Is Trend-spotting the Biggest Trend of 2017?

While we will all read a gazillion articles about Consumer Electronics Showcase this week on LinkedIn and you are probably still reading several 2017 predictions for marketing/social media/technology/bright shiny object there is another area that used to matter quite a bit to brand strategists that I rarely hear them talk or even write about anymore. It could be those brand strategists are too focused on technology or consumer insights in this day and age or have a fear of missing out if they don't adapt the latest app that they will be here today but gone tomorrow.

None of that will happen of course. Tech moves too quick. If you miss out on one train, you can play catch up and bypass it with another new train that comes along. But how do you know what train to get on?

Enter the art and science of trend-spotting.

Just like betting on futures in the market, a trend that has existed the last decade (we used to run Trend Labs at an agency I worked at from 2006 to 2010) but is going mainstream is the trend of trend-spotting. But why has it become so popular? Is it more popular because of the convergence of data, tech, popular culture and self-publishing (like I'm doing here on LinkedIn where an instant audience awaits)? These are the questions we're not even asking but should continually question more of in the world of business in 2017. While it's fun to play trend-spotting on what may or may not happen (almost like playing Fantasy Football/Futbol), what trend-spotting fails to provide is how to apply those trends within your business strategy in the world at large. For every prediction made in every blog or book (trust me, I'm guilty of this too), what is the execution or follow through?

Trend-spotting can have as much effectiveness as marketing automation, digital transformation or innovation labs if it simply becomes a fad. Lots of style but little substance.

Don't let my words make it appear I am criticizing the craft. If anything, trend-spotting is an area that will be the massive differentiator for business in 2017. Because in this new year, people and context will be more important than automation and content. Content doesn't mean anything when it's served to you. It has to be relevant. It has to have meaning. It has to have context. Thus, it will be who has their pulse on context that controls 2017. In order to have a pulse on context one must have an understanding of what motivates people, what makes them move, what makes them tick.

This is why businesses need to get back to studying human culture (or start doing if they never did this in the first place). In a world where the rise of people is battling back against the rise of the robots (sorry Martin Ford) what do I mean by this? Brands can't push narratives without understanding the world around them and the interests people have. You can't build a product or a service that is at total odds with what people want based on how we behave. We may think programmatic advertising is great until it gives rise to hate groups. We may think live video documentation is great until brands begin to sponsor those videos with ads overlaid in them without our permission. We may think the flavor of a calorie-free water is yummy until we realize what those "natural flavors" are comprised of.

So how do we get to the heart of culture? Isn't that a vast area of study? Yes, but it too can be broken down into several areas by simply asking the philosophical questions we've asked forever of humanity and observing what people do to see how they behave without us polling them. Questions and observations like: How do you like to communicate? What do you like to wear? What do you like to listen to? What do you believe happens after you die? Why do you think people wage war? Do you trust anything brands do or say anymore?

Let's take two of these questions and answer some of those queries here with search and social data mixed with human observation. Let's make it fun and not typical to the subjects we discuss too much of LinkedIn. What do you like to wear and what do you like to listen to? From here, we can get a sense of the context in these two areas instead of simply pushing brand agendas with little to no understanding of the behavior around us. In this sense, trend-spotting moves beyond simply a trend and becomes a valuable asset. But let's not end the analysis here. What other areas do you see as important to your business if fashion and music aren't relevant? For as we all know, the world keeps spinning and as it does, it will continue to spin out new trends for us to spot.

FASHION - Trends people are searching for include: solid nude color patterns (white, beiges and browns), khakis, athlete leisure wear (aka the "brunch" look), statement sleeves, loud colored suits, activist tees (We Should All Be Feminists, Go Trump Yourself), pointy toed shoes, slip on sneakers.

MUSIC - Trends people are searching for include: 80s fashion (a retread on the early 2000s which copied the 1980s which we are now copying again - in other words, everything is a REMIX), electro pop, electroclash, R&B, 70s glam, grime, political hip hop, Latino punk, vinyl, cassettes, fair trade music formats, Kurt Cobain hologram.

Geoffrey Colon is a Communications Designer at Microsoft. He is author of the book Disruptive Marketing that Oracle named Top 15 Business Books of 2016 and Success Magazine named the Top 71 books of 2016 to Make You Successful in 2017. You can listen to him broadcast from the campus of Microsoft every Friday on his podcast DISRUPTIVE FM. He lives in Seattle but left his heart in Brooklyn, NY.