Hot! New! Wanted!

Wednesday 1st August 2001

Can't live without your morning cappuccino? Zo� Baird identifies five new consumer markets and asks how do you pick trends?

Walk up and down the aisle of your local supermarket and you can easily spot what's hot and what's not. Trolleys are filled with roast coffee beans from countries you can't pronounce, while ready-made cooking sauces are a must when our parents would have made their own.

So how do you pick up on these trends?

Take Lucozade, for example. What's your image of this brand? Someone recuperating from illness, wrapped up in a blanket? Or a bright young raver, wrapped in funky clothing? Sorry, but your answer indicates whether you're hip or square. Lucozade's marketing demonstrates how a brand can take advantage of social trends.

Lucozade's brand owner, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, was initially surprised to find the drink associated with the dance scene, says brand consultant Lew Bentley. But any squeamishness was soon exorcised by dollar signs when it looked at the potential profits. The company quickly aligned Lucozade's marketing campaign with the emerging energy drink market.

Tracking usage patterns of your product in this way can help you spot coming trends, says Bentley. If you identify early adopters in a market and concentrate on their behavioural changes, you have advance warning of societal changes. Like bottled water going mainstream after its debut in the rave scene, successful products often spread from their initial market context. You need to identify areas that no one's tapped into yet.

Make sure you're observing a trend rather than a fad, cautions marketer Jake Pearce. Does the pattern have an underlying sociological driver? If so, it's a trend (think energy drinks). If there's no sociological change, it's a fad (think hula-hoops). Be aware that any "trendy" market will be split between believers and non-believers. The believers will keep drinking popular energy drink V long after the novelty has worn off, because they genuinely believe it gives them the boost they need, says brand marketer Howard Russell. The non-believers will simply move on to the next fashionable product.

There's no magic science and no formula to follow in trendspotting. It all comes back to plain old good marketing, says Evangelia Henderson, general manager of marketing at Frucor, maker of V. Frucor didn't create its star product and then try to sell it. "We talked to customers first, who highlighted an energy need that wasn't being fulfilled through beverages." Marketing needs to work hand in hand with existing or unrealised demand. Get out there and mingle with your target market. Ask them what, when, where, how and why they buy, suggests Russell. Find their need.

You can't always rely on research alone, says Robin Colgan, Land Rover New Zealand's sales and marketing manager. How do you ask a customer if they will buy, if they can't comprehend the product? The Range Rover was launched in 1970 mostly on gut feel, says Colgan, because a luxury off-road vehicle was a completely new concept. Just look at the graph to see the upsurge in sports utility vehicles.

To get an idea of the likely chances of your product you can always try "futurists" and professional trendspotters such as Faith Popcorn in the US or globalstreetscapes.com, a website that collates information from people with their ear to the ground in a number of cities around the world.

Armed with all this knowledge, you could be on to the next "big thing". Just remember it's all based on traditional marketing techniques. As Russell puts it: "Don't bother looking for a trend. Just look at better satisfying your customers on a long-term basis."

Zo� Baird
zoe.baird@unlimited.net.nz

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