How to recognize and profit from trends.

The most suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neurs, brands and busi­nesses all have one thing in com­mon — they move with the times and cap­i­tal­ize on trends. They keep their ear to the ground, look for pat­terns or gaps that emerge then inno­vate and develop com­pet­i­tive advan­tage in these mar­kets. The same oppor­tu­ni­ties are open to all com­pa­nies, but most fail to rec­og­nize or more often the case, fail to act on these trends instead focus­ing on “sell­ing more type­writ­ers” despite mar­ket shifts.

The most obvi­ous trends macro trends e.g. the dereg­u­la­tion of mar­kets; dis­rupt­ing tech­nol­ogy; gov­ern­ment or soci­etal change receive the most atten­tion, but also the heav­i­est com­pe­ti­tion as their obvi­ous nature opens to flood­gates to a wave of imi­ta­tors and “me-too” inno­va­tors. How­ever, the smaller micro trends such as shift­ing val­ues, behav­iours and sub­cul­tures within a mar­ket are often over­looked but can be just as pow­er­ful. For exam­ple — the grow­ing per­cep­tion of ani­mal cru­elty in the cos­metic indus­try, opened a huge door for Anita Roddick’s bodyshop, with her more sus­tain­able and ani­mal friendly line of Cos­met­ics. The same could be said for Red­Bull who built their brand around the seem­ingly small, but fun­da­men­tal shift in busy con­sumer lifestyles and our need for “more energy.”

The hard part is rec­og­niz­ing microtrends as they start small, are often counter-intuitive to what we imag­ine to be the rule and can be hard to clus­ter into a niche mar­ket. How­ever, sites like TrendHunter.com; CoolHunter.com and TrendWatching.com pro­vide a great insight into the small shifts in con­sumer behav­iour that can change the dynam­ics of an industry.

Despite hav­ing access to these sites, rec­og­niz­ing trends in our own indus­tries, where they may not be spelt out for us can be chal­leng­ing. The pre­sen­ta­tion below from TrendHunter.com founder Jeremy Gutsche aims to help by pro­vid­ing a frame­work that can be used to har­ness cre­ativ­ity and cap­i­tal­ize on trends. Gutsche frame­work for “unlock­ing cool” and rec­og­niz­ing and respond­ing to oppor­tu­ni­ties that trends unlock is a gold mine. He states that for a com­pany to suc­cess­fully profit from trends there are four area’s they must avoid fol­low­ing the pack and be rev­o­lu­tion­ary in their:

• Per­spec­tive,
• Cre­ativ­ity,
• Forced fail­ure,
• Incen­tive.

Of these four con­cepts, the most inter­est­ing and counter-intuitive is the idea of forced fail­ure — essen­tially a com­pa­nies com­fort level with gam­bling and expect­ing to fail in a high pro­por­tion of their inno­va­tions. The exam­ples Gutsche uses are com­pelling. If you have the time to view this pre­sen­ta­tion check it out, it’s a great sum­mary of how you can profit from trends in your business.

StartUP Marketing 101

As prac­ti­tion­ers of startup mar­ket­ing we read widely on the topic of mar­ket­ing for star­tups and like to share great con­tent when we find it. RocketWatcher.com is such con­tent. Writ­ten by April Dun­ford a Toronto based mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sional focused on star­tups Rock­et­Watcher is packed full of great con­tent and an excel­lent read for all star­tups. The pre­sen­ta­tion below sums up much of what we prac­tice and preach here at StartUP Marketing.

Brand Manifesto’s & 3 That will Inspire You.

A brand man­i­festo, is an incred­i­bly pow­er­ful tool for entre­pre­neurs and mar­keters who want to cre­ate a brand that “means something”.

Effec­tive brand­ing is about cre­at­ing an emo­tional engage­ment and con­nec­tion with your audience. A man­i­festo, is a pub­lic dec­la­ra­tion of the prin­ci­ples and val­ues of the brand. It sets the tone and the expec­ta­tions cus­tomers should have of your brand and pro­vides a roadmap for cre­at­ing con­sis­tent expe­ri­ences with your brand at every touch point.

A mean­ing­ful, rel­e­vant and engag­ing man­i­festo that your brand can live by, and your cus­tomers can relate to sets your brand apart and aligns your mes­sage with the hopes, aspi­ra­tions and val­ues of your customers.

An authen­tic and gen­uine man­i­festo can help form an emo­tional attach­ment between your brand and your audi­ence, and pro­vides cus­tomers a sig­nal to their peers that their and your val­ues are aligned. This let’s your audi­ence self express, through iden­ti­fy­ing with your brand’s val­ues and shar­ing your brand mes­sage within their social group.

If you’re a startup or an entre­pre­neur seek­ing to develop a richer and more mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ence for your cus­tomers then con­sider devel­op­ing a brand man­i­festo that declares your val­ues and prin­ci­ples and speak­ing in real terms to your cus­tomers about the issues they care about too.

Some great exam­ples of brand manifesto’s include.

Lul­ule­mons Brand Manifesto

1. Lul­ule­mon — self described as a yoga-inspired apparel and cloth­ing com­pany, this $500m cloth­ing empire has a brand man­i­festo that aligns their brand with the hopes, aspi­ra­tions and val­ues of their health con­scious and lifestyle ori­en­tated cus­tomers. There’s no doubt this pow­er­ful brand helps ele­vate the com­pany from just another stan­dard “gym gear label” to a line with close to $500m annual revenue.

2. Rentoid.com - Mel­bourne entre­pre­neur Steve Sam­martino has cre­ated a bril­liant man­i­festo for Rentoid.com, that sets the tone for the eco and inde­pen­dent cul­ture of this well known Mel­bourne brand. This gives the site a  much deeper and valu­able con­nec­tion with the audi­ence, pro­vides a real bar­rier to entry  for the online busi­ness, and gives a com­pelling frame of ref­er­ence pit­ting rent­ing against, con­sum­ing, as a viable alternative.

3. Prod­uct (RED) pro­vides another excel­lent exam­ple of a brand man­i­festo. Prod­uct (RED) is the brand set-up by U2’s Bono and Bobby Shriver to raise money for the global fund to fight aids, tuber­cu­lo­sis and malaria. The Prod­uct (RED) man­i­festo spells out the true mean­ing of this brand, built on real integrity and a busi­ness model aimed to help the worlds most under­priv­eledge peo­ple. Whilst some detrac­tors have taken the cyn­i­cal view that prod­uct (RED) is prof­i­teer­ing from the plight of oth­ers; RED says right upfront in their man­i­festo, that RED is not a char­ity, it is a busi­ness model designed to buy med­ica­tion! That’s a pow­er­ful mes­sage; and the man­i­festo pub­licly states their inten­tions upfront, which in my opin­ion makes the cyn­i­cal view seem redun­dant and out of touch.

How­ever, despite the obvi­ous ben­e­fits not all brands should pur­sue this strat­egy. When devel­op­ing a brand man­i­festo you must be care­ful that your mes­sage is authen­tic, mean­ing­ful and impor­tant to your audi­ence. A trite, glib or super­fi­cial man­i­festo that your com­pany can not deliver on, will do far more harm than good for your brand.

If you’re inter­ested in cre­at­ing a man­i­festo for your brand, start by ask­ing your­self, “are we seek­ing to pos­i­tively impact the lives of our cus­tomers?” and if you are, “Are we con­sis­tently deliv­er­ing on our promise?” If the answer to both these ques­tions is yes, then a brand man­i­festo could be a pow­er­ful tool to fur­ther dif­fer­en­ti­ate your brand and develop a deeper rela­tion­ship with your customers.

About the Author: Andrew Birt is a Mar­keter, Entre­pre­neur & Tutor in Marketing/Advertising at Mel­bourne Uni­ver­sity, Australia.

Presentation to Vic Inventors Association

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