Fads and trends

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A trend is something that somehow becomes popular within mainstream society over a long period of time. It is the direction of a sequence of events that has some momentum and durability.

A fad is something that is very popular with a small group of people for a short period of time.

A craze is often interchanged with a fad by which it describes a product, idea, cultural movement or model that gains popularity among a small section of the populace then quickly migrates to the mainstream. Crazes are characterized by their lightning fast adoption and just as swift departure from public awareness. Crazes and fads are also characterized by their unusually high interest/sales figures relative to the time they are active in the marketplace as compared with other similar products, ideas, cultural movements or models.

It is interesting to note that, despite the negative or counterproductive results of crazes and fads, some respectable companies still around today got their start by purposely or accidentally creating a fad or craze. Examples include:

Starbucks Coffee: Howard Schultz returned to the U.S. after spending time in Italy. He noticed how coffee bars were very popular there and introduced the concept to Americans. Due to the novelty of buying an expensive, robust coffee product in a comfortable cafe, Americans quickly spread positive word-of-mouth creating a craze.

With the introduction of more Web 2.0 applications, the World Wide Web is becoming recently a tool to either spot or even predict trends. One such example is this site which measures existing and potentially future trends within the watch industry by allowing end consumers vote for their favorite watch.

[edit] See also

• Bandwagon effect