Leading into nostalgia, a communication signal

PR Powerhouse’s Lebo Madiba says the start of 2026 has brought an unexpectedly loud soundtrack of the year 2016. What makes it interesting is what it reveals about the present (Image supplied)

What makes it interesting is what it reveals about the present.

We have more access to human knowledge and achievement than any generation before us. We can pull up history, science, art, faith, and philosophy in seconds.

It makes answers accessible, and life feels easier in theory, but the hard part is living inside it. Our daily feeds don’t just inform us; they flood us, speeding up emotions, shortening patience, and making trust harder to hold on to.

That’s why the tone of public conversation often feels thin-skinned, quick to react, slow to settle.

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Rarely about the past

Nostalgia is rarely about the past. It’s often a response to the emotional cost of the present. It can be seen in human behaviour, the rising conversation about burnout and overwhelm, the popularity of “soft life” language, the spike in throwback content, and the broader drift towards disengagement from hard news.

Even after a good #KeDezember, the world doesn’t reboot with us. The intensity is waiting for us the moment we open our phones again, economic pressure, political whiplash, and the sense that every week brings a new “once-in-a-lifetime” headline.

That intensity is both cultural and structural. Even in boardrooms, planning cycles now sit inside a world that feels more contested and less stable.

The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting is underway in Davos (19–23 January 2026) under the theme “A Spirit of Dialogue”, a theme that reads less like a grand vision and more like a plea for basic cohesion.

French President Emmanuel Macron put it bluntly this week, warning of a shift towards “a world without rules”, where power politics and “imperial ambitions” are resurfacing.

So what does all of this mean for business, especially for corporate affairs and corporate communications teams trying to plan without becoming doom-and-gloom merchants?

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What is means

Public patience has collapsed, and it’s reshaping persuasion

Public patience has collapsed, and it’s reshaping the rules of persuasion. When friction is high and trust is thin, people have less bandwidth for complexity and far less tolerance for tone-deafness.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2026 describes an “age of competition” marked by fragmentation, with geoeconomic confrontation, mis/disinformation, and societal polarisation ranking among the top near-term risks.

That’s the macro context. On the ground, it changes how messages land. Good initiatives can be rejected when they sound polished rather than present, aspirational rather than practical, and removed from lived reality.

This is the age of outrage: an environment where emotion travels fast, and benefit-of-the-doubt is in short supply.

And that leads to a line I think belongs on every corporate comms strategy slide deck this year:

The world hasn’t become less ethical. It has become less persuadable

Global narratives matter because they shape what business prioritises, fund, and talk about.

Over the last few years, few narratives have been as defining as climate change and the language of a just transition. This year, that language feels noticeably quieter in the global agenda-setting atmosphere, prompting a fair question: Does corporate move on too?

And does doing good still matter? Absolutely, but it’s changing shape.

Ethics have not disappeared. Most people still care about what’s right, what’s fair, and what feels decent. What has shifted is how belief is earned. In a louder, more pressured world, fewer messages land the way they’re intended, even the well-meaning ones.

That’s why doing good still matters, but it has to be communicated differently.

One of the clearest proofs that coordinated, long-term action works is sitting above Antarctica.

In late 2025, the World Meteorological Organisation reported that the 2025 ozone hole was smaller than usual and closed early, consistent with the long recovery trend linked to global action under the Montreal Protocol.

NASA/NOAA also described 2025 as the fifth smallest ozone hole since 1992. The point is simple: steady effort adds up over time.

The shift is that audiences respond less to goodness declared and far more to goodness shown, visible outcomes, honest trade-offs, and action that feels close to real life.

What corporate communications should do differently in 2026

The work now sits at the intersection of strategy, trust, and tone. In practical terms:

1. Replace values language with trade-off language: Don’t only say what you believe. Show what you changed, what it cost, what you stopped doing, and what improved.

2. Lead with proximity: Perfect messaging can read as distance. Plain language and specificity build credibility.

3. Build tone intelligence: The correct message can fail if it ignores the mood. A public under pressure wants respect before it will grant attention.

4. Treat trust like a measurable asset: Trust is built slowly and lost quickly, and in a polarised environment, the gap between intent and interpretation widens fast.

5. Move from campaigns to consistency: In a less persuadable world, the brand isn’t what you announce. It’s what you repeatedly prove.

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The next competitive advantage

The next competitive advantage comes from designing organisations that can survive scrutiny and still be understood.

Corporate communications

For corporate communication, the shift is from messaging to strategy, with communication at the centre, helping leaders choose actions that can be explained, backed by evidence, and held consistently across stakeholders. It becomes part of how decisions are made, and not an afterthought.

Agencies

For agencies, the brief gets clearer - reduce confusion, reduce risk, increase credibility. That demands rigour, asking the uncomfortable questions early, prioritising what will stand up to scrutiny, and translating complexity into clarity without smoothing over the hard edges.

And if 2016 is trending again, the least we can do is bring back clarity.