There are many apparently rational ways to go about prognosticating the trends/fads of an upcoming season. Go ahead and be as logical and empirical as you like, however, and one fact remains.  You're still guessing.

So cut the astrologer a little slack.  If your prognostications involve research generalizations and his rely on Jupiter, do you think one is less funny to an alien intelligence? Is there any reason why "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference" should be heralded as a marketing masterwork and "Signs of Success: The Remarkable Power of Business Astrology" should languish on the shelf? I've read both and I know how I  would answer that question.

Anyway, to show the good faith of a very earnest researcher into cosmic commerce, I offer here exactly what Jupiter is trying to tell us about the fads and trends across a host of industries for the upcoming summer season. The echo period is January/February of 1998. Free your mind...

ADVERTISING




Mail boxes and Sunday newspapers work best when they are not only filled with information, but are additionally crammed with actual stuff. Heavy duty in-home product sampling is due for a resurgence say the auguries. What are we gonna do with all that crap piling up in warehouses anyway?


AUTOMOTIVE



The Oldsmobile Alero, announced in winter of 1998, was GM's acknowledgment that the American consumer of 1998 would rather drive a Honda Accord than an American car in a similar price range.  People who bought the Alero seemed to like its styling and handling, although it never earned great marks for its mechanical reliability. In 2004...and here may lie the chief resonance of this tale...the brand folded, along with Oldsmobile itself.


CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS




The Mach 3 is coming, the Mach 3 is coming! That was the buzz in the business magazines during the winter of 1998, although Gillette had yet to reveal its triple-bladed, and oh so top secret, razor's name. While for some the razor will always call to mind an early SNL parody (the third blade shaves even closer "because you'll believe anything"), the razor with "racing stripes" on the handle was a large success for the manufacturer. Watch for renewed interest in 'gourmet' versions of very ordinary products. (Are you listening, Chef Boyardee?)


FASHION

Devotees of Jupiter cycles have no problem understanding why Michelle Obama (or at least somebody very highly visible and fashion-influential)  is a J. Crew fan. One need simply hearken back to the winter of '98 pre-publicity campaign for the landmark WB teenage drama Dawson's Creek that included the show's young cast, including Katie Holmes, being featured in the J. Crew catalog.  What I'm thinking is a fairly conservative look, with a surprising amount of steamy stuff going on in the inside.


FOOD



On the very first day of 1998, the Chicago Sun Times proposed Moroccan food as the upcoming year's likely number one food trend. Now certainly this was meant to be a bit of a "grabber," whatever the level of sincerity behind the patently ridiculous prognostication. But have you heard about this Moroccan chef who just recently beat Cat Cora in an "Iron Chef America" showdown and who now has cooking show and recipe book in development for PBS? All aboard the Marrakesh Express!


INSIGHT



Principals of the estimable trend consultancy, Iconoculture, released their book "The Future Ain't What It Used To Be, " in February of 1998. I disagree with the title assertion, of course, but it's only fair to give credit to a really cool title. So let's just celebrate the authors' identification of "grackers" (grey hackers),  as an increasingly hip AARP crowd will most certainly continue to get in on the social networking fun...twaddling rather than twittering, I suppose.


MANAGEMENT



It's difficult to pin an exact date on the fruition of Y2K angst, but the portion of business literature concerned with CEO pontification had a noteworthy flurry of activity in the winter of 1998. Basically, corporate heads were told that they would have to take responsibility for a new Dark Ages if they weren't already firing pretty hefty wads of cash at their IT departments and the resolution of their cracked computer code. I'm simply here to tell those same CEO's that they won't know what trouble is until 2012 when the Mayan calendar cycle ends and Neptune moves into Pisces. Paypal accepted.


MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT



As a result of new FCC regulations regarding children's television, CBS launched its Fall '97 season with an ambitious slate of Saturday morning educational shows, including the quite highly regarded science show Beakman's World (pictured above). What CBS quickly learned was that children didn't particularly like educational programming and so, in mid-January of 1998, CBS canceled all of its Saturday morning shows.  So one may safely conclude that this summer will not herald a renaissance in educational media for children.  Fortunately we have some time before we will need those Y3K engineers.


RESTAURANTS



To be honest, the most pressing 'insider' restaurant preoccupation in the winter of '98 was the concerted effort by  chefs to save the swordfish from being over fished. So a lot of menu makers benched  the broadbill and, safe to say, most consumers didn't have a clue that it was gone. Meanwhile, a lot of ink also went to bagels, yogurt, flavored ice teas, and coffee kiosk drive-throughs; the sort of things that were happy impulse buys in good ol' 1998...and will probably be considered luxury indulgences this far less economically carefree July.


RETAIL

It was in January of 1998 that the trade literature of the supermarket industry got particularly serious about covering the industry's HMR (home meal replacement) opportunity. In the next few months seemingly every grocer in America went out and bought an electric rotisserie unit. By the end of the year the Boston Market restaurant chain, specializing in rotisserie chicken, had gone bankrupt and become the wounded property of McDonald's.  Amidst a host of other well-documented challenges, the restaurant industry may well expect ever-increasing HMR efforts from supermarkets this summer.  Poor Ronald.


TECHNOLOGY

At the 1998 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, Scott McNealy, the founder of Sun Microsystems, was virtually everywhere preaching the open-platform gospel of JAVA and networked intelligence. "It's too complicated," said McNealy of Windows-dominated general computer applications, telling ABC's Aaron Brown that the personal computer was "the massive hairball of computing." Looking towards a future when extremely smart, application specific, handheld devices would rule the consumer electronic space, McNealy might have been looking at a future about 11-1/2 years ahead...say the summer of 2009.


TRAVEL



In 1998 Hawaii's tourism industry, which accounts for one-third of the state's jobs (some say three-fourths if you figure in 'influenced' work) and one-fourth of its tax revenues, went so soft that the state government formed its first ever statewide agency to address the decline. This year, after a very healthy decade-long tourism recovery, the predictions are that Hawaii will see its worst tourism revenue declines since the Great Depression.  So please buy a pineapple this summer...and support your local astrologer.

For more information please contact Steve Weiss at smw@stevenmarkweiss.com .