Studying trends is like reading the lines that form an organized society. It values, purposes, meanings, customs and dreams that create the cultural entanglement of interconnected behaviors and only become visible through contrasting solidity with the tangible world.
They are the marks left in space-time that record the nuances of our evolution.
Trend studies are cross-sectional analyzes of society.
It’s a continuous process of mapping and reading emerging signals that can have the potential to grow. These signals can be identified and observed over time by the changing patterns that human behavior left throw history and it’s reflex in the way we consume brands and objects.
Entering this universe completely changes the way we perceive the reality surrounding us. It is similar to gaining a new pair of lenses of different aperture and seeing our daily life from a new perspective. We develop a fine-tuning that goes way beyond our professional universe and really affects the way we understand a culture and what it means to be human in its context.
Identifying trends is mapping patterns and changes in the world directions.
The trend study is based on the analysis of the evolution of human mentalities throw time and the expressed behaviors attached to them. This includes, of course, visible objects such as brand and their products, but they are only the visible signs. It’s easier to identify a behavior looking for the object connected to them but it’s important to keep in mind that they only represent the first layer of a cultural analysis.
Recognize the multiple behaviors inside a culture is the real goal. The connections inside this invisible interconnection of human acts set the patterns that sustain all human relationships. By tracking the main aspects of its connection it is possible to establish the density and impact that each trend will manifest in our thoughts and consumer decisions.
In short, the can predict which trends will have greater or lower influence inside a given culture, a particular tribe, in the short or in a long-term and how a brand or business will be impacted.
The application of Trends Study is not limited to the fashion field.
Against the general conception and the general adoption of the term, a ‘trend’ does not refer to the increasing number of purchase of a product or a business segment.
The importance of trends study relies on its multi-diverse essence. We can apply data intelligence to anthropology methods, communication strategies, culture research, innovation tools, economic predictions, marketing studies and a lot of knowledge capture from different field research to identify and better understand the choosen cultural context.
In line with the Innovation study, being a trends analyst we look at all human aspects of a given culture. In Innovation and, in this case, I can use Design Thinking as an example, we talk about the individual needs and the well-known human-centric vision. In the field of Trend Studies, we usually deal with the behavior manifested by a certain group.
Having spent some good years developing the marketing strategy of global brands, I saw myself feeling a little bit disappointed with the process. The plans were good but there was missing the human factor, relevant data about the person behind that monetary profile characterized as ‘consumer’.
Although applying data analysis, it usually ended it up showing visions of what had happened in the past — metrics that don’t always speak with a hyper-connected and digital world.
This was why I turned myself to the Innovation field and then to Trend Studies. Understand the individual needs and wants, without the marketing bias to focus on the person who will actually benefit from the intended solution.
In this context, trend studies gain force. They bring to the light why a group of individuals behaves as they do, their paths and their signs of inner identification. Deepening the human-centric vision goes beyond the ‘What’ he wants, but understands the ‘why’ underneath as the drivers that influenced the group in their choices.
The object of the trend study can be focused on creating innovation. Inside this use, it is possible to define as maximum and comprehensive goals of the study of trends and how to transform cool examples into insights, brands, services and technological solutions.
Therein lies the real wonder: the connection between methodologies and synergistic fields of research in order to deepen understanding about who we are, how we behave collectively and how we influence the dispersion of movements between similar tribes and cultures.
ANDRÉA FREIRE
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Decode . research journal on contemporary culture.
