Do You Really Care About Passé?

[jpmcwjr]

While that can happen, a trend grows fast when people perceive it's a trend! That is, those who are influenced by such, and want to be trendy. Present company excepted....

That would be a form of marketing. I'm starting to think that concepts of basic business and capitalism are being lost. Don't you guys take an economics class in high school?

You say I have a lack of understanding of business? Show me the money! Where??
People creating demand because they see others doing/wearing/driving something helps the company's sales, but isn't marketing by the company. Smart companies will pile that on, or try to create a wave of enthusiasm, but unless the company is active (and spending $$) it ain't marketing by most definitions.

 

[jpmcwjr]

And, Tom, you are not passé in any sense!

 

[cosmicfolklore]

People creating demand because they see others doing/wearing/driving something helps the company's sales, but isn't marketing by the company. Smart companies will pile that on, or try to create a wave of enthusiasm, but unless the company is active (and spending $$) it ain't marketing by most definitions.

It is one of the oldest forms of marketing, keeping up with the Jone's. It is technically, called organic marketing.

Trending is more objective. It doesn't require any motivations. Marketing, is based on playing on the potential customer's greed, and it formulates things such as "style, fads, etc..." "Trends, trending, trendy," doesn't require the participant to even be aware of what is going on.
So, yes, we can all be oblivious to trends, and yet we are all still a part of it. You can't help it. Whatever you do, you fall within a range on the scale of trends and what is trendy. You cannot not be a part of it.

 

[woodsroad]

Being concerned about being passé is so passé.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

actually, being concerned about being passé is trending. ::

 

[brian64]

I was passe when passe wasn't cool.

 

[woodsroad]

So, what you are saying is that you are feeling passé about being passé? That is so trendy, it's almost passé.

 

[deathmetal]

Whatever you do, you fall within a range on the scale of trends and what is trendy. You cannot not be a part of it.

It depends on whether you intended to be so or not.
It's kind of like beards. Hipsters wear beards... I will not make my decision on that basis, at all.
I also reserve the right to go out and buy an Apple laptop if I want to -- although this will never happen -- without deciding that I must go to Starbucks for NaNoWriMo while wearing a dashiki and bowler hat.

 

[jpmcwjr]

It is one of the oldest forms of marketing, keeping up with the Jone's. It is technically, called organic marketing.

Trending is more objective. It doesn't require any motivations. Marketing, is based on playing on the potential customer's greed, and it formulates things such as "style, fads, etc..." "Trends, trending, trendy," doesn't require the participant to even be aware of what is going on.

For something to be labelled "marketing" it has to be an action taken by the company or person putting out the goods. Izod shirts were among the first to market their brand by, among other things, putting a little alligator logo on their shirts. It was a trendy thing, those Izod shirts. I cut the alligators off. And that started a trend, too.
Now every schmuck company sells a shirt with a huge, often overbearing, logo on it. It's hard to find one without.

 

[deathmetal]

Izod shirts were among the first to market their brand by, among other things, putting a little alligator logo on their shirts.

Good branding is always wise. But for it to work, it has to be distinctive, which is why Izod did better than other brands with their little logos.

 

[quint]

Pipe smoking in general, it seems to me, is passé. With the exception a small group (maybe 8-10 regulars) , I have not seen a single other pipe smoker in my metropolitan area, which has a population of close to 5 million people.
So...it it important to you if something is trendy or not right now in our pastime (dare I call it a hobby?)

Pipe smoking a lifestyle? Yes. A pastime? Yes. But pipe smoking a hobby? Certainly not. But I can certainly say that pipe collecting is a hobby.
I've never been the kind of person to follow the crowd. I've always done what I like, popular or not, even when I was younger. That includes pipe smoking. People can either accept me for who I am or not. I never have and never will change who I am to be more popular or accepted. Doesn't bother me either way. In the 12 years that I've lived in my medium-sized city, I've only seen another pipe smoker once. So I certainly don't smoke pipes because they are popular. I love pipe smoking because of the history, and also because of the taste and relaxing effect the nicotine gives me. It's also a heck of lot healthier than all the drinking I used to do before I picked up the pipe. ::

 

[cortezattic]

But pipe smoking a hobby? Certainly not

Would you consider that wine tasting could be just a hobby?

hob·by

noun

1.

an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure.

"her hobbies are reading and gardening"

synonyms: pastime, leisure activity, leisure pursuit;

 

[jpmcwjr]

Amen, brother quint, to all you've said. Although in my little seaside town, I've run across a relatively high percentage of smokers. That means maybe a dozen in a town of 4,000.
And tasting wine a hobby? Maybe. Certainly making wine would be, collecting wine with no real intention of drinking it would be. I taste the espresso before adding steamed milk- but not calling that a hobby!

 

[warren]

Oh goody! The hobby/not a hobby. discussion is back. I always thought "hobby" smokers used wee, plastic pipes and mom's liquid dish soap.

 

[deathmetal]

Brands like Nike or whatever the "cool kids" like nowadays know exactly whatever shitty shoe they gonna toss in front of the crowd, they'll hype it, as long as it's pricy and preferably has some stars name in it. They create trends, that's the thing.

Every marketer hopes to. Maybe those are trends like the others. Or just successful viral marketing that took off because people started enforcing it on themselves. Shades of Havel...
The trend I am familiar with is that one monkey does something, so the other monkeys start imitating it. Cosmic mentioned "keeping up with the Joneses" and that's a huge part of it. If your neighbor buys one of those giant grills that has a sink built in, then you have to, or everyone sort of wonders why you are not replacing your old clunker of a grill. Same way with all those old trends like tamagotchi, fidget spinners, Graco strollers, cabbage patch kids, methamphetamine, etc.

 

[deathmetal]

When a portion of the buying market gravitates towards a specific shape or maker, then it is a trend.

I understand the linguistic confusion now.
There are trends, as in statistical events, and then trends, which are social events.
A trend[1] for example is people buying larger capacity air conditioners because they are sturdier.
A trend[2] is everyone buying a fidget spinner because WTF else would they do with their meaningless lives.
Very interesting.

 

[mcitinner1]

Why is THEIR life meaningless? Why is there a need to even say such a thing? Tongue-in-cheek perhaps?

 

[mawnansmiff]

I generally steer away from wearing branded apparel simply because in so doing I would be a walking advertisement for the product and paying to do so too rather than they paying me.
In my teens and early twenties I had to wear Levi jeans, Wrangler shirts and Doc Marten boots but that was before I became aware of the marketing scam that is free advertising.
I think the only branded garment I now own now is a Barbour waxed coat (only because they are the best quality)...and that barely gets worn these days.
Regards,
Jay.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Deniz, your confusion of words does not mean that you contradict me. Branding is a part of marketing, not trends. Following the crowd is a part of marketing also, not neccesarily trends. Trend following is a part of marketing. But, this is stuff that is really only important to folks in business or sales. I'll leave the head banging on the desk to the business professors, ha ha. As far as following the crowd, if any of is followed the crowd, they'd be smoking a vape or cigarettes while listening to top 40 tunes. It's pretty much a given that all of us are individuals that do our own thing.

 

[lasttango]

I wish it was super trendy. There would be pipe stores on every corner, even more interesting tobacco, JimInks would have a multi-million dollar sponsor. I'm pretty sure it would be Vauen that would be selling pipes with MP3 attachments. I wouldn't want one, but so what? Yes, I dream of a world where I can bump into a pipe smoker more than once a year.