Excerpted from StrateScapes – Volume 2, Number 2

“ Studying trends may never tell you what your customers think about bottled water or laser surgery. But they can tell you which questions to ask.”

You don’t have to work in marketing to see that more and more people are liposuctioning and lasering their way to biologic perfection — and shunning malls and office buildings in favor of the comforting, predictable escapism of cable TV and Web browsers.

Faith Popcorn, Iconoculture^® and other trendwatchers make it clear that such trends (see sidebar) are road signs pointing toward business opportunity. But are they saying you should drop everything and branch out into laser-surgery clinics? Hardly. In fact, their ideas go hand-in-hand with the concept of building relationships with your existing customers.

Entrepreneurs, Step Aside
You don’t have to be a venture capitalist to take advantage of cultural trends. They apply more directly than you might think to the dollars-and-cents logic behind holding on to the customers you already have. One important way they do that is by giving you a vantage point from which to formulate your relationship marketing strategies.

As Yankelovich Partners puts it, the trends “remind us yet again of the first rule of marketing — know your customer. But in practice, this is hard advice to follow. The most difficult part is getting a handle on exactly what it is about your customer that is the most important to know.”

You Can’t Please All the People …
Faith Popcorn says people are afraid to drink the water. Iconoculture says people will do anything to look perfect. But these are extremely broad assertions we’re talking about — and the trendwatchers are the first to point out that they don’t hold true for all the people all the time.

So while studying AtmosFear or Biomorphing will never tell you what your customers think about bottled water or laser surgery, that’s exactly where trends fit into the relationship marketing picture. To translate trend reconnaissance into sound relationship marketing strategy, you must raise the ante beyond trendwatching and open a dialogue with your customers. The trends simply tell you which questions to ask.

TrendSampling A mini-tour of cultural trends identified by marketing futurists at Iconoculture and Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve. AtmosFear – Bombarded with news about polluted air, contaminated water and tainted food, consumers are racked with doubt and uncertainty. Writing on the Wall: The proliferation of antibacterial soaps, bottled water and tap-water filters; oxygen bars offering a breath of pure oxygen for up to $20. Biomorphing – People are fascinated with shapeshifting their anatomies into what they dream they should be. Writing on the Wall: About 100,000 Americans have had a face lift; nearly 2 million women have breast implants; orthodontia and other cosmetic dental work are at all-time highs. Clanning – Consumers want a sense of belonging with groups that share their values, beliefs, causes and ideals. Writing on the Wall: There are half a million membership organizations in America — everything from virgin clubs to lefties’ associations; some municipalities now issue their own currencies to keep dollars and loyalties close to home. Cocooning – People are preoccupied with the need to protect themselves from the harsh, unpredictable realities of the outside world. Writing on the Wall: QVC now serves 5 million couch shoppers; gated communities today house 4 million Americans; U.S. at-home workers now number 10.1 million, up 100 percent in the last five years. Egonomics – To offset a depersonalized society, consumers crave recognition of their individuality. Writing on the Wall: The My Twinn® doll, created to look exactly like your child; the growing market in body piercing and tattoos; customized everything, from personal Web sites to cookies frosted with your photo in edible ink.

Making Trends Meet
When one of our high-profile financial clients decided to launch a relationship-building program for its highly profitable VIP account holders, they had a pretty good idea of who those customers were: married, relatively well-off homeowners with healthy disposable incomes to spend on computers and such.

Applying the Cocooning trend to this seemingly well-defined group, the bank could have assumed that most of them preferred to interact with the outside world digitally rather than in the flesh, and would leap at the chance to use its new online banking service. We knew there was more to the story.

And we were right. Our behavioral survey of this customer segment revealed that it actually comprised two distinct groups, divided by significant attitudinal differences — including particular disparity when it came to each group’s trust of electronic banking. Lo and behold, some of these folks still preferred to hand their deposits to a real live teller.

By bringing the questions home to its customers, the bank pinpointed where the big-picture trends fit into their individual worldviews. This final piece of the puzzle allowed more accurate targeting of relationship-building communications, which equaled higher return on the bank’s precious marketing dollars. And knowing that those who like banking face-to-face may ultimately change their minds, the bank keeps an eye on the changing tides through ongoing customer surveys and through feedback via calls, letters and e-mails.

Make Your Exchange
Yankelovich calls it reciprocity. “The old model, a one-way communication from brand to consumer, has yielded to reciprocal exchange. It’s about interactive, continuous, real-time dialogue replacing traditional models of advertising and consumer communications.”

This is where trends and relationship marketing converge: where you put a face on some of the masses that give the trend gurus their roughage.

STRATESCAPES and STRATESCAPES SUPPLEMENTS are published by Customer Communications Group, Inc., a full-service agency specializing in relationship marketing and customer communications. Our comprehensive, turnkey services include data analysis, customer segmentation, strategic consulting, account management, creative execution, print production and multimedia solutions.

Copyright 2002 Customer Communications Group, Inc. For more information, call 1.800.525.0313. Or visit us online at: http://www.customer.com