Marketing in the Era of Uber Trends  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast]] - Full Title: Marketing in the Era of Uber Trends - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/529fe595-6288-4fa9-9ca5-58d0e05d423a ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Definition Of An Uber Trend** - An Uber Trend is a massive, society-changing wave that leaves many subtrends in its wake. - Michael Tchong tracks eight Uber Trends to separate deep shifts from surface fads. Transcript: Michael Tchong I think that, and I have a book called Uber Trends, How Trends and Innovation Are Transforming Our Future. I am really focused on my eight Uber trends because they are what I consider to be value shift inducing trends. Most trends just skim the social surface. So those eight uber trends, the digital lifestyle, the marriage of man and machine, generation ecstasy, been there, done that, voyeurgasm, I like to watch. I know these are, you know, standout waves that I believe repercuss through society, rippling across our social surface and creating many sub trends in their wake. If I see a phenomenon that is tied to one of these trends, then I know it's part of a lasting happening. I think that's really how you have to look at it. ([Time 0:02:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a5fc0e86-782b-4d7c-9a2f-e5af9f7f03de)) - **Time Compression Explains Short Attention** - Time compression means people are increasingly impatient and multitasking to save time. - Michael links shorter attention spans and TikTok viewing habits to this lasting cultural shift. Transcript: Michael Tchong Time compression, the acceleration of life. We are all suffering from TBD, too busy disorder, as Ellen DeGeneres coined it. We are all multitasking to save time. You know, we've all become massively impatient. So, you know, the TikTok video view is now two seconds because everyone clicks off in 1.6 to 1.8 seconds. That is part and parcel of the time compression Libra trend. So when you see, again, these snapshots in society, I connect the dots. We're all inundated by data. And so what I try to say is, look, this is all part and parcel of a phenomenon that has legs. ([Time 0:04:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ea0501a4-2a42-4b12-902b-4e82cc78087f)) - **Build From Pain Points, Not Hype** - Start from the pain point caused by an emerging trend and build incremental solutions. - Focus on simple steps and best-of-breed combinations rather than chasing mythical disruptive inventions. Transcript: Michael Tchong Look, there is no real magic in anything that we do as business people. I always say you've got to pay attention to the details. So, for example, in my presentations, I talk about the fact that, you know, everyone aspires to come up with a disruptive innovation. Sure. But Steve Jobs, with all the things that he did, not necessarily create anything new. When he took the iPod, he takes something that came out of Singapore, creative strategies, not a creative strategy, but you know who I'm talking about. They already had an MP3 player, but he just did a best of breed. He put a five megabyte, which at the time was huge of storage into a device. But the biggest innovation there was tying it to a music store so that you could automatically seamlessly download some music. So as a business person, when you're looking at emerging trends and you're seeing, you know, all the things that are happening in our current landscape, and there are many, okay, you Have to then decide, okay, how do I build a business around that? So again, you take baby steps. ([Time 0:09:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/de22849c-7c79-48de-b7d5-faf81059d584)) - **AI Sparked MarTech Displacement** - Generative AI triggered a dramatic surge in marketing apps and a MarTech displacement. - Michael sees new AI-driven players reshaping marketing tools and practices rapidly. Transcript: Michael Tchong You're in digital marketing. You know as well as I, the Scott Brinker has that barometer. And in May, he said there were 15,400 or so digital marketing apps. That took 31 years from the day that first banner appeared on Hotwired, right? 1994, May 1994, till now. 31 years to get to 15,400 apps. Since the debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT, November 30th of 2022, we will never forget. We now have almost 40 AI apps. Massive, massive. But what that does tell you is that there is a, and I call this trend, the great MarTech displacement. ([Time 0:11:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/39059303-366b-4967-89cc-2fcead8f1310)) - **Prioritize Experience And Transparency** - Prioritize customer experience and transparency to stand out in saturated markets. - Make contact info and pricing visible instead of hiding behind opaque interfaces or missing pages. Transcript: Michael Tchong That is what I believe is the number one thing you should be talking about. In this new age, with everyone being hyper competitive. Yeah. The customer experience is what sets you apart. So as a small business person, that is what I focus on. Transparency is the other thing that I highly advocate everybody pursue. We are living in an era where that's ruled by voyeurgasm. I like to watch Ubertrand. And that is propelling that urge by society to be able to see more. It's propelled by YouTube. You've got celebrity worship syndrome. You've got reality shows. You know, everything has become transparent. We're living in surveillance culture. You know, again, all of these are opportunities as they keep exploding to create businesses around and, you know, make sure you do that. So, for example, in our business, in our software business, you know, as well as I do, every developer out there hides their customer service email. They have no 800 toll-free numbers. They try so desperately to make sure that no one can find them. There's no street address. There's nothing. It is totally anathema to the wave of the future of transparency. Absolutely. ([Time 0:14:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cf5aa0d6-a26a-4f25-b293-7e486e552e0f)) - **Reveal Pricing For Self-Led Buyers** - Publish pricing and allow self-led buying journeys to match modern buyer expectations. - Avoid forcing sales calls when customers prefer to research and purchase on their own timeline. Transcript: John Jantsch Before I ever have to talk to a salesperson, I think is a trend that goes to this transparency, but also kind of, I think, goes to how people expect to buy today. They don't want a salesperson to call them. They want to almost do a self-led journey, even for very high ticket items. I think that you're going to see more and more marketers that are going to put everything on the table because they have no choice. Michael Tchong Yeah, I hope so. You know, I feel the minute I run into any solution that has no pricing page, I go away. You're not alone. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as small business people, we all know we need to be diligent about our budgets and spending. So it is absolutely crucial that I know up front that I have full pricing transparency. And as I said, don't have to call somebody. ([Time 0:16:37](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4b10dc86-006f-4c08-bd23-557326793476)) - **Instant Gratification Has Deep Roots** - Michael traced instant gratification back to 1946 inventions like the microwave and Polaroid camera. - He uses historical examples to show how time compression evolved into today’s instant expectations. Transcript: Michael Tchong I was talking about time compression back in the 90s. Okay. And so I, to me, society has been evolving at a speed. Then when I started to do research into it, I discovered that it really started way back as far as the 40s, 1946, the discovery of the microwave oven, the discovery of the Polaroid camera. These both introduced America to instant gratification. And now it's become part and parcel of our culture. We all want, you know, I love that Google finding, you know, the interest in results for open now have increased exponentially as opposed to store hours. Again, for the retailer, that's good to know because really, you know, I don't want to have to search through your whole website to find what you if you are open now. I almost advocate that we go back to that. Remember those little banners that used to run on the websites in the nineties that had a little neon chasing thing. That's what we need on your retailing website at the homepage open now. I mean, to me, that is a, you know, I mean, why do I have to dig it? Now, of course, Google has provided it in its summary of results. Thank God. ([Time 0:18:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/38eca906-f8c8-4865-b810-18fe39fc3fe9)) - **Practice Daily Pattern Recognition** - Become a trend watcher by reading major news outlets and niche tech sites daily. - Catalog, tag, and analyze headlines to spot patterns and prioritize meaningful trends. Transcript: Michael Tchong Or join Uber Trends Academy, my school, where you will be learning a lot about trend watching. Essentially, it's parsing a lot of information. It's pattern recognition, okay? I mean, I look at 400 to 500 headlines a day. I then categorize and database the articles. They're all stored now in an Airtable database. I have keyworded them. I track over 350 trends, most of them related to my Uber trends because I cannot track every trend known to man, you know, because that would be tens of thousands. But I am just looking at the ones that everyone talks about. So I've got about 350 of those. Then what you then do is it's a relational database. So it's categorized, it's tagged. Trends can have overlapping market impacts, so they have to be tagged. So if I were to say to you, okay, you want to become a trend watcher? Yeah, you can. Absolutely. Read the New York Times, read the Wall Street Journal. They are the biggest providers of trend watching in America. Then you see and perhaps, you know, futurism, you know, Wired. I read TechCrunch every day. I read The Verge every day. And then I, you know, I go into Google News and I look at what they provide me. And then people share a lot of information with me as well. So that helps. That's my informal trend watching army. So I, you know, I get help and I need it. ([Time 0:20:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bbcad835-5b51-4a5c-9b1b-fbc9323b3d06)) - **Read Research With Quintiles In Mind** - Beware surface statistics; segmentation often reveals who truly drives behavior. - Michael warns many surveys mislead because they hide quintile differences that matter for product adoption. Transcript: Michael Tchong So you have to analyze the data. You have to spot patterns. And that's the critical thing. You have to really understand the difference between a good survey and a bad survey. And most research is bad. Okay. Let me give you that. So when you see a statistic, for example, that says 43% of kids would love to play video games on their watch. You then have to know that in traditional research, we divide audiences into quintiles, which are approximate fifths. Okay. And, and the spectrum goes from the one end of the spectrum is people who do everything. And then the other end of the spectrum is the people who do nothing. All right. As I call them legally dead. And in that spectrum, what you will find, and it goes into those approximate fifths beautifully, really, because the top two quintiles, 40%, want to play video games on their watch. And so that 43% statistic tells me nothing. That only tells me it's representative of the market at lunch. ([Time 0:22:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1583e8de-fa59-49bc-8461-6793f9e3f293))