The” science” of fads

There was an interesting piece on fads in the May 17, 2009 New York Times entitled “Quick Arriving Fads Quick to Flame Out.”  Fads have always interested me because, unlike well orchestrated marketing campaigns, they take on a life of their own.  I’ve also felt that in launching other products there is little to learn from a fad driven product.  It’s a bit like lightning in a bottle. 

For that reason, I am drawn to anything that helps explain fads.  This particular article used baby names as a means of tracking the durability of fads.  It seems that the Wharton School of Business and Stanford University conducted a joint study in which they concluded that, based on census data for the last 120 years, “[t]he faster they come to prominence, the faster their use declines.”  The article went on to report that “[r]]esearchers believe swift boom-and-bust cycles affect other cultural trends — fashion, music, social movements — suggesting which will be quickly abandoned en masse.

My take away was that perhaps retailers and manufacturers need to reign in the desire for instant gratification and plan in a longer cycle for new products by expecting them to have lower numbers in the beginning with the anticipation that the campaign will produce revenues over a much longer time.