Agency Spy

We just found a new trend brief from Headlight Vision - a trend consultancy firm in New York and the UK. We hate to blow up their spot like this, but man-oh-man… This is the worst trend brief we’ve ever read. HV has a division called D-Code, which they describe as their “proprietary intelligence product,” which offers clients “texture, detail and insight into the underlying driving influences of youth culture trends.”

Yeah, so no… This brief does none of those things. It’s just a collection of “cool” looking kids with a “cool” font spitting out drivel beside their surly little faces. It makes us cringe to see that the insights HV offers up are from almost ten years ago! Example: “The new leading edge consumer wears their values on their sleeve, but convenience still trumps ethics.” Or, “Youth is no longer a demographic. It’s a mindspace.” We’re wondering how much these people get paid to spit out “insights” that were on the Fox News Morning Show circa 2001. To top it off, they sum it all up for their clients by asking, “How do you make sense of the chaos?” Answer: “It lies in culture. You just need to decode it.” That’s it. No ideas. No dissection of new cultural movements to help you on your way. No outlay of creatives, organizations, thinkers that are shaking up the underground to shape the future. Nada. Every one of their clients should feel like they just got punk’d.

This is why PR companies are going to kick some ad agency butt in the near future. There’s an insight for you. Here’s a another: Agencies badly need to stay plugged in, so spend tens of thousands of dollars on hiring trend teams who actually know what they’re talking about. Here’s our suggestions:

PSFK - They’re like the Yoda of the trend game - wise and totally a secret weapon.
TrendCentral - They’ve got breaking tech trends on lock down.
Ruby Psuedo - She knows exactly what the kids want.