Every few months, marketing seems to find a new obsession. One minute it’s BeReal, then it’s AI, then it’s short-form video. Then it’s whatever somebody on LinkedIn has decided is the future of marketing this week.
And don’t get us wrong, trends can be useful. They often tell us something about how people behave, consume content or interact with brands. The problem starts when businesses begin chasing trends simply because everyone else is.
We’ve all seen it happen, a business hears they should be on TikTok, so they start posting on TikTok. Someone mentions a competitor is using AI, so suddenly AI becomes the priority. A new social platform launches and there’s a scramble to establish a presence before anyone has worked out whether their audience is even there.
The question we rarely hear being asked is: Why? Not why does the trend exist. Why are we doing it? Because there’s a big difference between using a trend to support a strategy and allowing a trend to become the strategy.
One is intentional, the other is reactive and reactive marketing can become exhausting very quickly. We’ve worked with businesses that have spent months trying to keep up with every new platform, format and trend going.
The result? Lots of activity but very little progress.
Their marketing becomes a collection of disconnected tactics rather than a clear plan. One week they’re jumping on a viral audio trend. The next they’re launching a podcast. The week after that they’re experimenting with a platform they’ve never used before.
Individually, none of these things are bad ideas but without a clear reason behind them, they rarely build towards anything meaningful.
It’s a bit like changing direction every five minutes during a journey, you might be moving but you’re probably not getting where you wanted to go. One of the biggest misconceptions in marketing is that successful brands are always the first to adopt new trends.
In reality, many of the strongest brands are surprisingly selective.They don’t chase everything. They focus on what aligns with their audience, their objectives and their brand. Sometimes that means embracing a trend. Sometimes it means ignoring it completely and often, ignoring it is the smarter decision.
Not every business needs to be on every platform. Not every campaign needs to reference the latest meme. Not every piece of content needs to follow whatever format is currently dominating your feed.
Customers are far more interested in relevance than trendiness. They want useful information, clear messaging, consistency, and trust. Those things don’t go out of fashion every six months.
That’s not to say businesses should stand still. Marketing evolves. Consumer behaviour changes. New opportunities appear all the time.
Ignoring everything new isn’t a strategy either. The key is knowing the difference between an opportunity and a distraction.
One helps move the business forward, the other simply keeps you busy. The brands that tend to perform best over time aren’t necessarily the ones chasing every trend. They’re the ones with enough confidence to know which trends deserve their attention and which don’t because while trends come and go, clarity rarely goes out of style.