Trend–Driven Innovation

Trend-driven innovation focuses on anticipating consumer expectations. Right in the beginning of the book though, they make clear that one of the most successful ways for doing this, is to watch other businesses in how they connect with consumer expectations. The book is packed with inspiring examples of companies that have taken a surprising strategy to win new consumers or revamp their brand. But this book is not so much about learning what other people are doing. It is all about mastering the trick of the trade. This is where the Consumer Trend Canvas comes in. Conveniently, this model is inspired by the well-known Business Model Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder, who we hear in the foreword of this book. The Consumer Trend Canvas is as intuitive and convenient for deep and difficult questions, as the Business Model Canvas is. The Consumer Trend Radar is another tool that helps you to position the relevance of a trend for your company. These and other tools nudge companies to really reflect on the trends that matter to their company and how to translate this into an innovation. Again, numerous inspiring examples from global brand names are featured to emphasize that this really works. The book doesn’t stop there. Next you need to get this working in your company. The authors provide some interesting suggestions of how you can accomplish this with your team. The bonus content that you can access with a copy of the book at hand, provides downloads of the tools for printing and practicing. The book has a nice graphic design and good lay-out. The pieces of text are very brief, which comes in handy if you have little time for reading a book. With the focus on practicing, the book is mainly a support to get you going. Theoretically, this book is quite thin. Many trend researchers apply a sociological model that is somehow related to Carl Jung or another theorist. Here, the authors make some effort to explain consumer expectations, drivers of change, and the relationship between innovations and trends. But this is all very shallow and at times even confusing (when the summary on the end of the chapter mentions other names than used earlier in the chapter). To sum up, trend-driven innovation is very useful if you plan to use consumer trends more consistently in your company for creating new product and service concepts. It is easy to read and has an appealing look and feel. If you simply accept that it is not giving you more in-depth understanding of consumer trends and their psychological and sociological fundaments, then it is a good choice to add this book to your shelve of trend books.