futurists/trendspotters

American Demographics, April 1, 2003

Byline: PAMELA PAUL

Irma Zandl

Irma Zandl specializes in the hip, cool, trendy and downright beautiful. Raised and schooled in Australia and Europe, she worked for a decade in the marketing departments of such cosmetics giants as L'Oreal, Revlon and Andrea Products in the U.S., quickly learning what appeals to consumers and why. Of all her beauty innovations, her favorite is a line of lip and nail products for Andrea Products, launched in the early '80s, called "Hey you! Watch this!" which used an edgy "girls rock" vibe to capitalize on the launch of MTV.

Today as president of The Zandl Group, the company she founded in 1986, Zandl applies her discerning eye to a broader range of trends for the under-30 market. Whether her client is Disney, General Motors or Bacardi, she uses less-than-conventional techniques to garner detailed consumer insight. She travels the globe - from London, England, to Eagle River, Wisc. - for several months a year on ethnographic projects, conducting "crib chats" (in-home interviews), shooting trend video documentaries and taking notes about her on-the-street lifestyle observations.

Unlike some forecasters who proclaim every five-minute fad as the latest trend, Zandl believes true trends are long-lived, with a minimum life span of 10 years. "Too frequently, companies pursue fads like they're going to be a real trend rather than finding something with longevity," she says. She believes that having opportunities to seek out the trends with staying power is one of the best things about her job, adding, "I'm a constant explorer."

In Her Own Words

In 1984, we first alerted our clients to the force that was to become hip-hop. At that time, our music sources tipped us to the new music being created in Brooklyn and the Bronx. By the mid- to late '80's, rap was already about far more than just the music - it was becoming a major social and lifestyle force influencing young people of all races; it was CNN for youth. Hip-hop culture was legitimized for mainstream marketers and their advertising agencies in 1988 when Yo! MTV Raps went on the air.

Over the next 25 years, driven by liberating new technologies, increasing social mobility and a very fluid sense of identity, we'll see more people - and businesses - reinventing themselves. In much the same way that people create new identities online or alter their appearance with cosmetic surgery or digital imaging, we'll see more people reinventing their whole personae - age, appearance, name, background, religion, career and lifestyle. With biogenetic engineering and cloning on the horizon, reinvention will reach a new level. Reflecting their new definition of reality, these dynamic consumers will permit businesses to reinvent themselves in the same way; company heritage will become irrelevant.

Harry S. Dent, Jr.

Harry Dent likes to go places before anyone else - or at least before hordes of other world travelers catch on. Having recently traveled to Java and Thailand, he's already planning his next trip to Africa and a visit to the Seychelles Islands. "You've got to see these places before everyone finds out about them," he says.

Dent makes it his business to be ahead of the curve. Founder and president of the H.S. Dent Foundation, formed in 1995 in Moss Beach, Calif., he uses demographic research to help individual investors, financial institutions and such companies as AIM Funds, Van Kampen Funds and Ernst & Young understand and deal with change. His most notable contribution has been tying demographic drivers to economic activity, offering sunny forecasts to investors and institutions based on the tremendous influence of the Baby Boom. Indeed, he was one of the few voices to predict the astounding rise of the Dow during the 1990s while others were issuing forecasts ranging from caution to despair. "Since the 1980s, I've been looking at when people spend the most money, when they borrow and when they invest," says Dent. "Because I saw that Boomers were moving into their peak spending levels, I was able to call this boom the way nobody else did."

The author of five books - including Our Power to Predict (Business Media Resources, 1990) and his latest, The Roaring 2000s Investor (Touchstone, 1999) - Dent has written about economics, job trends, real estate, technology and investing. In addition to writing, consulting and public speaking, he is an advisor to the AIM/Dent Demographic Trends Fund and manager of the Dent Strategic Sector Fund. His next book, The Last Great Bull Market, will be published by Simon & Schuster within the year, and will bring more good news: Dent predicts the current downturn will end by then, with a continued boom through 2009.

Marita Wesely-Clough

Marita Wesely-Clough is as much a Hallmark institution as Hallmark is an American one. Though she has worked at the greeting card company in a variety of capacities over the past 27 years (she started as a card designer), today she is the resident trends expert at Hallmark, leading a team of three in a quest to keep their fingers on the pulse of - and just ahead of - the American consumer.