Ayelet Noff, founder and CEO of SlicedBrand, has been building communications programs for technology brands in Israel, the U.S., and Europe since 2007 — long enough to have seen the last three category resets in public relations. Her 2021 predictions focus on six shifts already visible in Q4 2020 and likely to define the year: TikTok's move from experiment to primary channel, Apple's App Tracking Transparency rollout, the Substack turn in newsletter economics, altruistic brand ethos as a hiring and messaging category, journalist churn out of legacy media, and the shift from influencer marketing toward user-generated content.
Published Dec 2020
Prediction 1 — TikTok becomes a primary channel
Noff argues 2021 is the year TikTok crosses from experiment to primary channel for consumer brands. The platform passed 100 million U.S. users through 2020, ad products matured through Q4, and the creator ecosystem hit a scale where brands can operate on TikTok the way they operate on Instagram. She expects consumer-brand budgets to shift meaningfully out of Instagram and Facebook toward TikTok through the year.
Prediction 2 — Apple's ATT reshapes mobile advertising
Apple's App Tracking Transparency framework — delayed from iOS 14 launch and now scheduled for early 2021 — will require apps to request permission before tracking users across other apps and websites. Noff predicts opt-in rates below 30%, a meaningful hit to Facebook's targeting and attribution infrastructure, and a rush toward first-party data infrastructure across the DTC category. The winners in 2021 will be brands that started building first-party data infrastructure in 2020.
Prediction 3 — Substack turns newsletters into a category
Substack passed one million paid subscriptions in late 2020. Noff predicts the platform becomes the reference case for a broader industry shift — journalists leave legacy media for direct-audience platforms, brands treat newsletter sponsorship as a primary channel rather than a one-off, and the newsletter format matures into a stable owned-media category. Expect a meaningful number of brand-name journalists to make the Substack move in 2021.
Prediction 4 — Altruistic brand ethos as a category
Noff argues 2020 forced every consumer-facing brand to take a public position on values — health, workforce, community, racial justice, sustainability. In 2021 the differentiation between brands that funded action and brands that ran the campaign only becomes explicit. Talent recruiting increasingly runs through the values conversation, and consumer purchasing decisions correlate more strongly with brand ethos than in any prior year.
Prediction 5 — Journalist churn out of legacy media accelerates
Related to Prediction 3 but distinct. Noff expects the journalist departures from The New York Times, The Atlantic, Vox, BuzzFeed, and other flagship legacy media brands to accelerate through 2021 — driven by Substack economics, by editorial-independence disputes, and by the ability to build direct-to-reader businesses at scale for the first time. PR teams should be mapping their target-media list at the individual-journalist level, not the outlet level.
Noff predicts the influencer-marketing category peaks in 2021 as brands realize that UGC — authentic customer content, curated and amplified — outperforms paid influencer content on trust and conversion metrics. The category does not disappear but the resource allocation shifts. Brands will invest more in UGC infrastructure (community management, submission platforms, rights and licensing) and less in traditional influencer negotiations.
What Noff sees as the wild card
Clubhouse. The invite-only audio platform launched in April 2020 and blew up through Q4. Noff sees it as the highest-uncertainty single call — could become a top-tier channel through 2021, or could plateau and become a niche tactic. Recommends brands build a presence and test formats without shifting primary spend.
Founder and CEO of SlicedBrand, a communications firm working with technology brands in Israel, the U.S., and Europe. Founded in 2007 and known for consumer-technology and blockchain-technology campaigns.
What is Apple's App Tracking Transparency?
A framework announced with iOS 14 and rolling out in early 2021 that requires apps to request user permission before tracking activity across other apps and websites. Expected to reduce the effectiveness of mobile ad targeting on iOS.
Why is TikTok expected to grow so much in 2021?
The platform passed 100 million U.S. users, ad products matured through Q4 2020, and the creator ecosystem reached a scale where consumer brands can operate on TikTok comparably to Instagram.
What is UGC and why does it matter?
User-generated content — authentic customer photos, videos, reviews, and social posts. It outperforms paid influencer content on trust and conversion metrics in most category data. Brands are shifting resource allocation from influencer negotiations to UGC infrastructure.
What is the wild card in 2021?
Clubhouse. The invite-only audio platform is the highest-uncertainty single call — could become a top-tier channel or could plateau. Recommendation: build a presence, test, do not shift primary spend.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
