Sixty Trends In Sixty Minutes [Hardcover]

Sam Hill (Author)

Book Description

Series: Brandweek Book | Publication Date: August 15, 2002

A showcase of the sixty trends that will have the biggest impact on business in the next decade
In Sixty Trends in Sixty Minutes (A Brandweek Book), top marketer Sam Hill, author of the bestselling Radical Marketing, highlights the trends that will have the biggest impact on marketing, brand management, and product development within the next decade. He separates the momentary fads from the lasting movements and reveals why trends matter, where they come from, and how to exploit them. He also describes the ten factors that will influence current trends and trends to come, such as exponential population growth, urbanization, interconnectedness, and the decreasing role of work in our lives. With these valuable insights in hand, business leaders will learn how to differentiate their product on the shelf, tap into specific markets, meet consumers' desires for "authentic" products, and much more. Hill also guides managers in conducting trend workshops identical to those offered by his consulting group at top-dollar prices. Timely, relevant, and global in its scope, this book offers entrepreneurs and managers new ideas and techniques for finding success today and in the future.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...from another guru...the usefulness of his book lies...in the details of the commercial opportunities they (trends) can create..." (Market Leader, Winter 2002)

“…There is much useful advice and information in this book for any business or organisation, whether commercial or not…”(Managing Information, June 2003)

From the Inside Flap

Famed marketing guru Sam Hill, whom Fortune has called a "Madison Avenue Bigfoot" and a "Top Ten Mind," offers an enlightened look into the future and reveals the trends that will have the biggest impact on marketing, brand management, and product development over the next decade. He sifts through the fads to uncover the important and lasting movements, and gives marketing professionals a whirlwind tour of the fundamental changes to come and the consumer trends those changes will lead to.

With an eye toward the future, Hill explains not just the trends themselves but also the worldwide forces that lie beneath them-rapid population growth, exponentially better technology, urbanization, globalization, and interconnectedness. Packed with over 2,000 statistics and examples, Sixty Trends in Sixty Minutes looks at the opportunities these trends create and how to realize them. Savvy marketers would be wise to study the powerful global forces that are changing our world today in order to learn who their customers will be tomorrow.

Sixty Trends in Sixty Minutes shows marketers how to recognize and profit from nascent trends and also provides practical solutions for marketers in need of a quick fix. It offers proven strategies for exploiting current trends in everyday marketing situations, and presents case studies of brand phenomena like Starbucks and Madonna that explore the creative ways in which forward-thinking individuals have successfully exploited trends that they understood well before anyone else. Hill dissects a rapidly changing world into useful parts with humor, foresight, and purpose, making this book an essential read not only for marketers but for consumers who want to understand the forces at work in the marketplace.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (August 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471225800
• ISBN-13: 978-0471225805
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,926,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Compendium of Trends w/o Forecasting or Identification Tools, October 22, 2002

By 

P. Scott Pope "Scott Pope" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sixty Trends In Sixty Minutes (Hardcover)

Sam Hill's Sixty Trends in Sixty Minutes is a panoply of facts and figures related to societal, technological, and business trends. While insightful and quite interesting to read, it guides the reader little on identifying trends and tying together all of the data presented. The author suggests the latter is left for the reader to synthesize. Yet, it is not clear how the reader could apply the large amount of data to any specific objective.

The author does have an "opportunity" section after each trend, which lists voids that can be addressed by new products and services within that particular field. Although, for any one trend example, a subject matter expert in that industry should already have identified the trend and related causes. A skilled product manager may be able to identify a new audience for an existing product using the examples. Likewise, as an investor or someone considering a career switch, you might find some interesting material by which you can base your decision.

As someone obsessed with statistical data and a voracious consumer of business periodicals, I found that most of the material was interesting but not entirely new. In fact, it feels like a collection of Wall Journal Articles with opinions and supplementary explanations. If you haven't had the time to keep up with the WSJ, Forbes, and Business Week, Sixty Trends in Sixty Minutes will fill in your knowledge gap. However, if you are looking for specific tools to forecast trends within your industry, you might want to read other works, such as Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than enough content, December 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Sixty Trends In Sixty Minutes (Hardcover)

Worth 5 stars for two reasons:

1) Something for everyone, and probably something different with each reading, or section. I agree with another reviewer that it can read like the contents of many WSJ articles - but that is the point. The premise is delivering a highly subjective list of trends that have business potential/ impact. There's enough content here for a slew of articles, books and business plans. And I'm surprised that he wrote the book first!

2) Refreshingly honest. In contrast to so many business books, this is basically a personal journal of discovery.

So many books read like the product of a team of consultants and editors trying to support a marginal concept or framework . This reads more like the transcript of a long dinner conversation (and perhaps a bottle of wine or two). Can you imagine Porter, Hamel, Peters, et al suggesting that their books would make a good bathroom read? Or identifying businesses and individuals that are heading for failure? I didn't always agree with his opinions, but must congratulate him for not holding back on any topic.

Full disclosure: I bought the book because I remember working with Sam (many) years ago in a consulting project. Perhaps that's another reason I enjoyed it, like a conversation with him many years later - and clearly he's had a world of experiences since then.

I think a valid criticism of the book is that at times it seems he is (like the old Steven Wright joke) "trying to draw a map of the world - to scale." But he does seem to have succeeded in sketching out some major landmarks. Give the book 60 or even 120 minutes. Worth the effort.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good first step to what's coming next, August 24, 2003

By 

"stupage_stu" (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sixty Trends In Sixty Minutes (Hardcover)

This book looks at sixty trends the author sees as being one of the next big things. Hill doesn't go for the bigger "mega-trends" but takes those and picks out smaller more manageable, personal trends. Some of these in no particular order are: interconnectedness, Peter Pan-ism and mercenary management. For each trend he gives the factors and factoids, implications and the opportunity. This gives you what he thinks are what the facts are, what it means and how you can use it. This gives the book a usefulness that is good. The problem I have is that I see some of the trends as not that useful or groundbreaking. Some of them also have a duh factor. As in duh tell me something I don't know. I suppose with 60 trends this is inevitable and it does give the book a something for everybody quality. Overall I give the book a B-. A useful first step if you want to see what might be coming next but I wouldn't bet the farm on anything in this book by itself.