Mark Penn - Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrows Big Changes  

Copyright 2007 by Mark Penn

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First eBook Edition: September 2007

ISBN: 978-0-446-40206-4

To Nancy, Jackie, Miles, Margot, and Blair

I n 1960, Volkswagen shook up the car world with a full-page ad that had just two words on it: Think Small. It was a revolutionary ideaa call for the shrinking of perspective, ambition, and scale in an era when success was all about accumulation and territorial gain, even when you were just driving down the street.

At the same time that America was becoming the worlds superpower, growing the dominant economy and setting the pace for global markets, the Beetle took off as a counterculture phenomenonrepresenting individuality in reaction to the conformity of the 1950s.

America never quite got used to small when it came to cars. But ask two-thirds of America, and they will tell you they work for a small business. Americans are willing to make big changes only when they first see the small, concrete steps that will lead to those changes. And they yearn for the lifestyles of small-town America. Many of the biggest movements in America today are smallgenerally hidden from all but the most careful observer.

Microtrends is based on the idea that the most powerful forces in our society are the emerging, counterintuitive trends that are shaping tomorrow right before us. With so much of a spotlight on teen crime, it is hard to see the young people who are succeeding as never before. With so much focus on poverty as the cause of terrorism, it is hard to see that it is richer, educated terrorists who have been behind many of the attacks. With so much attention to big organized religion, it is hard to see that it is newer, small sects that are the fastest-growing.

The power of individual choice has never been greater, and the reasons and patterns for those choices never harder to understand and analyze. The skill of microtargetingidentifying small, intense subgroups and communicating with them about their individual needs and wantshas never been more critical in marketing or in political campaigns. The one-size-fits-all approach to the world is dead.

Thirty years ago sitting in Harvards Lamont Library, I read a book that started out, The perverse and unorthodox thesis of this little book is that the voters are not fools. Its author, V.O. Key, Jr., made an argument that, since that day, has guided how I think not just about voters but consumers, corporations, governments and the world at large. If you use the right tools and look at the facts, it turns out that the average Joe is actually pretty smart, making some very rational choices.

Yet almost every day, I hear experts say that voters and consumers are misguided scatterbrains, making decisions on the basis of the color of a tie. Thats why politicians pay consultants to tell them to wear earth-tone suits, or get their facial lines removed. Thats why many commercials feature pointless stories with no relation to the products. Too often, candidates and marketers dont believe the facts or the issues matter that much. Oftentimes, it is they who are the fools. I bet at least two-thirds of all communications are wasted with messages and images that only their creators understood.

The perspective of this book is that, thirty years later, V.O Key, Jr.s, observation is not only sound, but should be the guiding principle of understanding the trends we see in America and around the world. People have never been more sophisticated, more individualistic, or more knowledgeable about the choices they make in their daily lives. Yet, as Key observed, it takes intensive, scientific study to find the logical patterns that underlie those choices. When faced with peoples seemingly contradictory choices, it can be a lot easier to chalk them up to brown suits and Botox.

And indeed, the contradictions today are striking. While people are eating more healthful foods than ever, Big Mac sales have never been higher. While Fox News is number one in the ratings, the antiwar movement dominates most news coverage. While America is growing older, most of what we see in advertising and entertainment has been created with youth in mind. While people are dating as never before, they have never been more interested in deeper, longer-lasting relationships. While more people than ever before are drinking clear, natural water, more people are also drinking monster energy drinks loaded with chemicals and caffeine.

In fact, the whole idea that there are a few huge trends that determine how America and the world work is breaking down. There are no longer a couple of megaforces sweeping us all along. Instead, America and the world are being pulled apart by an intricate maze of choices, accumulating in microtrendssmall, under-the-radar forces that can involve as little as 1 percent of the population, but which are powerfully shaping our society. Its not just that small is the new big. Its that in order to truly know whats going on, we need better tools than just the naked eye and an eloquent tongue. We need the equivalent of magnifying glasses and microscopes, which in sociological terms are polls, surveys, and statistics. They take a slice of the matter being studied and lay it openbigger and clearerfor examination. And inside, you will find yourself, your friends, your clients, your customers, and your competition, clearer than you ever thought you might.

Working for President Clinton in 1996, I identified the under-the-radar group that became known as the Soccer Moms. (I like to think I did something for the youth soccer movement, although I really didnt mean to. The phrase was just meant to get at busy suburban women devoted to their jobs and their kids, who had real concerns about real presidential policies.) Until that campaign, it was generally thought that politics was dominated by men, who decided how their households would vote. But the truth was, in 1996, most male voters had already made up their minds by the campaign. The people left to influence were the new group of independent Moms, devoted to both work and their kids, who had not yet firmly decided which party would be good for their families. They, not their husbands, were the critical swing voters. To win them over, President Clinton initiated a campaign to give them a helping hand in raising their kidsdrug-testing in schools, measures against teen smoking, limits on violence in the media, and school uniforms. These Moms did not want more government in their lives, but they were quite happy to have a little more government in their kids lives to keep them on the straight and narrow.

In retrospect, a profound political change was spawned by this bit of trend-spotting. Previously, almost all Democrats had targeted downscale, noncollege workers, particularly in the manufacturing sector. But union membership and manufacturing jobs were shrinking, more people were going to college, and almost the entire electorate in the U.S. was calling itself middle class. If Democrats missed the key trends, they would miss the boat.

Now candidates enthusiastically target Soccer Momsalthough someone may want to let them know that trends move fast, and Soccer Moms, too, have moved on. Now, a decade later, their kids are getting ready for college, many of them have been through a divorce, and their own financial security has become as big an issue for them as raising their children was ten years ago.