Brendan Byrnes: Hey, Fools, I'm Brendan Byrnes and I'm joined today by Ann Mack, the director of trendspotting at JWT. First of all, thank you so much for your time today.
Ann Mack: Thanks for having me.
Brendan: Let's just get right into it. This has to be a tough job. You're trying to identify trends basically a year in advance, or for the full next year. What is your methodology, and how do you go about trying to figure out what trends to look for?
Ann: Yes, it is a difficult job because we try to make sense of all this hyper-abundant information that's out there, connect seemingly disconnected dots.
We have a very robust methodology to do that. We conduct quantitative surveys in the U.S. and the U.K., and sometimes around the world. We reach out to our network of JWT planners and researchers, and they help to keep us honest. They tell us whether a trend is translating in their market, and if so, how.
Then we interview experts across a variety of different industries, from retail, to technology, to academia, to media, to health and wellness, and so on.
