Nobody knows anything
What's next for trend forecasting
Welcome to the Sociology of Business. In my last analysis, Cultural programming in action, I looked into execution of cultural programs through the case study of Prada. For sponsorship options, send me an email. If you are on the Substack, join the chat and I’m happy to respond to any questions in the chat or comments here.
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Previously on the Sociology of Business:
End-of-year brings a mild frenzy in trend forecasting, especially in cultural industries and mostly because nobody knows anything, as William Goldman said a long time ago. Best we can do, per Mr. Goldman, the Oscar-winning writer of screenplays for All the Presidents Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, is to make “a guess, and if you’re lucky, an educated one.”
Luck, guessing, and hoping for the best are the name of the game in cultural markets where success is unpredictable. It is unpredictable because it depends on our preferences and tastes, which are changeable and fickle because they are heavily socially influenced. For those *still* keen to get their hands on trend reports, my former co-worker Daphne shared with me recently this compilation link (btw, Daphne is amazing. Hire her immediately).
My main issue with predictions is that I don’t think that there is the future: there are many futures. Scenario planning has long been known in organizational analysis as a way for companies to adapt to uncertainty.
The challenge is not how well we predict the future, but how well we react to its unpredictability.
In the last episode of 2024, Rei and I talk about boring brands, why small is good and big is bad, and why nobody knows anything. Listed here or here or below and have a very Happy New Year!
In my work in the past several years, I experienced (and shaped) first-hand the shift from strategy to creative production. Creative production is both the approach, the process, and the output. My idea of the creative stack came out of it as well as the process for world-building that includes merchandising, product design, marketing, creative, and commercial planning and that adopts a portfolio approach. Strategy is linear; creative production is messy and waterfall.
I have also experienced first-hand the creativity that did not come from traditional creative departments like marketing or design. The reason we were able to launch BR vintage shop was thanks to creativity of BR’s production team; the reason we were able to do merch, and collaborations, and archive sales at Esprit was thanks to creativity of merchandising department.
Together, these two experiences - less strategy, more creative production; and everyone in an organization needs to be creative in their problem-solving - set the stage for the next year and years to follow. It’s pretty safe to say that the idea of a solo creative genius is over (and has been for a while) with short artistic director tenures. Modern creativity is a group sport.
In inherently unpredictable cultural markets, best is to not only distribute creativity (expect from everyone to problem-solve) and be agile in responding to whatever is happening at the moment, but also to have a portfolio approach and the cross-category presence.
If one area of culture (e.g. fashion) is having a waning influence, there are others that can compensate (design, entertainment, furniture, appliances, food, experiences … ). If one creative product fails, there are others to succeed. In my new book, Hitmakers: How brands influence culture, I write about how brands grow and stay relevant in their markets through having a very clear idea of their identity and the story they want to tell, creating a portfolio of cultural products across cultural categories that convey