the narrative shift to talk about protecting concert goer expression?
// Ads You Might Have Missed:
1.) ‘Happy New Year to You Too’ – McDonalds UK:
Sometimes, a brand has to be honest about how people enjoy its products. We’d love to think that every sip of Gatorade is consumed on a football field, gym or track – but realistically just as much is consumed in bed or on the couch after a night out. In a similar vein, McDonald’s UK has introduced a series of tactical New Years Day ads which show an understanding of the role they play in people’s lives.
Putting aside ‘I’m loving it’ or ‘Ronald McDonald’ for realism, each OOH ad features someone receiving a McDonald’s delivery in a dressing gown after a particularly enjoyable New Year’s Eve. Simply captioned with ‘Happy New Year to You Too’, the ads promote McDonald’s delivery on a day that must be a golden (arched) opportunity – while also acknowledging the realism around the product.
2.) ‘The Last Letter’ – PostNord:
After 400 years, Danish postal service PostNord has stopped letter delivery at the end of 2025. With this, it has released ‘The Last Letter’, an ad featuring actress Ellen Hillingsø and recapping the history of the company while also looking forward to its new era. While letter delivery will be outsourced to a private company, PostNord will still deliver packages – leaving the ad with the unique challenge of saying goodbye to its known heritage, but also acknowledging its new role. We often don’t like losing things, even if we’ve left them unused. For a service that many will have known, but less will have utilized lately – there’s a delicate balance in saying goodbye, acknowledging the present reality and introducing a future vision.
3.) ‘Hawkins Heli-Tours’ – Microsoft:
Stranger Things may have ended on New Year’s Eve, but the onslaught of brand partnerships may take months to fully sift through. One that may have gone un-noticed from mid December was Microsoft Flight Simulator’s partnership with Stranger Things to launch an extension which allows pilots to fly around the fictional town of Hawkins. Promoted with an ad for ‘Hawkins Heli-Tours’, the gaming extension shows how the flight sim can serve as a cultural canvas – building on a wave of ‘watch me fly here’ content on TikTok to engage with the show’s cultural moment.
4.) ‘Felices Vueltas’ – Ouigo:
Were you stressed about heading home for the holiday season? You weren’t alone. Spanish train brand Ouigo found that 7 out of 10 people heading home for the holidays felt the same. In response they created the ‘Gabinette’, a specialty train seat on select holiday services that came with a therapist – tackling anxiety about coming home while you came home. The stunt was replicated from 2024 and while its scale was limited, it shows a brand acknowledging that not every part of the holidays is consistently merry.
// Sunday Snippets
// Marketing & Advertising //
– Pokemon is coming to McDonald’s Happy Meals in 2026 to celebrate the creatures’ 30th anniversary [Food]
– Were 2025’s most successful rebrands ‘under the radar’? [Branding]
– Shake Shack launches its ‘Good Fit’ menu, featuring healthier choices and lettuce-bun options [Food]
– US jewellery retailer Zales launches everyday jewellery chain ‘The Edit’ [Retail]
– Food delivery apps are required to pay full cash refunds instead of credits in California starting this week [Food]
– Starbucks and influencer Mr. Beast partner on Season 2 of his ‘Beast Games’ series [Brands]
– Heinz Chile taps into ‘Cute Aggression’ (the phenomenon of biting what you love) in their latest ads [Food]
– Toyota enlists Sisqo to make a Thon(g) song about its Toyotathon sale [Automotive]
// Technology & Media //
– Reuters reports that Meta allowed fraudulent ads through to maintain profits [Social Media]
– How does AI break down on American political party lines? [AI]
– Prices for 2019’s ‘Star Wars Racer Revenge’ have skyrocketed as it can play a role in a PS5 jailbreak [Gaming]
– Mirumi Tokyo’s head turning creature charm aims to be the next Labubu [Toys]
– Clicks debuts its take on a Blackberry phone, complete with huge keyboard [Technology]
– Apple cuts production of its Apple Vision Pro after poor sales [Technology]
– Extremists are using AI voice cloning technology to promote the far right [AI]
– Is the looming completion of TikTok’s US deal an end to a year of chaos or the start of more? [Social Media]
– 750k movie goers saw the “Stranger Things’ finale in an AMC movie theatre over two days, accounting for half of those who viewed it in cinema in the US [Media]
– Leonardo Dicaprio wonders if cinemas are going to go the way of “jazz bars” [Media]
– When boredom becomes a viral social challenge [Social Media]
– Inside the growth of Cosm – the Planetarium turned sports experience venue [Sports]
– Digiday predicts what won’t happen in 2026 in digital media [Media]
// Life & Culture //
– Only 10% of Americans said they had a ‘great’ 2025 [Culture]
– How did car boot sales get hip again? [Retail]
– Thousands gathered at the Brooklyn Bridge for non-existent NYE fireworks, thanks to social media & AI [Culture]
– Nike has debuted the first of its Nike Mind, neuroscience backed, mule – the Nike Mind 001 Mule [Fashion]
– Do ‘words of the year’ have any importance when they mirror online culture? [Culture]
– From Creatine to Fibermaxxxing – the biggest wellness trends of 2025 [Fitness]
– A growing number of UK over 60s are facing homelessness [Culture]
– Is 2026 the year the sneaker resale market completely tanks? [Fashion]
– Breaking down China’s second museum boom [Culture]
// Until Next Sunday
As always, let me know what you think by email (dubose@newclassic.agency), website or on LinkedIn.
You can also listen to an audio summary and discussion of each week’s newsletter on Spotify. We’re also on TikTok!
