trend research methodologies

Brands can't create culture. People do, collectively. It's presumptuous to think that marketers have that much power. Even the idea of ‘moving at the speed of culture’ is dated and assumes that brands are omnipotent.

That said, those who understand the various dynamics informing culture are more likely to have noticeable influence on culture—and... See more

We spend most of our waking hours not worrying about our own opinions, but our friends, family and colleague’s opinions. How might they react to this, what will they feel, what could convince them, and naturally we become experts at this quite quickly in life, yet no one taps into this. That we all have a lifetime experience of predicting the

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across history, there’s a kind of ebb and flow between simplicity and excess, practicality and ornament. Almost like breathing in and out, cultures swing from minimal/practical to ornate/expressive , and back again. Here are some of the overarching cycles and patterns you see repeating in fashion, art, and architecture :

1. Cycles of Simplicity →... See more

1. Residual (ubiquitous, but fading)

2. Dominant (accepted, now expanding)

3. Emergent (rising experimentation)

4. Disruptive (agitating expected norms)