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Merrell marks 45 years of outdoor footwear with It Starts Outdoors campaign

It Starts Outside by Merrell, US

US – Outdoor clothing and footwear brand Merrell is celebrating its 45th anniversary with the launch of its first global brand platform, It Starts Outside, and a new creative direction aimed at redefining the outdoors as a catalyst for clarity, resilience, creativity and connection.

The platform is being launched with a global brand film and the Merrell Outside: Futures Project, designed to expand access for emerging footwear and product designers in collaboration with the Virgil Abloh Post-Modern Scholarship Fund and Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design.

The campaign highlights everyday outdoor moments, from trail running and local hikes to reconnecting with nature at home, emphasising that the transformative power of the outside is accessible to everyone. It will roll out globally across social, digital and connected tv starting in March 2026.

The launch aligns with our findings in Future Forecast: The Wellness Paradox, where we highlighted that fitness culture is splintering between hyper-competitive spectacles and community-led collectives. Merrell’s It Starts Outside platform embodies this emerging middle ground, blending movement, mindfulness and creative engagement.

As Soft Sports and experiential wellness trends gain traction, brands that combine discipline with indulgence, performance with pleasure and natural environments with immersive participation will be best positioned to meet evolving consumer expectations.

Strategic opportunity

Merrell’s latest campaign reframes the outdoors as transformational. How can your brand shift from product-centric messaging to experience-driven storytelling to enhance the emotional appeal of your campaigns?

Men’s Health magazine republishes deleted CDC pages as public health information disappears

US – Thousands of online pages and datasets from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were removed from the internet following executive orders issued after Donald Trump was sworn in on 20 January 2025, prompting concern among health professionals and researchers.

Resources covering topics such as RSV vaccine guidance for pregnant people and HIV prevention disappeared from the CDC’s website, limiting public access to information traditionally relied upon by both citizens and clinicians. Doctors have historically used CDC data to inform treatment decisions, research, community outreach and policy development.

After consulting medical experts to determine whether the removed material remained in the public interest, Men’s Health magazine, which is owned by global media company Hearst, is republishing deleted material, as experts warn that restricting evidence-based health resources raises serious risks for patient care.

Future Health by Unsaid Studio, US

This move shows how brands and media platforms are increasingly stepping into institutional roles when public systems falter – echoing themes explored in our Resilience Branding report. Organisations with cultural reach and audience trust are increasingly expected to steward knowledge, amplify expert voices and preserve access to critical information when traditional institutions become unstable or inaccessible.

Strategic opportunity

Audit the expertise, data or institutional knowledge your brand can responsibly host or amplify. Partner with credible experts to preserve, contextualise and distribute reliable information your audience may struggle to access elsewhere

Stat: How convivial dining is on the decline

Photography by cottonbro studio

Global – Nearly one in five people now eat dinner on the sofa, according to a new global study by Ingka Group (Ikea’s parent company) – a sign that the communal dining table is losing its central role in domestic life.

Globally, just 44% of respondents eat at a kitchen or dining table. The rest are scattered elsewhere: 18% on the sofa, 4% in bed, 4% standing in the kitchen. The UK skews even further from the table, with 48% eating on the sofa and only 31% sitting down to dine properly.

The move away from the table is also a shift away from interpersonal attention: 54% watch tv when eating alone, and 40% do so even when dining with others. Only 7% of households have device-free policies at mealtimes. ‘Despite the emotional importance of food, shared meals are under pressure. Busy schedules, compact living and competing priorities make it harder for people to come together – not just at the same time, but also in the same place,’ says Lorena Lourido Gomez, global food manager at Ikea Retail (Ingka Group).

The study also reveals stark variations in when people eat. The global average dinner time is 6:44pm, but this masks sharp regional divergence – from 5:17pm in Finland to 8:54pm in Spain – as explored in our Chronodiets report. For brands, this points to the need to adapt across morning, daytime and evening eating windows, rather than designing for one shared mealtime.

For The Future Laboratory, this represents a striking pendulum swing from the domestic dining renaissance we identified in our 2019 Home Eatertainment report. Where the home was once a stage for convivial, experience-led eating, it now increasingly functions as a pit stop. Recently, we have been tracking this drift towards functional, on-the-move consumption through our work on Grab-and-Go Cuisine and On-the-Go Cocktail Culture.

Strategic opportunity

As dining becomes increasingly fragmented and functional, brands should explore how products, spaces and experiences can re-introduce moments of shared ritual – from kitchen design that encourages gathering to food formats built around slowing down