Fads vs Trends

A huge part of running any company is marketing and it's a topic I study constantly; how companies are positioning themselves and how they communicate their products.

I recently read an article that talked a lot about marketing fads vs trends. By focussing on trends you can build much stronger businesses, but they are harder to spot.

As our company operates in the building product industry here's a recent example:

Fad: giving away an iPad, everybody is on this bandwagon at the moment. Sign up to win. Now in some ways this is a smart move, your banking on Apple's huge marketing machine and let's face it who doesn't want one. The problem I see is that it doesn't build a lasting impression. What's the game plan? You get a few contact details, then send them some email newsletters. Then do it all again with the next hot gadget. How much value is this really creating?

Trend: supporting the movement to Building Information Modeling (BIM) - yes I know slightly biased, but let's go through the facts. The whole AEC industry is moving to BIM and it's here to stay. You reach your targeted specifiers by providing a valuable tool to them. It gets given away to everybody (not just one iPad to one winning person) and it let's you build a lasting impression and grow a trend of usage. This adds up to create an on going dialogue with your target specifiers and allows you to grow something far more valuable.

There you have it a Fad & a Trend. Now I'm not saying the above fad example isn't a good idea, but these examples clearly show two different ways of approaching the problem. Which would you do first?