Trend, Culture, and Brand: Seeing Clarity in Truth, Building Order and System

Part 1

In my years as a marketing consultant, I have strived to provide solutions, constantly moving between insight, design, and strategy. My goal has always been to seek clarity from the patterns deeply embedded in the mass and chaos of human behavior and mindset. I failed countless times, but occasionally, I did manage to capture the dim light at the end of the darkest tunnel. Today, I hope my sharing offers you a flash of inspiration to keep going in pursuit of the truth, which lies hidden in the chaos of our world and our own unsettled minds.

The Reality We Face: A World of Chaos

As a marketing consultant, I’m often puzzled the moment I receive a client brief. It usually presents a question or objective like a myth to be resolved, delivered “in the shoes of ‘dear client papa’.” (In Chinese, we humorously call those who pay us our “parents.”) With very few exceptions, most briefs are like riddles from the Sphinx at first sight.

As a result, agencies must endure multiple rounds of meetings with client-side stakeholders just to figure out what the true problems and objectives are before a project can even officially begin. It’s a painful process.

After years of this bombardment, I realize the root cause is a reflection of the world we live in. The riddle-like brief is a mirror that shows our clients are lost at sea, facing a chaotic reality. They rely on us to find their North Star and guide them back to the correct destination they are determined to reach.

Their challenge is my mission today: to help brands find solutions and, in turn, build order—even an entire system—to fight uncertainty and chaos. We achieve this through clarity: seeing the forest for the trees.

That is why I am on a path of trend, culture, and brand, and this is what it means for building strong, even iconic, brands.

The Dilemma of Silos

Let’s start with the questions clients ask, the ones that frustrate marketers every day. We all know that framing a good question is the first step toward a good answer; asking the right question is crucial to finding the right solution. Yet in reality, many clients’ questions are fragmented, unfocused, or even chaotic, leaving agencies unsure where to begin.

For a marketing research company, the brief is normally:

“I need research on… (Usually, it’s about understanding a consumer segment, a category, or ‘super consumers.’)”

For a design agency, it is:

“I need a design for… (a new product, an old product, or a future product.)”

For a brand agency, they typically ask to:

Streamline brand architecture, find a brand position, or redefine a USP (unique selling proposition) and brand propositions.

The problem is that these different agencies operate in silos. They understand they need each other to resolve the puzzle together, but they lack a holistic view.

Often, a leading agency will propose a solution that covers all aspects—from research and strategy to design—and spend a large amount of time justifying a huge cost that is often far above the client’s budget. The proposal is then rejected by the procurement department.

This leads clients to return with questions like:

·       “I only want a piece of research.”

·       “I only need a new design.”

·       “I only need to update our brand position, proposition, brand story…”

The conversation goes back and forth for rounds, with no final solution. In the end, all parties are exhausted and frustrated, settling for a compromise on cost, time, and labor that leaves everyone feeling defeated.

A Complex World Demands Agility

As the world evolves, its complexity deepens, driven by the constant interplay of geopolitical, economic, social, cultural, and technological forces. Marketing strategy, brand thinking, and theory must evolve just as rapidly to help marketers find clarity and build systems that withstand overwhelming uncertainty.

To survive and thrive in this environment, we must evolve faster than ever. Today’s world no longer favors the lumbering behemoth, but the compact, agile, and versatile player.

That is the path for trend, culture, and brand.

It is a hybrid of marketing research and brand strategy. An iteration of both. Because market research often fails to see the forest for the trees, while brand strategy can see only the forest, but not the trees.

Two Disciplines, Two Blind Spots

• ·       Market research revolves around data—both qualitative and quantitative—with later additions of semiotics and anthropology studies. Its purpose is to answer the “what.” A research report can feel “boring” and lack “sparkles,” unless you are a detail-driven person obsessed with interpreting large amounts of data, whether numbers, words, or symbols.

  
  

• ·       Brand strategy is fundamentally about using storytelling to create clarity. Its ultimate goal is to build a system that helps a brand fight uncertainty and navigate chaos. The strategist’s role is to craft this story from a rigorous analysis of the data—the “what.” Unfortunately, many brand strategies are like castles built on sand, lacking a deep understanding of the data. True clarity requires an acute eye and refined taste—skills developed over years of training and countless failures. These are qualities most emerging strategists still lack.

  
  

My Journey

My decades of navigating "mass mutation" and chaos, jumping from market research to brand consultancy and design, have finally trained my sharp eye to spot cultural shifts and trend signals from countless “failures”. This allows me to decipher patterns by connecting the dots to reach clarity from complexity. Finally, I can see the forest for the trees.

This is a constant pursuit of truth. My ultimate goal is to help brands build order and systems that can thrive in an unpredictable world.

To be continued…