02/19/2007: "Keep Up With the Trends and You'll Sell More"

Keep up. If you're a copywriter, an advertiser or simply have something to sell, you have to look at your company and your product or service from the outside in.

Peter Drucker said that too many CEO's look at their companies and products from the boardroom. They have a limited view of things. They see things as they want the shareholder to see them --- not as the customer or client sees them.

The result is the company fails. It loses market share. It gets old.

You have to know the current trends. Now I'm a woman who has seen many moons. But I try and see things like my clients see them. Most are middle age to older so that's no problem.

But I also try and see things as the 18 to 29 year old sees them. That keeps me on top of my game. I take lots of magazines I ordinarily wouldn't take. Good thing they're tax deductible.

I take Vogue, for example. Now I would not be caught in anything shown in the slick pages of Vogue. Oh, I might carry a Prada handbag or wear Prada sneakers. But to go to Walgreens in some of the get ups out of Vogue would not be Midwestern! Nor comfortable. But at least I know what's going on in the world of fashion. And when you're a copywriter and you deal with all sorts of clients, it's important to know what's going on in all kinds of things.

Trends. You've got to know them. Below are some of the current youth trends. Know them. Keep up with them. You can't stick one leg in the past and keep one in "your" present. You have to look at all things through other eyes if you're to succeed in business and advertising.

Trend vocabulary words of the day:

Cyber status: The average person's web celebrity, or lack thereof.

Neo networking: The next step in social networking has spawned a love/hate relationship with the medium, with love of socializing tempered by the pressure to connect and network.

Metrepreneur Culture: Consumers are not just creating content but producing and distributing it as well.

Right IQ: The move from an information society to a creative one. Consumers now aspire to right-brain brands and marketing campaigns.

Antisocialite: Difficulty and/or distaste for face-to-face interaction due to overabundance of web interactions.

Wasted: Environmental concerns manifested in a desire to not waste things, e.g. less packaging and fewer disposable products.

s take Ikea products and re-mix them into something else. See examples at ikeahacker.blogspot.com

Branded widget: A stylized RSS feed that resides on a desktop or blog with brand wraps and signage.

Godcasts: Religious podcasts the younger demographic uses to get religion or spiritual guidance on their own time.

Anche Chung: First real-life millionaire from the virtual-reality game Second Life.

Tuanguo: An Asian phenomenon where groups collectively pick a store and demand preferred pricing. Mobs of 500 or so are not uncommon; neither is the store closing its doors and offering 30% discounts to the group.

Web site descriptions:

SixDegrees.org: Actor Kevin Bacon founded this charitable initiative to connect causes and drum up donations both big and small.

SellaBand.com: Spend $10 to buy a share of an up-and-coming band (or if you're a band, cash in with backers of your own).

Nikemashup.com: New Nike site where you can make your own commercial using stock visuals, graphics and sound.

Hypemachine.com: Aggregating website that tracks songs, plus music news and blog discussions to show the most popular music topics in real time.

Text slang interpretations:

Book: Cool (perceptive text correctors read mistype of cool as "book").

404: "I have no clue." Can also refer to a person who is clueless (comes from the web error message 404 Not Found).

IG2G: I've got to go.

T@YL: Talk at you later.

Next time I'll discuss some current trends in advertising.