1. “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” (Dr. Seuss)

2. “Man’s feelings are always purest and most glowing in the hour of meeting and of farewell.” (Jean Paul Richter)

3. “The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.” (Ivy Baker Priest)

4. “The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.” (Irving Berlin)

5. “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.” (Garrison Keillor)

Stolen with Pride from all over the place.

PS – I hope you’ll excuse the sentimentality…after 10 wonderful years at The Value Engineers, I am moving on to pastures new, making this my last Quotation Quotient. My esteemed colleague Jossie Clayton will be taking over from me as of next Friday. Hasta luego amigos!

Karl Pilkington might be an exception. But the rest of us like being clever and we normally know how to spot someone who’s not. Despite the proliferation of names of degrees (David Beckham Studies), general “-ologies” and job titles (waste management services executive), we’re still pretty good at seeing people for who they are.

Not so for trends. At a recent talk on trends given by Chairman of The Value Engineers, Paul Walton, a challenge was set to the esteemed audience at Langholm Capital’s HQ: can you detect a nonsense trend from a real one just by reading its name and a short description? There was a good point being made. There’s been a horrendous proliferation of trend names over the past decade or so – an effect of what Paul terms the ‘trendemic’. And while there are good reasons for marketers wanting more information on up-to-date trends, a rise in quantity of information (as we know) doesn’t necessarily correlate with a rise in quality. The trendemic has delivered us into a world where we’re no longer very good at seeing trends for what they are, so what we want is quality but what we get is quantity.

And like any unsatisfied consumers, we marketers need to ask for more and demand better. We increased demand for trends in the first place, triggering a ‘trend-rush’ on the supply side. And now the excitement’s over, we need to start making sure we’re getting value for money. We need to know our information on trends is legitimate and we need to be certain we can tell the difference between a trend that’s a bit David Beckham and one that’s the genuine article. I can’t imagine you don’t agree but if you still want further evidence and read this post partly because of the promise of its title, let me give it to you in the ultimate form of proof: the online quiz.

I will the set the same challenge to you that Paul set to his audience. It’s designed to see if you can overcome the flip-side of what philosophers call the ‘nominalist fallacy’; the belief that something is genuine and worthy of explanation if it has a name. So below are five names, each with a short description in much the same style many trends are presented. Can you detect which are bogus (ie. we just made them up) and which are legitimate? I’ll give you a day or two to consider and write a post with the answers soon. Good luck!

• “Sleep is the new sex”: increasingly over-tired and over-stressed, people now think of sleep every 7 seconds and love a good quick one (a nap, that is)
• “Back-clash” : a growing surveillance culture, health & safety overload and crap X-Factor music leads to a return of punk values
• “Tech fatales”: they’re out of the closet and driving marketing decisions, this is the emergence of sultry, nerdy chicks who dig gadgets
• “Geriatric-olescence”: the rise in third and fourth age rebels who forgot they were too old and start to revive some teenage habits
• “Screenagers”: the rise in kids who celebrate more over scoring a Pro-Evo goal than one they score on the school pitch

We were really pleased that on Tuesday the 27th of January our Chairman Paul Walton was asked by our friends at Langholm Capital to deliver a trends speech, ‘Dreams, Themes and Schemes’, to an audience of fifty CEOs, entrpreneurs and senior executives from a range of highly successful consumer brands.

The event gave Paul the opportunity to exhibit our knowledge of trends, how brands can best implement them and the effects they have on the consumer marketplace. Below is a brief summary of the thinking Paul covered in his address:

Trends can be to marketers what the venus fly trap is to the fly, the instinctive response they provoke in those looking everywhere for change can be both empowering & dangerous. We use examples of mistaken forecasts such as that of John Naisbitt who in 1996 failed to see the threat from the internet & 24 hour news television in a review on national newspapers; to implore brands to ignore trends at their peril – but without putting all your brands eggs in one trend-shaped basket either.

As Martin Raymond suggests in ‘The Tomorrow People’, the tactile brand that understands the implication of a trend on its industry and sizes its investment in response accordingly will put this foresight to good use. What we have also noticed in the past is that the dominant players can often be the least forsightful. The overarching message we try to emphasise is that whilst trends can provide opportunities for brands, mistaken forecasts can be dangerous.

Just because a trend is new & exciting doesn’t mean it necessarily requires your attention – take a look at our list of faux-trends and realise that just because it’s got a catchy name doesn’t necessarily make it true.

Lengthening life spans, gender, globalization, technology & wellness are some of the Macro trends we often talk about as their glacial shifts can cause the seismic reactions that may directly affect your brand(s). If healthy eating is the slow moving tectonic plate then “5-a-day” is the vibration that brands have had to harness.

Here is a small selection of Paul’s top tips for harnessing trends effectively:

• Avoid technical wonder & instead persist with measurable changes in attitudes and behaviour
• Always look at the cost benefit analysis
• Look outside your own industry
• Don’t forget to blend your trends: Ageing population + The Mediterranean diet = Olivio!

For more information on the Trends practice at the Value Engineers please contact Amelia Boothman.