Microtrends Revisited: What Do You Want for $4.99?

The sale bin at an airport bookshop is usually the almost-final resting place of stuff that shouldn’t have been on its shelves in the first place or of things that didn’t survive the mauling by sleep-deprived “guests” of the world’s airlines. But in such a bin in Phoenix, among the grubby neck pillows, damp productivity books and Delia Smith Christmas cookie ideas was this:

Microtrends: the small forces behind tomorrow’s big changes by Mark J. Penn and Kinney Zalesne.

The perfect thing to kill off a four-hour flight and make me obnoxious at Trivial Pursuit all in one volume! Plus, marketers are always suckers for anything that might be used to explain missed targets, so into my bag it went and here is why you may or may not want to read it.

You should read it if you are interested in social trends, because most of the book deals with that sort of thing. The rise of Cougars, teens who knit and people who like numbers are among the 80 or so trends documented in short, readable chapters. There are just enough statistics to make it compelling and the analysis is easy to follow. Think Faith Popcorn but with less braille.

If, however, you are hoping for ammunition to push along your stellar B2B career, you may want to relegate this book to the guest bathroom. First, it’s pretty much all about the U.S., with the exception of a chapter at the end which talks about trends in emerging economies, so the sociological context and data are not going to resonate for those of us in the Great White North.  On the other hand, Canadians are nothing if not followers, so there’s a good chance we’ll put our own hockey-flavoured spin on at least few of the same trends. Plus, a good number of Canadian B2B companies sell into the U.S. so it’s helpful to understand why your best customer is on his fifth tummy tuck.

Another reason it may not top your list of essential resources is that while the trends are interesting and arguably deliver a knock-on effect to B2B companies, they mostly just aren’t that relevant. But there are some exceptions, and here they are:

Commuter Couples are on the rise. That is, married people who don’t actually live together. They live where the work is and commute home on the weekend. Counterintuitively, they are also among the most engaged workers, because they’d rather stay in the office until 10pm than hang out at that sumptuous Holiday Inn up the road.

Stay at home workers are also on the rise, with more of them working there by choice than necessity. The upside is happier workers, less crowded roads and lower real estate costs; the unfortunate downside is the possibility of seeing how your co-workers dress when they are at home.

Adults are also sleeping a lot less these days, with 35-million Americans reporting fewer than six hours of sleep per night. Let’s remember, these people get up in the morning and go to work as pilots, surgeons, forklift operators and tattoo artists. The good news is it’s probably not your fault then that people snore in your presentations.

Or it could be that we’re not hearing your pitch so well these days. Apparently one in ten Americans has trouble hearing but far fewer than that do anything more about it than turn up the volume and damage the remaining 90 percent’s hearing.

How about the new quasi-government sector that formed in the wake of the 2008 bailouts of private corporations by government? That one is interesting and the authors suggest that formerly lavish habits will go by the wayside as public sector austerity imposes its will on the pampered former private sector. Personally, I think we’ll just bring them down to our level. Now may be a good time to start planning a posh user conference in Bali.

Americans are also keeping more of their wealth in tangible assets such as gold coins and Beanie Babies and are cramming these into safe-deposit boxes while they fill cracker tins full of small bills. At the same time, teenagers are starting up more businesses, (possibly because they keep finding venture funding in the cracker tin in the pantry), the middle class is buying second homes and then going bankrupt (where did I leave that cracker tin?) and our attention spans are getting longer so we can play more golf.

A disappointing thing here is this book is almost three years old and was launched to considerable media attention. You would think the authors would want to revisit their work and let us know how these trends have played out and what comes next. Alas, their website  hasn’t been updated in years.

Bottom line: this book will not help you do your job but it will amuse you for a while and possibly help you understand why there’s a wait list for the archery club and French people drink less than you do.

Bizmarketer is Elizabeth Williams
Follow me on Twitter @bizmkter
or email escwilliams@gmail.com