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Don’t React to Audience Trends. Predict Them.

Published on Oct 15, 2024

Don’t React to Audience Trends. Predict Them.
Travis Gonzalez
Travis Gonzalez studioID

See what’s brimming beneath marketing’s surface. Explore ‘The Deep End’ — a periodic column brought to you by studioID’s Strategy Group.

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Like every Millennial in a marketing profession these days, I live in mild fear of having work labeled as “cringe.” We’ve all seen the rise and fall of brand darlings on social media, whose quirky take on trends and offhand comments go from celebrated to critiqued. In many ways, that’s the name of the game when it comes to modern marketing; one day, you’re in, the next, you’re out. Reliable topics go stale, and the turnover rate of ideas creeps higher. 

Brands, and the often exasperated creatives behind their content, are left with an impossible choice: don’t create topical content and risk being seen as out of touch, or jump on the wrong trend and, again, be labeled as out of touch. 

But maybe the way out of this swirl is not to get sucked into it at all. In the race to create the most topical, trendy content, we’re neglecting one of the greatest sources of compelling ideas: our audiences. Rather than immediately reacting to trends for the sake of it — and setting a precedent of always trying to catch up — there is power in pausing, gathering insights, and determining what will make the most gripping story. 

Why Is Trendsetting So Hard to Get Right?

The reality is, for many brands, one of the biggest hurdles to creating forward-looking content is authenticity. We’ve all seen campaigns where brands take a trend that’s in vogue and forcefully align it with their product messaging. Audiences see right through that, especially if the use of the topic feels out of line with a brand’s typical personality.

One of the most infamous examples of this would be in 2021 when the historic jewelry brand Tiffany attempted to reach a younger demographic. Vying to mirror the success of effortless, casual coolness, as seen in the American Apparel ad campaigns that dominated the 2010s, the “Not Your Mother’s Tiffany” campaign featured no-frills images of younger models.

Unpacking Tiffany's Contentious New Ad Campaign | BoF

While the campaign was a response to research that Millennials and Gen Z will account for 45% of global luxury sales by 2025, the pivot caused mixed feedback online, with older demographics and some marketers arguing the brand was ignoring its heritage and sneering at its long-term customers in favor of this new audience. Using this exact campaign angle back in 1988, Oldsmobile met a similar fate, and many credit this misstep for why the car was ultimately dissolved completely from GM’s lineup years later. 

Authenticity comes with knowing your audience — holistically, not just their buying behaviors and motivations but their idiosyncrasies, too. People who you want to find your content often engage with it not only having preconceived ideas about what your brand represents but also a worldview specific to their experiences. We’re seeing this happen with the growing backlash against brand personification. For a real-time example, take the rising side-eyeing of brands attempting the “account run by a Gen-Z intern” schtick. Audiences can’t and won’t separate the online brand persona from the corporate brand entity. And when you try too hard, they simply don’t buy it.  

This doesn’t mean that brands can’t experiment with trends or new ideas. Being too predictable can also hurt your brand and make it appear as though you cannot evolve with the times or your audience’s needs. Walking the line requires an always-on approach to gathering insights from your audience. 

Chances are, if you’re reacting to a trend, you’re already too late.

What Does it Mean to Listen to Your Audience?

Listening to your audience can take many forms. A common way to do this is to provide regular touchpoints for your audience to share feedback through surveys, creating a community discussion space, or hosting in-person events. These direct opportunities for interaction can provide regular insight into both your audience’s interests and the role they believe your brand should play in reflecting those interests. 

While directly having these conversations can be the gold standard for creating audience-centric content, it’s also time-intensive.

Sometimes, to show that you’re listening to your audience, all you need to do is put yourself in their shoes.

This means reading the news and content they read; looking beyond their connection to your brand to understand their broader challenges; and even role-playing how audiences might interact with your brand. 

Taking the time to explore how your audience approaches a certain topic can often reveal surprising insights. One of my favorite examples of this was the multi-year investigation Square undertook to understand the emerging trend around cashless/contactless payment. Square is a global payments company, known for not only its little white card reader, but a host of in-person and online payment solutions. While cashless payment is a cornerstone of their product offering, they wanted to take the time to understand how the sentiment around cash vs. cashless was evolving across the United States. 

The resulting interactive content series, called “Making Change,” threads together consumer surveys, video interviews with economics professors, and even original data on Square transactions to produce a nuanced picture of a society still reliant on physical cash even as digital transactions become more prevalent. 

Why does this matter? By taking the time to understand the full context around a core topic business owners are thinking about, Square strengthened its position as a true payments partner interested in empowering business owners to accept payments in a way that works best for them, rather than just jumping on the cashless trend. 

What’s the next big trend in marketing? Hear where Square’s Mallory Russell and studioID’s Travis Gonzalez are placing their bets.

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Creating an Idea Machine

Instead of a reactionary approach, what if you could predict trends, and even set them? Building an audience-centric, effective idea machine for your content marketing that does just that can be a repeatable, sustainable process. It can be helpful to think of this strategy in three phases: gathering your intel, choosing the right trends, and turning that trend into content. 

Gathering Intel

As mentioned, listening can take many forms. The trick is to find a regular information source that can become a “well” your content program can consistently tap. This can be something you regularly invest in, like an annual survey, or it can be a third-party publication you rely on to keep you close to industry evolutions. I’m fortunate. I have 30+ publications in my own “backyard” to pull audience insights from, as well as yearly audience insights reports that break down not only which topics audiences care about the most, but also the formats they find the most engaging in discussing those topics. 

Where possible, try to get as many insights as you can directly from your audience. And it never hurts to flex the close audience relationships you reap along the way.

Square makes this look easy. Their core audience of sellers — and their journeys in the business world — are a central narrative across their brand storytelling. Let this approach as a lesson. When you mirror your audience’s world back to them with voices of real people in their position, you don’t need gimmicks or to hide behind the social media “intern” voice.  

Choosing the Right Trends 

So you’ve listened to your audience and gathered a handful of ideas that have the potential to become trendsetting content. How do you pick the right idea? There is a “know-it-when-you-see-it” element to this work; a concept that’s only snowballing in popularity and relevance, destined to become the next big thing. But it’s important to validate these assumptions and potential trends against your brand perception, additional audience research, and how long a given trend could be relevant. 

We’ve all seen social media proliferate the rise of “micro-trends” — short, topical ideas and formats that reach their peak over a few months, only to quickly become passé

While you don’t have to steer clear of micro-trends completely, you want to make sure your connection to that trend can scale up into broader themes and ideas that you can align your brand with in the future. 

That’s the root of authenticity. For every 10 micro-trends that crop up, there is a much larger, more evergreen idea that can serve as the foundation for those concepts. Having a clear sense of the big ideas or conversations your brand wants to own can help you choose whether to participate in these trends. 

Let’s talk best-case scenario. You have the opportunity to fully set and own a trend. This could be an insight you discover early from your audience or an interesting, stand-out fact that emerged from your research. Or, even better, you’re filling a need your audience continually has (there’s a reason why reports framed as the “future of” become successful content franchises). In these cases, think about the value of growing your association with this trend for the long term. Making content is an investment, and you have to make sure it’s going to pay off. 

Related Reading: 5 Trends Dominating Modern Marketing

Implementing

The best ideas and trends can fall flat if you don’t have the right vehicle. Content needs to do the work of building momentum around these trends and emphasize the perspective your brand brings to it. Different trend executions often require different formats to effectively convey the message. If your trend is related to showcasing innovation and perseverance in the small business space, for example, it doesn’t bode well to publish a whitepaper solely from your brand’s perspective. In that scenario, the voice of your audience should take center stage.

The scale of your organization can also play a role in how you bring this trend to life. For businesses that touch multiple markets and regions, trends can take on a new context depending on the interests and goals of local audiences. You need to have a plan in place to “scale” your idea across those markets, as well as communicate with experts in those spaces to make your message translate effectively. 

Audience Connection Can’t Be Forced

Building a perpetual idea machine takes time and trust. It’s the brands who create a consistent approach to welcoming their audience into the ideation process and who continue to think from their perspective that will be able to make this strategy for content creation impactful. And in an era of content marketing where speed and instant reactions are the standard, taking the time to pause and listen could be the key to achieving brand longevity and loyalty.