Insights:Marketing Insights: Too late to be current?

People pay attention to what is happening now.  What’s the latest thing? What’s today’s big news? Who’s doing what at this exact moment?

A big part of marketing is trend spotting — leveraging the most recent trends, interests and happenings and attaching that interest to your brand to garner interest and relevancy.

In today’s hyper information world accomplishing trend spotting is harder than ever. Years ago, trends slowly evolved over long periods of time (weeks, months and even years) before becoming over exposed and melting away. Now buzz has the life expectancy of an ice-cube in a microwave. This can leave companies wondering how to stay current and relevant to their core customers.

A few simple ways companies can keep current include:

1)   Focus only on the trends or happenings that truly relate to your brand. This focus allows you to be more aware of emerging trends and maximize them for your brand’s benefit

2)   If you see it everywhere, you’re too late. Being ahead of the curve means discovering not what’s the next great thing…but the thing after that.

3)   Leverage your social media. Traditional media requires lead-time to create, produce and distribute. Social media can be virtually instantaneous. If you do the first thing in this list your social and traditional will work together.

4)   Don’t try to get on every bandwagon. There is so much happening, trending and buzzing trying to do it all will make your brand look erratic and disingenuous.

Above all, it’s important to be selective of the outside influences you attach to your brand. Hot things can quickly become bad things and connecting their image to the newest thing without ensuring the payoff is worth the risk has burned many brands.