How to Do Your Own Trendspotting

Porter Novelli trendspotter Marian Salzman spots trends for a living. In a recent interview, she shared some of her secrets for identifying the latest craze (UPDATE: Salzman sent her white paper to Catching Flack: Porter Novelli’s 10 Trends)

• There are basically three stages involving trends related to brand stewardship. The first is “discovery.” This is when you ask yourself, “Did I just” see that? Is there something new here? For example, when I introduced online market research through Cyberdialogue, I asked myself why we needed to do focus groups face to face. Why couldn’t we just do it online and around the world? That was a “Wow!” moment—a real “Did I just” find a way to get real–time consumer feedback worldwide? We got rights to do online research from America Online and created focus groups in cyberspace.

• The second stage is “experimentation.” This is when you ask yourself whether you believe in the idea and you set about determining whether it’s feasible. To do that, you have to experiment. For example, when I introduced the concept of “metrosexual” to the market, I asked myself if it was just crazy PR news–making fodder. No, it wasn’t. We were working on an Italian beer and it became clear this was a real marketing insight that could help drive consumption of a blond beer called Peroni.

• The third stage is “acceptance and news–making.” This is where a trend becomes a popular press kind of thing. You read about it in places like The Economist and The New York Times style pages—but what I’m really talking about here is the trend showing up in places like the morning shows. That’s when you know it’s taking off. The idea or trend moves quickly from “Aha!” to part of the national conversation and water cooler talk. By this stage, you already should have had a branding strategy in place based on your ability to have spotted that trend before others outside your market.

• Other tips: Speak to everybody—not just executives or business leaders. For example, I travel the world. I speak to top industry people, sure—but I also speak to supermarket checkout people. I spend an hour talking to a person on a park bench. I go to dinner parties and speak to a captain of industry, and then the housekeeper. I open up people’s cabinets. I’m nosy—and not about the truly rich. I’m curious about everyday people. I also watch daytime TV. I read trash fiction and Danielle Steele. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, so I don’t know what’s intuition or trained science—but the real takeaway is getting involved and watching the world around you.

So what trends is Salzman watching these days?

• The subprime mortgage mess and what’s going to happen as home equity gets eaten away


• The rise of millennials in the workforce


• The rise of Chindia (China + India) as an economic power


• Brand promiscuity where loyalty wanes as savvy consumers increasingly seek and pursue the best deals, and the rise of intangibles.

Salzman is giving away more information and a white paper at a seminar in NYC — sign up here.