Marian Salzman, CEO of Havas PR North America and a world-renowned trendspotter, reports on futurecasting, also known as newscrafting. Among the many trends she and her teams have spotted and exploited to make news in recent years are the metrosexual, “Sleep is the new sex,” “Cellphones are the new trans fats” and the massification of organics. Learn how to stay on top of the zeitgeist and decipher what the future holds in order to create and sustain news.

1. Where
Newscrafting
Meets
Trendspotting
PR Today:
April 2015

2. 2
Newscrafting?
What Is
First, what it’s NOT: Not the old practice
of simply pitching the news

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What it is: A new
discipline, a mix of putting
out routine news in more
compelling ways, creating
news opportunities and
coattailing relevant
breaking news

4. 4
Trendspotting?
What Is
The art of ID’ing what’s driving the future—
and planning for long-term success

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Important?
Why Is It
For direction on the journey to
pilot industries and brands with
smart, insightful strategies

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The world is moving at the
speed of light ... A trend
comes out of nowhere and
a meme disappears before
our eyes ... Trendspotting is
more important than ever—a
way to arm yourself with the
right tools to survive and
thrive ... And it’s essential for
creating relevant content and
shaping products, services
and markets.

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trendspotters?
Who Are
• We hunt down global trends across borders and categories.
• We are lookers—and listeners, observers—and we don’t
like to overcommit to anything up front while we get our
bearings, though we tend to find them quickly.
• Good strategic trendspotting requires developing intuition
about what’s just off the radar.

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• We aren’t futurists, fortune-tellers or
mystics—rather, we are strategists.
• A trendspotter is different from a
trendsetter. (Hint: Look at the names;
trendspotters spot trends; trendsetters
set trends.)
Can a Trendspotter
Create New?

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Trendsetters tend to
be ahead of the pack,
restlessly trying out
new things—while
trendspotters are able
to observe, and in
so doing identify the
emerging.

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• In the age of social media, #TrendsAreTrendy—and
#NewsIsCrafted, but both live on social media platforms.
• But with an ever-more-fragmented audience, news lives
everywhere.
Where Does News Created
by Trendspotters
Live in Today’s Media Landscape?

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Phenomenon?
Is This an American

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Not necessarily, but
the U.S. drives trends,
and here are some
reasons why …
• Innovation: Americans love
what’s new
• Experimentation: Americans
love to tinker, improve and
change

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• Future focus: America is
about tomorrow—what’s next
• Scale: Massive economies in
which trends rise and gain
momentum

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• Common culture and
language: Ideas are shared
easily, quickly and widely
• Money: Good ideas make
money quickly in the U.S.

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• Media: The U.S. has an
outsized influence on the
trendshapers of modern life
• Cool: For the rest of the
world, America has more cool
than any other nation

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Some
and
for Newscrafting
Don’tsDo’s
DO: Monitor and react to the
news agenda
DO: Provide commentary
DO: Leverage announcements
(partnerships, new hires,
innovations, etc.) to further craft
a brand narrative
DON’T: Overlook the importance
of contributing to features and
opinion pieces
DON’T: Forget to amplify with
social media

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Some
and
for Trendspotting
Don’tsDo’s
DO: Develop peripheral awareness—
the ability to notice things that
aren’t front and center
DO: Look beyond your organization
or group; in this hyperconnected
world, things don’t happen in
isolation
DO: Develop filters to sift out the
noise and leave the promising info
DON’T: Scan only the Internet—
neither newscrafting nor trendspotting
can be done in a vacuum
DON’T: Confuse trends with a
trending topic

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Metrosexuality
Globesity
Local is the
new global
Parallel universes
Sleep is the
new sex
A Quick Survey of the Historical Trendscape

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NEXT?
What’s

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No. 1 Water’s Making Waves
Move over, green building
and electrical energy
conservation. The buzziest
segment of the renewable
energy and clean-tech sector
right now is water innovation.
• Water scarcity—both a
natural and human-made
phenomenon—is poised to
become one of the biggest
challenges of the 21st
century.

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No. 2 Gender Equality Insists Men Join in
The drive for gender equality asks
women and men to lean in together.
• Emma Watson for HeForShe and
Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean in Together
(in partnership with the NBA and
ESPN): Both are about mobilizing
men to be advocates for gender
equality—and showing them why
it’s important.

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No. 3 Makers Have Takers
Combining a DIY spirit with tech
savvy and the progressive belief
that the best learning comes from
doing and collaborating, the maker
movement is at the epicenter of
creativity and innovation.
• It demonstrates a shared
recognition that the key to
the future lies in technological
innovation.

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No. 4 Age Is the New Androgyny
If the last year in fashion was
all about transcending gender,
then this year is dedicated to
embracing (old) age.
• From Joan Didion modeling
for Céline to Joni Mitchell
fronting for Yves Saint
Laurent to Iris Apfel for Kate
Spade and Alexis Bittar, to
anonymous Italian grandmas
at Dolce & Gabbana, fashion
is embracing a “what’s old is
in” attitude.

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No. 5 The De-Cluttering Backlash
De-cluttering is hardly new, but
in recent months it has reached
fever pitch. Will jettisoning your
stuff really bring you joy?
• All of a sudden, we are all
on the de-cluttering hamster
wheel, constantly feeling
we are not living up to our
full potential if we are not
purging our stuff.

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profiting from personal data
breakfast ramen
spiritual values
box office blitz
reverse white flightmy eyes are up here
generosity
JD Salinger
Bristol stepping out
blurred hospital/spa experiences
(more) affordable private jets
Louisville
military-inspiredlooks
cherries
flourdocumentaries
blurred shopping experiences
post-gender
outer space
healing teas
rise of an articulated working class
solomooning
Kirsten Gillibrand
CopenhagenUdaipur
Christmas in September
rise of male feminists
bones, feathers, wood
cars for women
Portland, Maine
unpluggedrespites
chef swaps
PalawanIsland
Kendall Jenner
Leather
mealworms
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Angela Merkel
disgust for athletes
shows based on comics/cartoons parenting of benign neglectSweetgreen
Tavi Gevinson, movie star
fast casual
Alibaba
Chongqing
cricket
cash-free
Flores
disrupt
CarPlay
empathic accessories
culturedmeat
Tiffany Foxx
Khanom
Dubai
Naha Google smart lens
masstige retail
Ouija, the galaxy, darkness
Berlin
Hillary Clinton
RosamundPike
rum
Tokyo
Nestify
mind mining
silk
Colombia
edible clay and coal
People, Places and Phrases—Each
a Backbone for NewscraftingNEXT:What’s

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Thank YOu.