Three Tips to Help Entrepreneurs Navigate Consumer Trends

From FEE.org:

Trends are important indicators. But when misinterpreted and misread, they can lead you down a destructive path of false hope and incorrect assumptions.

Here are three of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make when interpreting a trend and how you can avoid them.

1. Mistaking a Trend for a Fad

As Faith Popcorn, marketing author and founder of the consulting firm BrainReseve writes, “fads are about products, whereas trends are about what drives consumers to buy products.”

The largest differentiator is that trends are based on a growing change in consumer behavior, whereas fads tend to be linked to products that don’t necessarily respond to a particular change in consumer behavior or solve a consumer problem.

2. Identifying the Right Trend but Offering the Wrong Solution

In the early '90s, as consumers were becoming more health-conscious and looking for diet-friendly foods and beverages, McDonald’s introduced the McLean Deluxe Burger.

McDonald’s correctly interpreted its customers' changing eating habits as a trend towards healthy eating and created a low-fat burger to meet those changing needs. Which would have been a smart interpretation of the trend and a great plan until it did two things. First, McDonald's named it the McLean Deluxe Burger, which didn’t sell well with its male demographic, and, second, it removed 91 percent of the burger's fat and replaced it with water. According to consumers, it tasted awful, and it quickly failed.

Right trend, wrong solution.

3.  Assuming People No Longer Want the Opposite of the Trend

Reading about the micro and macro trends in the health and wellness space would lead you to rightly assume that consumers are moving away from indulgent foods. But they're not abandoning them completely.

For example, In-n-Out Burger has grown massively by focusing on made-to-order burgers using high-quality ingredients and non-frozen beef patties (a micro trend in the burger industry!). If it interpreted these health and wellness trends and began offering salads and wraps, it'd be offering what consumers were looking for – but ruin its brand as the go-to for cheat days in the process.

If in researching trends you find your business is in direct opposition, don’t throw in the towel just yet. Here, you want to ask yourself (and research!): Are people still spending money on what I want to bring to market? Are they still buying soda, for example, even if they’re buying more water?

If the answer is yes – and consistently stays at “yes” – there’s still a market for you to explore and own. [read more]