By Peter Mosley
From the Trendwatching site.
Warning! If you are a marketer, a brand manager or an agency professional. This is a cautionary tale. Please … do not watch.
1. The Next Big Thing
Even in a hyper-connected world, it’s still possible to see The Next Big Thing coming before the ‘masses’ do. Here's proof.
2. Car vs. Phone
If YOU had to choose between your car and your phone, which one would have to go?
3. Happynomics
Attention, marketing and business professionals: Never ever forget what makes consumers truly happy…
4. Who Cares?
According to consumers, these are the brands that truly care.
5. Blanding or Branding
Find out which companies are about to disappear in a sea of sameness. Scary? Yes. Inevitable? No.
6. The Future of Consumerism
Watch consumers share their thoughts on the future of consumerism. Hey, at least they have a point of view.
You watched all of them didn't you?
I like that you think. Thank you for share very much.
Absolutely listened to all of them…love to hear what people think.
This was interesting and fun.
If you’re a marketer, and this influenced your thinking, then consider a new career. It’s entertaining, but nothing more. From a decision making viewpoint it’s pure garbage.
It’s not that hard to edit up a pile of clips that have people saying whatever you want. Give me a couple of weeks I’ll get you a tape of sane-looking people certain that we’ll have colonies on the moon by 2015. Ten years ago I could have done that for 2005, twenty for 1995, etc. These clips are just like that. Fun, but mere noise.
Trendwatching is adept at this. They’ll run up hype on any given topic and next thing you know you’ll think it passes for expertise. Or that their skewed “data” is somehow meaningful. All they’re really doing is providing a mechanism to rationalize your intuition, and intuition is the most mind-numbingly stupid way to drive any marketing.
Go out and get real data, and that does not mean focus group garbage, which is as useless as these clips but more expensive. Hire people with real expertise in market research and analysis to talk to customers and prospects, normalize the data against baselines. Spend money on the dull stuff. Test and validate your results and repeat as required until the data tells you you got it right.
Then use that information to develop effective products/services, campaigns, and communications. People who do this right generate decent ROI. People who don’t waste a lot of money.