The Trend Lag: From WGSN to Hollywood
I hope you miss me when my work keeps me from the joy of writing about love, desire, and the art of consumer seduction called branding. For over a month, I've been focused on developing my first gamified training program, "Service as a Brand," for an innovative client in the fashion retail sector.
Now that the project is complete, I'm excited to return to your inbox with a series exploring the fascinating connections between pop culture and brand building.
There's no better time for this exploration than now, as awards season is in full swing and Saturday Night Live celebrates its 50th anniversary—a spectacular extravaganza of everything that has been hot in pop culture. Over the coming weeks, I'll delve into how our screen consumption influences brand aesthetics, weaving together anecdotal stories that show how trends, entertainment, and brands nurture each other.
The Retro-Cool Déjà Vu
Picture this: A decade ago, I collaborated with the Kodak Moments brand at the cusp of their identity crisis—a year into its Chapter 11 restructuring. We faced the daunting challenge of redefining what the Brand was, how the landscape had changed, and what it still had the right to be. This is the soul-searching that brands must undertake at least every 15 years as each new generation of consumers emerges.
During one of our strategic discussions, after achieving complete alignment on the plan, someone dropped what felt like a bomb: "We need to be retro-cool."
I remember thinking, "Cool" is not something a brand can aspire to be; it's something the market rewards you with. And "retro"? What exactly did they mean by retro? I asked, afraid of muddying the waters with aesthetics during an identity alignment session.
At that time, "Retro-Cool" was a nascent concept highlighted by trend forecasting firms like WGSN—think of them as the McKinsey of design, fashion, and pop culture. These firms analyze cultural shifts, emerging consumer behaviors, and macroeconomic factors to provide brands with strategic guidance on future trends.
But here's the catch: translating their mood boards into actionable strategies is like solving a complex puzzle while blindfolded.
It requires careful alignment with a brand's core identity, or you might end up like Bud Light, learning the hard way how misaligned trend adoption can cost you market leadership.
Fast forward to today, and mainstream successes like White Lotus, Bad Monkey, Acapulco, and Palm Royale embody the Retro-Cool aesthetic, blending joy and nostalgia to captivate audiences
Understanding the Retro-Cool Aesthetic (or any trend for that matter)
The 10+ Year Trend Lag
Here's something that might surprise you: trends often require over a decade to evolve from initial prediction to mainstream adoption.
That's right—ten years.
About the same amount of time a brand needs before it hires a brand police to enforce the millions spent on an Interbrand-crafted brand book.
This decade-long journey allows for experimentation, refinement, and integration into popular culture. But no—when a trend is announced, everyone rushes to it like liquid gold, and agencies are the miners. The reality? The process works better as a back-and-forth helix between trendsetters, the entertainment industry, and brands.
My advice to brands, agencies, and creators? Hold your horses. Let others get the first boos or the grand applause. Then, once the dust settles, start understanding and testing how the trend and your Brand—or the Brand you're creating—dance well together.
P.S. For a delightful example of the Retro-Cool aesthetic in action, check out Palm Royale, Season 1, Episode 5, around the 35-minute mark. If that's not Ricky Ricardo—oops, I mean Ricky Martin—then I must be seeing ghosts.