Trendy Not Good for Branding?

Posted on June 6, 2009 | Permalink

By Lane Casteix

A recent study done in both the US and France yielded some interesting information regarding the staying power of brands.

The study focused on popularity and discovered the faster things become popular, they become unpopular just as quickly. This is counterintuitive, in that one would assume fast-growing, trendy brands would have more staying power. They do not.

The study analyzed thousands of baby names from the past 100 years in France and the US. (Because there is less of an influence of technology or advertising on name choice, baby names provide a way to study how adoption depends on primarily internal factors.) The researchers found a consistent symmetry in the rise and fall of individual names; in other words, the longer it took for a name to become popular, the longer it took for the name to fade out of popularity, and thus the more staying power it had compared to names that quickly rose and fell. The effect was robust, occurring in both countries and across various time windows.

This would suggest that brands that grow rapidly are also likely to lose popularity just as quickly. Brands that grow more slowly have more staying power. Controlled, managed growth is generally preferable to rapid, trendy growth, if you are building a brand for the long term. Rapid, short-term, brand growth should be viewed as an opportunity to "make hay while the sun shines" with little expectation of sustained long-term sales, and then be prepared to move on to something else.

The study focused on baby names, which were isolated from any marketing efforts. The logical question one must ask is would marketing/advertising have an impact on sustaining the growth of trendy brands? I think the answer to that question is indeed yes, but the study would suggest the possibility, at least, that more marketing dollars might be needed to sustain the sales over the long haul in cases where brands experienced meteoric rises. And while marketing/advertising can help sustain the growth and/or slow the decline, it may not be able to stop it. I can think of several brands in the beverage alcohol category that after rapid sales growth periods suffered declining sales even in the face of heavy marketing spends, like the malt and wine-based coolers of yesteryear for example. And we must also recall double-knit fabrics and leisure suits, which we all want to forget.

"Trendy" has certain negative connotations that come right after the positives. Everyone wants to be "early adopters" of a new trend, but once it is popular it becomes "establishment", to use a seventies term, and the trend setters want nothing more to do with it.

The learning for brand owners is to be aware of this and plan accordingly: enjoy the ride or be prepared to spend to keep the brand going. And lastly, in the words of the famous song, "You gotta know when to fold 'em."