Marketing planning should ideally be able to recognize what novelties are likely to disappear in a year or two, and what the signs are of a new market trend.The company can then adapt their marketing mix accordingly.
A trend can be identified based on several key features:
- Benefits. Advantages of a novelty may not be obvious. In contrast, the benefits and advantages of a rising trend are obvious and clearly recognizable to potential customers.
- Interest, appeal and broad application. With the high cost of innovation, it often appeals only to a narrow group of people. In contrast, a trend will stimulate greater interest, where customers will find several applications for it.
- Sustainability. A novelty cannot become a trend, if it is not sustainable. A good example is biofuel, which was expected to solve the worldwide shortage of oil. But it soon turned out that agricultural production can not meet global consumption, the solution must therefore be in energy savings and other resources.
- Compliance with other trends. It often happens that a number of minor trends combine to form one big, revolutionary trend. Combination of different inventions of certain time will only later show if a novelty is to become a truly significant trend.
- History. Most trends had already appeared before in a slightly different form, but they did not achieve wider acceptance. New age brings new applications and, therefore, novelties coming for the second time in history often have a much better prerequisite to succeed.
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