HOW TO DECODE ALL THOSE TREND REPORTS: USING THE FRAMEWORK
A master key for unlocking value
It’s that time of year — happy trend report season! Perhaps you’ve encountered this massive open-source drive of 200+ reports put together by Amy Daroukakis and team. Or maybe you’ve seen some of them pop up elsewhere, now that even social platforms are making them (Pinterest, Tiktok Spotify). The onslaught of annual trend reports can end up being more confusing than helpful. They somehow all seem to be saying the same thing in different ways and, ironically, not a lot seems to change from one year to the next.
Rather than trying to read all of these, I usually wait for
’s fantastic annual Meta Trends Report, which takes a rigorous approach to synthesizing key shifts and takeaways. And later throughout the year, I delve into the specific reports relevant to whatever I’m working on at the moment. However, for the purposes of this newsletter, I wanted to share my personal approach decoding these types of general trend reports by applying frameworks as a master key for unlocking value. Of course, I’m partial to my own system, which I’ve explained in detail here, but if you work for a company or agency with its own framework that can work as well.
Quite simply, when reading a new report, I plot the identified trends against my existing cultural macrotrend framework. This is subjective and not a perfect science by any means. But I often find that these ‘new trends’ can be plotted within, tangential, or adjacent to my existing macrotrends. This means that, while they are certainly relevant and helpful to inform the evolution of my macrotrends, they are not exactly new. Things start to get interesting when I come across trends that do not seem to fit within the existing framework. This could mean one of two things:
The trend is newly emerging and needs to be seriously considered for its potential to grow into a larger cultural shift — this occurs so rarely.
The trend exists outside of the formal limitations of the framework — this occurs much more commonly. Examples include: tactical consumer behavior (i.e. Tiktok shopping), demographic distinctions (i.e. Gen Z vs Gen Alpha), or hyper-specific category trends (i.e. food ingredients). Although they may be influenced by or intersect with cultural macrotrends, these types of trends would usually require additional/alternative frameworks.
The easiest way to explain my approach is to apply it in action. As a case study, I’ll be using Future Laboratory’s Future Forecast 2025 report, which is consistently one of my favorite references for insight and inspiration. Here is a snapshot of their trends:
Consider how you would approach tackling this 56 page trend report — would you read the whole thing at once or just focus on the chapters most relevant to your work? How would you determine what is newest and most emergent? Personally, my ideal first step is quickly skimming the key trend headlines and intros to map them across my macrotrend framework as seen below.1
At first glance, this map seems to suggest that there aren’t many new ideas here.2 However, the intention of this exercise is not to prove that trend reports are useless. As mentioned, I find a lot of value in this report. There are interesting morsels of information buried within each trend, including great references for emerging brands and niche cultural signals. But closely reading and dissecting this kind of report in its entireity can be challenging and time-consuming. Applying frameworks unlocks more value from these reports by quickly and easily identifying where to focus your attention.
For instance, if the skincare brand you’re launching is positioned within the ‘Spiritual Healing’ macrotrend, then it would be beneficial to consider all of the report’s trends that are mapped nearby. Otherwise, you’d probably find yourself disappointed that the beauty chapter of the report only includes one trend that relates to your concept. Or if you work for/with a sustainability minded food & beverage brand, you’d want to dive deeply into all of the trends mapped across the ‘Nature’ drivers space. There is only one food & beverage category trend in this space, but the seven other ‘Nature’ trends are sure to have inspiring insights to inform your work.
These takeaways may seem obvious when looking the trends overlaid on my framework, but not when faced with the report’s original table of contents. After performing this type of exercise a few times, it eventually becomes second nature and, dependent on your end goal, you may not need to physically map things out. I prefer to focus my trend research across this cultural macrotrend framework because of its stability and versatility — the trends evolve but rarely change, and they are relevant to most categories. My deep familiarity with these macrotrends, which I’ve been tracking and observing for years, helps keep me efficient and agile when approaching new projects across any topic or industry.
The intention for this newsletter is to share more of my research and tracking process, beginning with my personal curation of trends that emerged in 2024 that I believe will sustain relevance through 2025. Over the next few weeks, I’m planning to share four key trends — one within each drivers space: Human, Social, Nature, Tech. I suppose that’s yet another trend report for you to read!
If you choose to use or build upon my macrotrend framework, please include appropriate credit / citation of my work.
In this exercise I mapped 40 of the 50 trends in the Future Forecast report. The remaining 10 trends that did not fit within my framework are: Affluent Animals, Jewelry Juggernauts, The Dupe Dilemma, Textured Haircare Futures, Rise of Gen Alpha Beauty, Water’s Glow Up, Content Commerce, New Loyalty, Sporting Superstars, China & India’s Emerging Travelers.
such a great read, thank you! super helpful in making sense of what feels like a whirlwind of trends.
great read! super insightful & very well put together!