Mixing up fads and trends often leaves executives frustrated, confused, and – worst of all – fearing innovation. Here’s how to spot the difference.
Understanding the difference between fads and trends is critical for all organizations. However, many leaders seem to be unaware of their important differences. Today’s Fast Facts video aims to differentiate these critical concepts, and also provides a quick tip for how to spot the difference.
Both fads and trends can play an important role in an organization’s success- but they must be treated differently. If they are not, leaders risk burning out adapting to every fad, and critical trends required for an organization’s survival may be missed. Let’s start by looking into fads and trends individually.
Fads come fast and fade away
A fad is any form of behavior that is intensely followed by a population for a short period of time. The behavior will rise relatively quickly and fall relatively quickly once the perception of novelty is gone.
There are some great fads out there! Collecting beanie babies was a fad, so were pet rocks, sending spam, #followfriday, Ouiji boards, troll dolls, water beds…the list goes on. We can thank fads for basically everything that we wore in the 80s (or 90s, or 2000s…) And there are a lot of fads going on right now that may bring us a laugh twenty years from now.
Fads certainly have value and they can profoundly change organizations- consider the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge! Utilizing fads in marketing and programs can increase top-of-mind awareness, demonstrate the timeliness of your organization, and serve as a gateway for new audiences.
This is all great and important stuff but – remember – fads don’t stick around.
Trends solve problems and get stronger over time
A trend, on the other hand, gets stronger over time and does stick around. Trends have identifiable and explainable rises that are driven by audience needs. They help solve a problem for people. In the words of the forever-awesome Seth Godin, “A trend gains power over time, because it’s not merely part of a moment, it’s a tool, a connector that will become more valuable as other people commit to engaging in it.”
The increasing use of social networks is a trend (that connects us to one another). So is quitting smoking (which lengthens our lives), evidence-based medicine (that removes the guesswork in medical-related situations), and the use of mobile devices (that allow us to look up information in real time). These are things that have grown – and continue to grow – in market penetration. They solve problems. They represent new ways of life.
Organizations ignore trends at their own risk. Ignoring trends means that they will either be forced to adapt later and will necessarily be behind, or the organization will fade away.
Confusing fads and trends causes big problems
Trends inform your organization’s successful evolution. When organizations write off things like web-based engagement or data-informed management (for instance) as fads instead of trends, evolution stops. Things get held back.
However, if we approach passing fads as trends, we cry wolf on organizational change. We burn out believing that every week, we need to change our organization’s structure based on “what’s hot right now.” Treating fads like trends can lead organizations to become overwhelmed, give up on following along, and, again, stop evolution.
A trick for telling the difference between fads and trends
So how can your organization figure out if something is a fad or a trend? A helpful trick may be to consider that trends inevitably affect some form of the organization’s engagement strategy, but fads usually influence tactics. This isn’t a fool-proof trick, but it can help your organization think strategically about the differences between both fads and trends.
For instance, social media use is a trend and that affects your engagement strategy, but selfies affect how you can carry out that strategy. Screaming “YOLO” and going gluten-free are things that folks may be doing these days – and, in order to remain relevant, your organization may benefit by embracing them for now. But these fads affect your organization’s tactics (and messages and programs), not its strategy. Data-informed management affects your strategy. Embracing transparency affects your strategy. The trend toward personalized interactions and programs thanks to our increasingly individually-tailored world is a trend and also deeply affects our strategies.
If there is growing, multi-year data demonstrating that something affects the market, then you know it’s a trend. But sometimes we need to know when and how far we should move and embrace change before there’s multi-year data telling us that something is sticking around.
Both fads and trends have real value for cultural organizations, but understanding the difference may be necessary for survival. Fads can inform your tactics and help you to maintain the perception of being “current,” but ignoring trends can lead to irrelevance and create a divide between organizations and their audiences.
