Pendulum Theory

An interesting theory of analyzing societal values and entertainment has come to my attention: Michael R. Drew's Pendulum Cycle. As a motivational speaker and entrepreneur, he set out to discover a means of trend forecasting to predict what society will want before they want it.

In a nutshell, the theory is that society swings, much like a Pendulum, between two states: Me and We. The me stage says "I'm okay, you're not okay", whereas the We stage says "I'm not okay, you're okay". For example, if one were to examine the 1950's (the last fulcrum of the last "We" social mindset), people were focused on conformity: the suits, the nuclear family, the white picket fence, etc. Then, in the 60's, the pendulum started swinging backwards to "Me", with the Beatles making fun of conformity and these major pop idols surfacing with their big hair and glam-rock diamond-encrusted vests.

It takes 40 years to go from one extreme to another, with the whole cycle spanning 80 years. As of 2003, we as a culture are re-entering the "we" mindset. This can explain the booming success of Vlogging on Youtube (where we do not idolize the content creators but view them as equals), the gritty reboots of movies (again, not idolizing but bringing them down to our level) and much more.

So what does this mean for the you? You can both predict how your product should be marketed and how you should present yourself in the future. Not to preach to the choir, but what's big now is viral videos. Obviously. Viral marketing and even (to an extent) alternate reality games are huge now. People look for the grainiest, most real video out there, and this is why videos like "Charlie Bit Me" are pulling in huge dollars. TV spots are primarily bland and set in casual locations like an office, and often times feature testimonies from consumers (who are portrayed as being "real"). For example, the Windows "I'm A PC" marketing campaign:



This is in direct contrast to the Ginsu Knife commercials of the 80s, that were all hyperactive and "ORDER NOW AND RECEIVE A FREE CUTTING BOARD!!! AHHH!!!" Comedian Kyle Cease put it best in saying that "Now, if we receive an email and it has an exclamation point, we assume it's spam".

We can use these thinking and predictive methodologies to effectively brand, market, and present media products and to satisfy the ever-changing wants of the consumers in society.