Non-Obvious 2018 Edition: How To Predict Trends And Win The Future by Rohit Bhargava
Rohit Bhargava is a trend curator, marketing expert, storyteller and the Wall Street Journal best-selling author of 5 books on topics as wide-ranging as the future of business and why leaders never eat cauliflower.
Rohit is the founder of the Non-Obvious Company, teaches marketing at Georgetown University and has been invited to speak in 32 countries around the world.
Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Rohit spent 15 years leading brand strategy at two of the largest marketing agencies in the world (Ogilvy and Leo Burnett).
The Host’s Perspective:
When my kids were growing up, I was always surprised when people I hadn’t seen for a while commented on how much the kids had grown. I was surprised because since I was with the kids every day I never noticed the change.
That’s sort of the sensation I experience when reading Rohit Bhargava’s bestselling annual Non-Obvious books. Because we live in this always-on age of information abundance, or information oversaturation, it’s become even more difficult to separate all the signals from the noise. Rohit Bhargava’s Non-Obvious is the antidote to that.
Throughout each year, he closely observes the world around us and methodically curates the trends that matter. He categorizes them into 5 broad areas with three trends in each:
1) Culture & Consumer Behavior
2) Marketing & Social Media
3) Media & Education
4) Technology & Design
5) Economics & Entrepreneurship
And in the book he shows you exactly how he does it so that the you can learn how to better observe, think differently and identify trends that mean something. So you might be wondering, how accurate is he?
Well, with each edition he looks back and reviews all the trends from previous years and grades his previous predictions. And you know what? He’s got pretty good grades.
In this year’s edition, one of the marketing trends Rohit has introduced is “Overtargeting.” He explains that “lured by the promise of big data, organizations segment audiences too narrowly and unintentionally end up abandoning large groups of potentially lucrative customers.”
Another marketing trend is what he calls “Brand Stand,” where reacting to a polarized media atmosphere, more brands feel compelled to take a stand and highlight their core values rather than try to be all things to all people. And those are just two of the 15 trends revealed in the book.
Most of us have our heads down throughout the year working really hard and fast and we don’t always have the time to slow down and think about the larger trends that are occurring. If you only do that once a year, Non-Obvious is the chance to help you profitably discern the overall patterns from the mass of detail in our everyday lives.
Listen to the Interview:
Show Notes
Non-Obvious 2018 Edition: How To Predict Trends and Win The Future by Rohit Bhargava
Non-Obvious 2017 Edition by Rohit Bhargava (Marketing Book Podcast Interview)
Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter by Scott Adams
Rohit Bhargava’s Website (RohitBhargava.com)
About Non-Obvious 2018 Edition (Nonobviouscompany.com)
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