The trends of tomorrow are the business of today for Bob Noble’s insights firm Culture Waves.
Noble, the founder of food-centric national advertising firm Noble & Associates Inc., has utilized Culture Waves proprietary software for 10 years to identify industry trends that develop business and marketing opportunities for advertising clients such as Burger King and Taco Bell.
Burger King’s limited-time-offer bacon sundae, which debuted in 2012, is an example of a food product that emerged from Noble’s kitchen in Chesterfield Village about five years after Culture Waves picked up on a strong sweet-and-savory trend.
More recently, Noble identified possible product development opportunities with client Kellogg’s, based on a cereal-milk trend in New York and London. That’s right, it’s possible to go to a cafe and drop a few bucks on Froot Loops milk – think of the sweet leftovers at the bottom of cereal bowls.
Beyond milk, Culture Waves has identified at least one Colorado brewer incorporating cereal flavors in beer. In Springfield, for example, Hurts Donut Co. has been known to use cereal as a topping on doughnuts.
“Classic research is built on point-of-sale data right now – how many sundaes were sold this month, how many T-shirts were sold and all the statistics around those sales,” Noble said.
“Because we watch the trends, we can inform the research process to figure out what’s emerging, so (clients) can ask bigger and better questions.”
Wave runnersHere’s how it works.
Back in 2007, premium candy makers began merging bacon with chocolate for high-end treats, and a year later, “mommy bloggers” began talking about the trend and exploring recipe options.
Culture Waves comes in to assess potential commercial applications, said Locke Hildebrand, the firm’s chief insights officer.
With bacon’s rise among consumers, by 2011 Burger King became convinced the trend was far reaching and worked with Noble to develop a bacon sundae.
“It became one of their most successful LTO’s – limited time offers,” Noble said.
The sundae was featured in publications including the Huffington Post, Business Insider and product-focused QSR Magazine.
Burger King representatives did not respond to Springfield Business Journal’s requests for comment.
According to Culture Waves’ executives, the firm has directed more than 1,000 employees the past decade to spot articles with trend-relevant information to then categorize them with such tags as “employment,” “dining” or “marketing.”
Tags then can each be searched in a “tag cloud” that can link to hundreds or thousands of articles.
The database is updated daily, so users can scan trends from minutes ago or years ago.
“The databank is what gives us the power to be predictive,” said Kay Logsdon, editor of Noble’s FoodChannel.com, who uses Culture Waves’ findings regularly for online content and to determine buying and behavior trends.
For Taco Bell, Culture Waves picked up on evidence that late-night snackers were big fans of the fast-food chain, leading to its Fourth Meal campaign.
With Sonic, Culture Waves proposed a gourmet hot dog trend.
“When it comes to our clients, we’re like the ghost writers of the world,” Hildebrand said. “Essentially, we had Pinterest in 2006 and never went public with it.”
SparcwireIn the past two years, Culture Waves has given birth to Sparcwire, a Web-based platform for clients outside of the advertising industry.
Founder Noble said the software has implications for media clients, such as national conglomerate Gannett Co. Inc. and local CBS affiliate KOLR10.
“We’ve got this endless supply and constant flowing source of curated consumer evidence from across life, and we’ve got that going on all the time,” Noble said, adding Sparcwire has served over 20 clients ranging from documentarians to other ad agencies.
Prices vary widely by use, but Noble said up to five people in one company could utilize the service for $6,000 a year.
Leo Henning, vice president and general manager of Nexstar Broadcasting Co., which runs KOZL-TV and provides services for KOLR10, said Sparcwire is ahead of its time for generating programming content and staying in touch with advertising clients.
“We’ve used it in the news department, obviously, because it follows important trends,” he said.
“We use it every single day in Ozarks Live. It formulates much of the information in a segment called On the Radar, which is a product we’ve developed with Noble.”
Henning said the station began beta testing Sparcwire in 2013 and has paid an undisclosed amount for access for about 18 months.
“It’s not unlike a modern version of The Associated Press,” Henning said. “When you’re talking about engaging customers, engaging viewers, engaging users online, you’ve got to do a lot more than commodity news. You have to immerse yourself in life.”
Joy Robertson, who hosts the lifestyle and entertainment program Ozarks Live on KOLR10 and KOZL and works as a host and producer for The Food Channel, said she has found Sparcwire a useful platform for TV programming. She said it has helped the show discover trends related to automobiles, cellphones and fashion. A recent example is the naked wedding cake trend. Naked cakes are often rustic looking, she said, and tend go light on the icing and have visible fillings.
“We picked up on the trend in New York City, and then were able to find someone in Branson who was doing it,” she said of Sugar Leaf Treats on Highway 76.
The key for Logsdon is data that helps companies prepare for the future.
“That applies to product development. That applies to content development and to business development, in general,” she said.[[In-content Ad]]
