In the past five years the number of trends websites and trend experts have doubled if not tripled. The ability to understand the future is the promise, but the more one looks at trend websites, reports, talks, videos, podcasts and a multitude of other information on trends, the more confusing it starts to look to business owners.
Working with different businesses across many sectors, I often hear the same challenging questions:
- Which one (trend) should we follow?
Which is relevant?
- Oh wait that's a cool one there - lets try that!
- That one works in Indonesia, I'm sure it will work in our market too.
- There are too many, we can't move that quickly.
And many more...
I am 100% sure that my clients are not the only ones asking all these questions. So, I decided to write this to give trends some framework, according to me anyway. Here are a few pointers to make sense of the plethora of trends:
Intrinsic human needs create trends, they are called needs states.
Our needs are rapidly changing due to the rise of the internet, technology, free energy, driverless cars and more.
The three broad/main need states in mature awareness markets presently are:
- More trust
- More convenience
- More personalisation
UBER does all three of these brilliantly
We seek brands that can give us these continuously.
According to my experience (especially living in Cape Town and working mostly in South Africa), there are three broad markets in the world:
- The mature awareness market - i.e.: San Francisco, Berlin, pockets of Cape Town.
- The emerging awareness market - i.e.: Dubai, Johannesburg, Beijing.
- The less affluent awareness market - townships and more rural parts of the world.
Trends are totally different in these markets. It is imperative to be clear on who you are aiming at and research those trends - no, you cannot be focused on two different markets, they are sometimes the polar opposite in needs and subsequently trends.
Now break down the trends further, into:
- The trends affecting your industry and possible competitors you might have real soon, and every industry being disrupted.
- The trends affect the employees you want to hire, so you can build an ecosystem they want to come and work in.
- The trend affecting your future consumers - look at the market they live in and study their needs.
Contextualise, categorise, dig deeper and make sure you start becoming fluent at this process as the trends are changing faster and faster.
Ready, steady, trenovate!
