“Microtrend forecasting doesn't get to the essence of consumption."

Interview with Professor Changyoon Joo, Department of Journalism & Media Studies, Seoul Women's University

"The first book you need to read before you buy any trend reports for that year!"

The 200-word introduction to the book summarizes the essence and value of the trend. "The term 'trend' is often used with fads and trends interchangeably. To understand the volatile consumption phenomenon of trends, we first need to understand how trends work. The book integrates business management, sociology, psychology, and cultural theory, while clarifying key concepts related to trends. In a society of excessive consumption, the principles of trends are discussed in the form of people's psychology, the role of trendsetters, the process of how trends are spread, different tastes of generations, and the problems of reverse trends.

This book will help readers gain a foundational knowledge of trends and help them identify and predict trends." The author, Professor Joo Chang-yoon at the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Seoul Women's University, emphasizes, "You can't approach the essence of consumption by predicting fads or micro-trends," adding, "Before reading a book about trends, you need to understand the principles and essence of trends that promote consumption."

Professor Joo Chang-yoon graduated from Hanyang University's Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, received a master's degree from the same graduate school, and received his Ph.D. from the Department of Film and Television at the Graduate School of Glasgow, England. He has served as a member of the SBS audience committee, a member of MBC's management evaluation committee, and the editor-in-chief of the Korean Media Journal, and has received the Academic Award of the Korean Broadcasting Society (2005) and the Heekwan Writing Award of the Korean Society of Journalism (2016). He is also active as a poet. In 1986, he made his debut in World Literature.?

After reading this book, I conducted a written interview with Professor Changyun Joo. In order to convey the complex and delicate story of the trend as best as possible, the professor's explanation is presented in the original text. I thought that making good use of the delicate language of the poet, who is also a poet, would bring us closer to the essence and principle of the trend.

Q. Please introduce your main research area?

My main field of study is cultural studies. For the past 10 years, my research was on television dramas, Korean cultural codes, critical cultural analysis, and popular cultural history. For example, Korean Culture Code (2010) and Hunger Society (2013) are books that critically analyze Korean cultural phenomena. ?Korean Culture Code looks at Korean cultural phenomena with a focus on different codes like nomad, participation, body, sexuality, historical imagination; Hunger Society discusses the emotional hunger in the Korean minds and why. ?

I'm also a poet making the debut in 1986. I published poetry collections such as "The One Who Walks on the Water, The One Who Walks Under the Water," "The Man on the Hanger," and "Baemin Rider to Andromeda."?

Q. What motivated you to write The Principle of Trends and what message do you want to emphasize in this book?

Every year between October~November, trend books pour out into the market. These are meaningful books in their own way, but they tend to be too phenomenal or superficial, so I felt that it was necessary to deal with the essence of trends. ?Based on issues from business management, psychology, and sociology, I wanted to present the principles that makes trends a bigger trend. The terms 'essence' and 'principle' pose a risk because they allude to unchangeable connotation. I used the term 'trend principle' to help my audience to not get too caught up in superficial flows.?

Q. How would you define a trend? What's the biggest difference between a fad and a trend? Are trends and lifestyles different?

I define a trend as a lifestyle that lasts for a certain period of time and changes in consumer value. In terms of duration and synchrony range, we divide them into micro-trends, fads, macro trends, and mega-trends, but I think that macro trends, which last for about 3~5 years, are the most important in trends. A fad can be called a micro-trend, and it's hard to see it change people’s lifestyle. ?The difference between a fad and a trend lies in its cause, influence, and time. Trends are not what individuals or small groups want.? It is the direction in which the general trend of society is pointing. Trends cause far-reaching changes in the direction of society as a whole, and directly change the lives of individuals, including lifestyles, attitudes, and tastes. Episodic fads are short-lived and have limited impact, such as being driven by a specific brand or limited to a season or event. In addition, episodic fads can come in forms that have little to do with previous fads. Episodic fads do not change lifestyles or consumer values.

Q. What is the biggest change that the development of the digital economy has had on the formation and spread of trends?

The development of the digital economy is based on customer-centric experiences. 'Digital Transformation' influences the formation and spread of trends through customized strategies for customer needs, data analysis related to customers' use of products and services, integrated operation strategies for online and offline channels, and establishment of new platforms. The digital economy proposes differentiated value based on customer-centric experiences. In the digital age, economic values are changing from the 'industrial economy' and 'service economy' where commodities were important in the past to the 'experience economy'. But that doesn't mean that the industrial economy or the service economy will disappear. While still important, consumers don't just want to buy goods and services, they want to consume sensory experiences that are memorable and evoke their senses. Today's consumers tend to want to buy the best experiences. One of the reasons why the digital economy is spreading to the experience economy is closely related to the spread of mobile and social media. ?

Q. How do trends work in connection with consumer psychology?

Consumer psychology in relation to trends can be thought of in two aspects. One is the internal logic, which is psychological factors such as imitation, show-off, differentiation, identification, etc. In other words, the desire to imitate and differentiation are the basic factors that appear in trends. It's about imitating and yet they want to differentiate. They want to consume something unique. On the other hand, there is something called the 'displacement effect' in trends. The transference effect is a psychological attitude that narrows the gap between reality and ideals (admiration) and tries to realize one's ideals "here and now." We all dream of an ideal life. People want to live happily, they want to be relaxed, they want to look good. The public wants to realize their ideal lifestyle or romance in their daily lives. Posting a photo on Instagram also has a symbolic effect. Even though I don't consume expensive things, it is the 'transference effect' that gives me the happiness that I am realizing my ideals 'here and now'.

Q. What role does a trendsetter play in shaping or spreading trends?

A trendsetter is a person or organization that has a decisive influence on a trend. Trendsetters are people who are open in terms of style or taste and are willing to make changes. Typical trendsetters include celebrities, designers or artists, certain subcultural groups, and the upper class. Trendsetters make a decisive contribution to the formation of a 'tipping point' in the early stages of a trend. One of the reasons for the influence of trendsetters is the growing phenomenon of 'ditto consumption', which can be called follow-up consumption. Consumers have so many choices that they can become indecisive. Rather, they want to imitate trendsetters through ditto consumption. Recently, the influence of influencers in trendsetters has been growing. As trendsetters, mega influencers (more than 1 million followers) are useful in terms of spreading awareness, but micro-influencers (1~50,000 followers) or nano-influencers (10,000 followers) are more useful for converting purchases of specific products. I think it's appropriate to use trendsetters to raise awareness through mega influencers and then use micro or nano influencers. ?

Q. What is the most important factor for an innovative product to become a trend?

From the point of view of products and trends, there are functional trending products and non-functional trending products. Functional trending products include IT products, for example, while non-functional trending products are the result of change in people’s tastes. Each product has different properties, so it's very difficult to pick the most important factor. Still, if I had to choose, I think the elements of 'affordability' and 'symbolism' are the two most important. Affordability includes cost-effectiveness and symbolism refers to the ostentatious, self-gratifying element of lifestyle. If it has both economic and symbolic factors, it has a good chance of becoming a trend.?

Q. What are some common errors in trend forecasting, and how can you overcome them? What should you look out for when identifying trends?

Trend prediction is very difficult. This is because uncertainty increases dramatically over time, but on the other hand, it reduces the predictability that has been predetermined. Also, it involves individual and collective psychological factors, as well as economic. Moreover, trends now can be fragmented to the point that it can be called a nano-trend. Gone are the days spotting trends through demographic analysis. One should pay attention to social media. I think that the priority should be to grasp the phenomenon that occurs at the top of the trend (where the seeds of the trend are made). Some examples that are the top of the trend are X and short-form platforms such as Reels,? Shorts, TikTok. At the same time, big data analysis on these platforms can reduce errors in trend prediction. Personally, I think linguistic analysis is very important when doing big data analysis.?

Editor: Yongchan An

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