Each trend forecasting company has its own classification of the diverse types of trend. In the new book ‘Trend sociology v. 2.0’ a typology if 6 different trend types are explained in detail. The typology helps to facilitate the work on trends by dividing them into different types
This is a small excerpt (page 67) from the book 'Trendsociology v. 2.0', published by the pej gruppen in 2018. Buy the book here.
1 Types of society (page 71)
The great historical stories or classical fundamental view of people’s opportunities, resources, power structures, technology and production that lasts for many centuries.
2 Paradigms (page 93)
Fundamental and guiding concepts of people’s relationships to faith, life and worldviews that last for many decades.
3 Gigatrends (page 117)
Long trends that affect us for periods of 10-30 years and which radically change our way of life and conditions. These trends often have a global effect and usually contain elements of economy, politics and technology.
4 Megatrends (page 127)
Medium trends that characterize the spirit of the time, lifestyle and consumption for a period of 3 to 7 years.
5 Microtrends (page 141)
Shorter trends that primarily govern the market for a short time and affect consumer goods and services where design and aesthetics are of great importance and where the trend lasts from 6 months up to 3 years.
6 Fads (page 155)
Extremely short-lived trends that are very hard to work with, but which influence most product categories’ rapid development, from start to end.
An extra layer
If you want to add an extra dimension to the six types of trend, you can work with trends on three levels within each of the six trend types: 1. Social trends, affecting society and culture and thus having an extensive impact on both consumer and industry; 2. Consumer trends, driven by and affecting the consumer and impacting on the industry; and 3. Industry trends that are companies’ reactions in the form of new products, services and processes, as well as revolutionary factors that can change the whole, or parts, of the value chain.
Should anyone be interested in getting their hands on the entire book, (it's 400 pages), it is possible to buy here.
The book consists of three parts:
- Theory and practical description of what a trend is, how it is spread and what effect it may have.
- Interview with 17 of the world's top trend researchers
- Practical process description (5 phased process) with concrete methods and tools for working with trends.
