Leaders of the Pack

Right now I have started to read the book, "Anatomy of a Trend" by Henrik Vejlgaard.

On the front flap is this:
"Why do millions of people end up wearing the same style of clothing?
"What makes people change their tastes in food, music, and cars?
"It's because of trends- the powerful process of change that affects every industry across the globe."

So, this book is about the way trends emerge, and promises to deliver "the tools and knowledge you need to capitalize on every stage of the trend process."

Though these tools are entirely useless to me, I thought I should know what they are. A little knowledge does not hurt, does it?

The book is alright, the language is academic, but Vejlgaard tries to sound casual.


There is this intriguing information I found in this book.

Vejlgaard says gays and lesbians are trendsetters in lifestyle consumption. He gives three examples:

In the early 1990s Absolut Vodka was was a cheap product without brand image. Then they targeted gays in their advertisement, sales picked up. Today they are the number one vodka in United States.

In a survey on online consumption carried out in 2000 Witeck-Combs found out that 28 percent of gays and lesbians engaged in online banking, whereas only 21 percent of the others did.26 percent of gays and lesbians bought from online auction,only 19 percent of others did. You know how it is today.

These are not big percentage differences, but look at this. In the 2005 survey by Witeck-Combs, 51 percent of gays and lesbians bought hybrid cars, whereas a mere 34 percent of the others were did so. Today hybrid cars are gaining ground.

These statistics defy common sense. Why should they be the ones always ahead of time? They seem almost prescient. What is exceptional about them?

I thought and thought, but I ended up with pain in my empty head, I cannot figure this out. Can you?