We firmly believe that at times defining what you are not is the best way to begin defining what you are.
We are not a traditional Advertising Agency; although we often end up producing what many would call advertising. Our difference is not that we are led by strategy either. Rather, our real differentiator is that our creatives are informed by our strategists and our strategists are informed by cultural and contextual research. However, if we meet you in a bar and we are trying to impress you, we might just tell you we are Ad guys because thanks to Mad Men, that seems to be popular again and no one ever chats up an Innovation specialist or a Consumer Anthropologist!
On a more serious note, because we are experts at what we do, we enjoy working with other experts in their respective fields. We have worked with many top Brand and Executive teams in the world; integrating seamlessly with them to inform creative development or provide clarity on consumer and innovation topics.
Although primary and secondary research of all types is critical to our processes, we do not consider ourselves to be 'researchers' but rather cultural editors that carefully observe and create rather than pontificate blindly.
“Focus Groups should be abolished”, opines one of our favorite people, Mr. Malcolm Gladwell. Adding that “...the act of asking someone to explain (these) things is not only a psychological impossibility, not only impairs their judgment, but it biases them in favor of the conservative, in favor of the known over the unknown.” We love Mr. Gladwell here at Trend Influence, and agree with his opinion about asking the consumer direct questions but our position on the topic of research tactics is; use the right tool for the specific job. To augment conventional Qualitative and Quantitative Research tools, we have developed an entire set of innovative new tools that are based on cultural and contextual understanding and intuitive response.