Friday, June 21, 2013

Seeing Trends And Cycles

We are surrounded by natural cycles, seasons, repetition and patterns.  You don't have to look far to see them.
* Every 60 seconds is a new minute.
* Every 4 seasons is a new year.
* After every day comes a new night.

We are also surrounded by man-made cycles.  Using a tool like Google Trends, you can visualize them.

Above, for instance is the term "AIDS" in Google Trends.  What we can see here is that near the end of every year, there's a world AIDS Awareness Month.  We can also see that the general public is getting tired of hearing every year about AIDS Awareness Month…

Above is "iPhone".  You can clearly see that it's announced in spring and hits the shelves in autumn.  You can also tell that people are still eager to hear more.

You can also pick up the darker side of advertising through tools like this.  Every year, all over the world, the WHO has a "World Mental Health Day"… Except in Canada, one of the national carriers relies on the public's short memory spans to promote it's own mental health initiative, which is really nothing more than an advertising campaign for it's own services where it asks Canadians to use the most expensive services that it offers (i.e. SMS and Long Distance) in return for a paltry 5 cents going to mental health.  

Here's that chart for this.

In this day and age, it really pays to take notice of these trends and look at them using tools like Google Trends to find out what's really going on.  After all, when you have a bigger picture, you have an advantage.