In this week’s Our Take, a big colour announcement is a washout, Travelodge ‘wrapped’ is not what you might think, how to drive engagement for a new movie, and holidays feel like holidays again.
PAN TONE DEAF
Pantone’s 2026 Colour of the Year was supposed to be a palette-setting moment. Instead, Cloud Dancer – a barely-there white – landed with all the excitement of… a barely-there white. Designers, colour theorists and online commentators reacted almost instantly, and not kindly. The consensus? It’s dull, sterile, and wildly out of touch with where culture is right now.
The criticism isn’t just about aesthetics. Colour can be political, whether Pantone admits it or not. Naming a white shade as the defining colour of 2026 – during a year when DEI programmes are being rolled back and watchdog groups are tracking the mainstreaming of extremist ideologies – carries an unavoidable charge. People were quick to call out the symbolism, intentional or not. Even the jokes (“Pantonedeaf”) point to a deeper frustration: cultural institutions can no longer make symbolic choices in a vacuum.
What Pantone said it was choosing was serenity, a “whisper of calm” in a chaotic world. But calmness reads like apathy when the world is loudly demanding engagement. Meanwhile, forecasting experts had expected something earthy, warm, grounding, tones that reflect a collective move toward repair, sustainability and reconnection. When every major paint brand leaned into greens and organic neutrals, Pantone swerved into minimalism so stark it feels recession-coded: “We can’t afford colour anymore,” as one commenter put it.
Colour trends are not just about design cycles; they’re cultural barometers. And right now, people want palettes that feel alive, intentional, and reflective of the world they’re actually living in – not an empty white square.
Pantone insists skin tone or politics had nothing to do with the pick. But intention isn’t the story here. Perception is. Cloud Dancer shows how even a shade that’s meant to soothe can backfire when the cultural mood is anything but neutral.
That’s a Wrap
“DON’T COME IN”, we whisper-shout, while using a foot as a doorstop, a knee as a table, and praying the rustle of paper doesn’t ruin Santa and the surprise. December isn’t a season – it’s an endurance sport, with buying, hiding, wrapping and tree placement feeling like a full Olympic hurdles final.
Last year, a woman went viral for booking herself into a hotel room just to give herself the time and space she needed to wrap her kids’ presents. Very clever. Travelodge was listening.
For one day only, Travelodge is offering free, bookable 75-minute wrapping sessions in selected London, Manchester and Edinburgh hotels – complete with paper, tape, festive décor and a mince pie thrown in for good measure.
While the idea itself isn’t exactly original, the execution is led by consumer insight pulled straight from TikTok. Travelodge hasn’t invented a need – they’ve simply wrapped structure around one mum’s ingenuity and turned it into a culturally fluent PR moment.
If Christmas is an endurance sport, Travelodge has offered a rest stop, complete with a room key and a Do Not Disturb sign. Room for one please!
What about Tom and Suki?!
Every week there seems to be a new report that tells us print media is on the way out, which might be why it’s so rare to see engagement announcements in newspapers. Even rarer is the sight of a famous couple using print media to announce their happy news. But that’s exactly what Zendaya and Robert Pattinson did at the beginning of this week. Or so it seemed…
An engagement notice in The Boston Globe announcing the nuptials of the Hollywood stars appeared on Monday, giving fans quite a shock given both actors are in well-known and popular relationships with Tom Holland and Suki Waterhouse respectively. What seemed like an out-of-nowhere bombshell turned out to be a neat ploy from American entertainment company, A24.
The “announcement” was actually an advert for the pair’s 2026 film, in which they play an engaged couple, slipped into the Globe’s Living & Arts section. Given the film is set and was filmed in Boston, it’s clear that the Boston Globe was the perfect landing spot for this retro film/engagement announcement. A24 have successfully blurred the lines between reality and fiction, all while giving us a fabulous display of how print media can still be used to cut through the noise and create viral moments.
Trips That Actually Mean Something
The new GHA travel report basically confirms what everyone quietly knew: we’re exhausted, we’re over-stimulated, and we want trips that don’t feel like a second job. After years of packing schedules like we’re collecting Pokémon badges, people are finally admitting they want a holiday that… feels like a holiday.
For 2026, people still want to go places, they’re just less interested in the “Look at me, I’m in Tokyo for 48 hours” energy. It’s shifting towards trips with actual emotional payoff. A good meal. A view you didn’t have to sprint to.
One of the big stand-outs in the report is the “selective splurge.” Everyone’s still spending, but the fluff is gone. No one wants gold-plated nonsense; they want things that feel personal. Upgrade the room if it means better sleep. Book the experience if it’ll stick in your brain. Skip the rest.
Loyalty programmes are quietly turning into lifestyle clubs. Not the cringey kind: more like “Make my life easier, reward me in ways that make sense, and don’t make me do maths.” Younger travellers especially want loyalty to feel like an extension of their taste, not their admin.
And yes, AI is officially part of the travel toolkit. People are using it, even if they won’t admit it publicly. But there’s a clear boundary: AI for the logistics, humans for the warmth. No one wants a robot telling them “Happy honeymoon.”
Underlying all of this is purpose. Sustainability, ethics, and values are now hygiene factors. If a brand doesn’t show it cares, travellers simply move along.
So 2026 travel is predicted to be a little calmer, a lot more conscious, and designed to actually feel good – not just look good on the feed.