Companies do not achieve great success if they do not timely discover a brilliant trend in the world of consumption. They are truly successful when the trend is part of their culture, from top to bottom – in these words, the old good trendwatchers (the Trendwatching website reports on recent trends from the marketing world every month) described the difference between companies that want to be perceived as innovative, trendsetting, which are successful in recognizing (future) consumer needs and those that are not.
For illustration, Apple has been creating trends for decades, while Nokia, which jumped into the mobile phone market in time at the end of the nineties, has somewhat lost its way on the path to becoming a true trend company. Instead of imposing trends, it has turned into a company that follows them, more or less successfully. If you were to ask the experts behind the reports from the Trendwatching website, they would likely conclude that unlike Apple, Nokia has not integrated the trend in the full sense of the word into its corporate culture. And for that integration, or the creation of a ‘trend-driven’ culture, to be successful at all, in their opinion, nine steps need to be taken.
Laying the Foundations
Every company should start with its employees and business structure and create an environment where creative juices can flow freely. Therefore, as the first step, they emphasize the importance of understanding consumer trends, or their foundations. A new consumer trend arises when certain drivers (technological, social, economic, etc.) enable the satisfaction of basic needs (in addition to food and drink, there are needs for entertainment, networking…) in a new way.
After it becomes clear to everyone in the company what a trend actually is, it is time to inspire them. When it comes to inspiration, a new player in the market is KILN, a consulting agency that deals with creativity and innovation and has designed inspirational packages called Ideakeg. Users who subscribe to this service receive a package at their home address containing seven, as they call them, ‘cultural artifacts’, each illustrating a current trend from different areas of life. Each of these rather abstract items also contains a brief description of the trend and allows users to think about it ‘out of the box’. More precisely, Ideakeg is designed as a kind of ‘brainstorming in the box’ and serves managers and their teams to creatively reflect on social processes. Furthermore, for teams in the company to be able to recognize and respond to emerging trends, they need to be connected, facilitating their collaboration. This is especially important in large companies where the flow of good ideas is hindered precisely because of their size.
Knowing How to Motivate
The marketing company PHD has developed a platform called Source where employees exchange ideas regarding media and branding strategies for clients. For activities shared on the platform, users earn points (Ping), thus creating friendly competition, and employees are motivated to exchange ideas and details about specific projects. Currently, 75 percent of the three thousand PHD employees participate on the platform. Management claims that Source is responsible for their signing a contract worth three billion dollars with Unilever.
And finally, it is important to encourage everyone, not just marketing employees, to innovate. The company Adobe has motivated its numerous employees with Kickbox, or a personal innovation box that contained items (chocolate, sticky notes, but also a check for one thousand dollars) that help them come up with new ideas which they then have to present to management.
