A brand = product + compelling story

Meg Asaro

Cultural Curator

Toniq, nyc

www.Toniq.com

Brands are built on cultural DNA and must evolve with the times and shifting consumer desires. To successfully navigate such turbulent waters, marketers should steward brands through a “trend process” that recognizes their essence resides in quintessential equities – visual, sensorial, experiential and personality - that create emotional bonds.

Over more than a decade, we have refined a “Brand Effervescent Trend Forecasting Process” that funnels macro trends into brand essence. Each higher trend level feeds the one below in an 11-step brand development process.

Applying Trends to Brands

Fortunately, one need only be a confident observer to track trends. While, every project presents its own challenges, this process can help marketers apply the right trend to a brand’s living space.

1.Trend Signals

Seek out visionaries; focus beyond the next decade. The important discoveries come from the fringe, from unfamiliar territory that often elicits a touch of fear.

2.Benchmark Cultural Signposts

Move closer to your immediate world. Trends are rooted in culture so look to key influencers: architecture, design, media, art, technology, social media, politics, religion, the economy or healthcare, for signals in at least three disciplines to recognize a trend.

Validate whether this trend has “peaked.” Nothing is worse than discovering that “new trend” is on its way out.

Ultimately, information overload is the greatest challenge to those seeking emerging trends.  To cut through the clutter, here’s a short source list:

Trendhunter, Trendwatching, Coolhunting (trend sites)

Psfk (trend/brand news aggregator)

Huffington Post, Daily Beast (news aggregators)

Ad Age (advertising specific)

New York Times, USA Today (mass perspective)

Guardian, BBC (cross-over, emerging trends)

The Dieline (packaging)

Dexigner (design)

Daily Candy, Goop (style, fashion)

Industry specific blogs and magazines

Ffffound.com (visual, sensorial, creative trends)

Trunk Archive (photo trends and inspiration)

ICFF, Milan Furniture Fair, Future Trends (trade shows)

Twitter, Google Alerts, RSS feeds

Trend Professionals

3.Visual Incarnation

“Visual positioning” methodology ensures that the correct interpretation of a trend storyline is infused into the brand essence. The process collapses our senses into a primal experience, evoking touch, taste, smell, and sounds that enhance the brand experience.

For example, the visual vocabulary of the ’80s was masculine, boxy, structural, hard-edged, i.e., 1985 Audi, Saul Bass’ Exxon station, the AT&T logo. The ‘90’s feminine aesthetic morphed from boxy beige to biomorphic. Design responded with colored iMacs, Bilbao’s curvilinear lines, the return of the VW beetle, and the ergonomic Nokia cellphone.

4.Name It

Define the trend for your team.

i.e. Connectivity, Kidult, Green, S/he, Authenticity, Time Famine.

5.Identify Consumer Group(s) that Embody the Trend

Foresee the potential profit of applying the trend by breaking out of the box. To add an emotional element that might otherwise elude you,

seek understanding directly from people who live the trend.

6.Name that Group

Are they a demographic or a psychographic?

i.e. Dinks, tweens, boomers, Global Nomads, Millennial Hippies, Gen X, Y.

7.Look Outside Your Industry

In London, restaurateurs recently co-opted the retail pop-up shop concept to refresh the dining experience, a breakthrough that provided up-and-coming chefs major market exposure.

8.Define Category Trends

Research your category, but look at competitors from a bird’s-eye view to track category trends while remaining true to your brand’s equities.

9.Don’t Chase

Everybody wants to be first to capitalize on a trend but rushing can produce copycat results. Keep your brand in mind and remain accountable.

10.  Against the Grain

Being a game changer is scary. U by Kotex positioned the brand as a fashion accessory and changed the feminine care conversation. Market share ballooned from 5% to 8% in six months.

Applying the trend to a brand’s living space is the real challenge. Marketers must understand their brand’s essence and visual positioning in the consumers’ mind or risk arbitrarily translating trends rather than adapting them in a compelling manner.

11.Apply to your Brand

We’ve worked on the Venus brand since female razors were guy razors in drag. The pink Flicker razor, the first “designed for women,” did not consider the female form and was not ergonomically designed. 

Launching a blue female razor at Gillette, in 1998, was revolutionary. Management assumed women equals pink.  But a woman’s relationship with color runs much deeper. In myth, Venus, goddess of beauty, was born of the waters as in Botticelli’s painting of Venus emerging from the shell. To give brand Venus life, we focused on visual equities: color, texture, movement, and brand story.  The key was the other major trend at the time - the spa - which spoke to a need for pampering and reconnecting with the natural world.

By melding contemporary trends with the design and story of Venus, the brand was set on track to become the #1 female shaving brand.

Trends are indeed exciting territory. They add an element of humanity to the branding process.  By following our roadmap you can feel confident that your brand will be poised to deliver results for years.