When thinking about trends my mind always wanders to one of my favorite scenes from the Beatles' first feature film, "A Hard Days Night" (1964).
Here's the set-up for this brief, absolute gem of a scene that's all about trends and the people who spot and market them:
Just hours before the Beatles are to perform live on British television, Ringo is nowhere to be found. John, Paul and George split up to look for him, and along the way each Beatle has his own brief encounter of a strange kind. George's fate is to become an accidental one-man focus group for a trend-master:

"Grotty. Make a note of that word and give it to Susan."
I love it. Great movie quote.
And isn't just a wonderful demonstration of the genie being out of the bottle that there's your favorite clip from Hard Day's Night available on YouTube?
Daisy
Posted by: Daisy Whitney | January 15, 2007 at 08:01 PM
It's quite remarkable. I have a clip of it that i use when making presentations... but now i can just go online and show that one scene.
"A Hard Day's Night" is one of my top 20 favorite films. i also think it's one of the 10-20 most influential films ever made. and then, of course, there's the music.
Posted by: dwarshaw | January 15, 2007 at 08:49 PM
So going off topic but being a movie buff, would love to hear what's on the top 10-20 movie list
Posted by: Daisy Whitney | January 15, 2007 at 10:55 PM
Great clip--I have visions of similar marketing guys going through thousands of videos on You Tube "Trendspotting".
Posted by: Mike Cole | January 17, 2007 at 12:18 AM