age

Art  /  News & Comment  /  science
You’re How Old?
March 23, 2024

Maternity [2014 original photo with AI background]

You don’t need me to tell you that pregnancy can be rough on a body. There are so many things going on during the gestation of a fetus that one might feel that those nine months are years long. Some people get their youthful feelings back once the baby is born, but plenty of others don’t. This isn’t new information. Mothers have experienced the same symptoms for ages on end.

The scientific study of pregnancy and how cells change continues to be an area of study yielding valuable information. There is so much more that we don’t know than what we think we know. Studies published this past week, however, caught us by surprise as they revealed a cellular elasticity that hadn’t been expected. During pregnancy, a woman’s cells can age as much as two years beyond her calendar age. Sometimes the cells regain some of the youthfulness, even appearing younger than they did prior to the pregnancy. Other times, they remain the older age and continue to age with each subsequent pregnancy. In other words, for some women, the more children you have, the older you’re getting.

I know. Some women are reading this and thinking, “Yeah, and that’s surprising how?”

The fundamental importance of this research isn’t so much the degree to which pregnancy ages a person, but the proof that aging isn’t linear. Perhaps we shouldn’t have been as surprised as we are. After all, we’ve known time isn’t linear. Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity showed us a different way of looking at time that hadn’t been considered, or provable, before. If time isn’t linear, then it makes sense that aging, which is dependent on time, wouldn’t be linear either. Yet, we continue linearly counting our age.

The journal Cell Metabolism published an article this week titled, “The effects of pregnancy, its progression, and its cessation on human (maternal) biological aging.” What they discovered was interesting. In their words, “In mice, the authors reported evidence for pregnancy-associated biological aging, with a partial reversal of this effect after the cessation of pregnancy (i.e., in the postpartum). They also observed pregnancy-associated biological aging in humans, with suggestive evidence from a cohort of 14 women that these effects may be partially reversed in the postpartum.”

Human translation: Working from evidence in mice that pregnancy results in the actual aging of cells, they looked for similar findings among women and observed that not only do women age faster during pregnancy, but that in 14 women, the effects were partially reversed after the baby was born. Are you staying with me here? Yeah, you feel older during pregnancy because your body really is biologically aging faster than you would if you weren’t pregnant. But some women actually see a reversal of that aging post-partum!

The surprise of regenerative cellular development sits in the middle of some not-so-surprising news. In general, pregnancy is rough on the body. When researchers “analyzed changes in blood samples taken during early, mid, and late pregnancy, they found unusually high amounts of chemical wear and tear. That included levels of DNA methylation that they would expect to see in people 1 or 2 years older than the study participants actually were. In other words, the stress of pregnancy may have caused their biological age to increase faster than their chronological age.”

This “wear and tear” is particularly concerning because of the degree to which it makes women more susceptible to disease. While that “aging” process typically peaks in the third trimester, the effects linger. The result is women appear more fragile and prone to serious illness, including cancer and heart disease, after pregnancy. That’s a pretty damn important matter to consider when thinking about whether to add to the planet’s burgeoning population.

But wait! There’s good news!

According to the research, “blood samples from 68 participants, collected 3 months after giving birth, revealed a dramatic about-face. Although being pregnant had initially aged their cells between 1 and 2 years, O’Donnell says, their biological age now appeared to be 3 to 8 years younger than it had been during early pregnancy—with different epigenetic clocks algorithms providing slightly bigger or smaller estimates. The effect appeared to be slightly muted in people who had a higher body weight prior to pregnancy, whereas it was enhanced in women who reported exclusively breastfeeding.”

So now, while one might age a couple of years during pregnancy, they might end up three to eight years younger than when they started! That would mean less body wear and tear, making one healthier. The caveats are that the type of epigenetic clock algorithm used to calculate age makes some difference, higher body weight reduces the effects, and women who exclusively breastfeed come out the best.

Obviously, findings like this demand further investigation. For example: if a 25-year-old woman ends her first pregnancy a net five years younger at six months post-partum, then ends a second pregnancy three years younger two years later, is she, physiologically, only 19 years old? What are the dominating factors in determining who does and who doesn’t experience the regenerating effect?

I know some people look at the research and respond that we’ve known that aging is not linear because of the effects of diet and exercise. May I point out that the effects generated by intentional actions are not identical to those generated by biological processes? You change your diet and exercise habits knowing the potential for physiological change. What this research indicates is that physiological rejuvenation may be part of the natural process of childbirth, not something cultivated by intentional activity.

This is exciting research that could begin to help us answer questions about premature aging, the development of health problems, and why the US mortality rate is so fucking steep. Plus, it’s nice to know that there are physical benefits to having a child that test your patience and sanity at every turn.

Perhaps next they can work on eliminating morning sickness.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Morning Update  /  Personal
Morning Update: 03/21/24
March 21, 2024

Birds & Feathers [2015 original photo, AI background]

Everything was going sort of okay until I tried to get out of bed. Belvedere’s noggin was going one way, mine was going another, and they collided hard enough to knock us both down. Even now, 14 hours later, I can still feel where our heads met each other. I wasn’t good for the rest of the day. My balance is still off. I almost fell forward putting the food in the dogs’ bowls. This is 100% a side effect of the chemo, but it’s also one of the side effects that may never go away.

G had a better day. He’s been saving up his money for months and was finally able to purchase a Meta Quest 2 VR headset. Setting it up took a while, but once he had it going he was having all kinds of fun. Is there a chance this is going to be a problem? Yes. He isn’t aware of who/what is around him when he’s wearing the headset. The best move is to announce which side of him you’re on. Unfortunately, the animals can’t do that. I’m waiting for a cat to become an unintended victim of a wayward step.

Watching the kids as they eagerly anticipate the arrival of packages is almost as much fun as Christmas. The excitement isn’t about the surprise factor because they know what they’re getting. The joy is centered around the fulfillment of desire, seeing something for which they’ve worked come to realization. I hope they are able to keep that joy their entire lives.

Temperatures have dropped again this morning. Taking the dogs out required layering coats. Of course, the pups don’t understand why I can’t just hop out of bed and open the back door. They get antsy waiting for me to get dressed and the more I have to wear the more anxious they become. And why am I, and so many other older people, obsessed with the weather? I asked the internet but there’s no scientific conclusion. There are moderately entertaining guesses here, here, and here, but I wouldn’t put too much weight on their accuracy. I find it interesting, though, that the thing we teased my father about is now the same thing I do each morning.

Apparently, we now have to worry about the safety of our water. Newsweek reported yesterday that water systems around the US are being hit by cyberattacks that threaten the safety of the nation’s drinking water. While water companies would presumably have time to warn people about the quality of water, there are plenty of problems with this situation and no one seems to have a firm grasp as to how to handle them. Water utilities are, at best, controlled by local municipalities. At worst, such as in Indy, they’ve been privatized by companies who have a profit obligation above the need for safety. Since boiling the water usually makes it safe to drink, I’m sticking to coffee for now.

Have you noticed how many critical world leaders are a lot older than I am? Not only is the US president and the opposition leader in the 80s, Russia’s Putin is 71, King Charles is seventy-something, and German chancellor Olaf Scholz is 65. Okay, 65 isn’t that old, but the other guys are at an age where the line between wisdom and tottering old fool is dangerously thin. We are entrusting our lives and our well-being to these idiots. You’d think the people of the world would be a lot more selective, but the systems are stacked against us. The Brits don’t really have a choice at all.

ABC News is reporting that the US has finally submitted a proposal to the UN for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza based on hostage release. I fail to understand why a cease-fire is being so difficult to pass. How can countries not be in favor of a cease-fire for any reason other than the selfish gain coming from the war? Of course, even if the UN passes the damn thing, it doesn’t have the power to enforce it. Israel will continue to do whatever the fuck it wants to do and the US Congress will continue to support them even as the rest of the world screams foul. This, among other things, is why the US is no longer in the top 20 happiest countries on earth. We keep making stupid choices.

Finally, I’ve talked all week about Comic Con being in Indy this weekend. Yes, that means thousands of strangely dressed people are heading downtown for three days starting tomorrow. You know what else, though? Indy is also hosting the first two rounds of March Madness. That means thousands of basketball fans descending on the same downtown area. Oh, and the Indiana National Guard is hosting a gun and knife show. I’m sure there’s no way those three things could collide horribly. And I’m just supposed to let my 14-year-old roam free down there with only her boyfriend for protection? I’m not going to tell her she can’t go, but this Dad is looking for ways to beef up her security. If you have any reasonable solutions, let me know.

Yesterday’s stats were rather disappointing. Please subscribe so that you don’t miss anything! This is our primary method of communicating with friends and we don’t want anyone left out!

Continue Reading

PotD  /  Social Commentary
A Mother’s Beauty
May 8, 2016
charles i. letbetter - a mother's beauty

Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. —Erich Fromm

chalres i. letbetter - a mother's beauty

Mother’s Day brings plenty of memories, but we forget the beauty sacrifices mothers make for us.

I typically avoid the topic of mothers on Mother’s Day, partly because that’s what everyone is talking about and I’m not sure I can, or should, compete for your attention. Mother’s Day is also a little sad now that my own mother is gone. Some days it is better to let others do all the talking.

We romanticize our mothers in a sense, not that such a perspective is inappropriate, but our love for our mothers sometimes keeps us from seeing the depth of a mother’s sacrifice for her children.  She wouldn’t bring it up, of course, mothers rarely do. But what we remember of our mothers is seen through the perspective of a child. We don’t see what all went on in a mother’s life before she had children and everything she willingly gave up for us.

There aren’t many pictures still around of my mother when she was young. Her family was dirt poor and didn’t have a camera so the only pictures are those someone else took and gave her. What I see in those few pictures, though, is someone with a quick smile, sparkling eyes, and curly jet-black hair. I can understand why Poppa found her attractive. She was petite, like her other mother, with her father’s slim build; enough curve to be feminine, but not so much as to appear inappropriately sexual, which was apparently a thing back in the 1950s. She wore bobby socks with loafers and heels and gloves as was common at the time. Poppa said she was very prim and proper, very strict in her etiquette, but more than anything, he said she was beautiful.

Sure, everyone thinks their mother is beautiful, but we don’t see the same beauty that our fathers did. We see someone who is loving and caring and made sacrifices for us so that we could have everything we needed. Remember, though, that our fathers knew our mothers before we did and they saw her beauty in a different light.  They saw a side of a mother’s beauty that we’re not all that comfortable discussing. Despite everything that might have happened later, all the arguments and divorces, the illnesses and emotional issues, before we were born our fathers thought our mothers were sexy. They wouldn’t likely use that word in front of us, but that’s what they were thinking.

I occasionally come across someone who has nude photographs of their mother taken before they were born. We don’t often think of artistic nude photography having existed much before Helmut Newton, but it most certainly did, and was secretly very popular.   The difference was that they kept those photos to themselves. There was no Internet or social media on which to share them, so rarely did anyone else ever know they had been taken and it certainly wasn’t something they would just show to the kids. Typically, the photos are found by the adult child while helping their mother go through things later in her life. They elicit all knew stories about a side of our mothers we never considered: they were sexy.

Then, we came along and spoiled it all. The effect might not have happened immediately. Some women’s bodies handle childbirth better than others. Others, though, never lose the weight they put on carrying you. Hips that widened to facilitate your delivery didn’t snap back in place. If you kicked the wrong thing while you were swimming around in all that amniotic fluid, you likely created a physical problem your mother had to endure the rest of her life. She was thrilled to nurse you and cuddle you close, but because of that her breasts sag and she never looked the same in a swimsuit again.

You gave her stretch marks and those dark circles under her eyes from 18-plus years of never getting enough sleep and worrying about the trouble she knew you were getting into, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was. You killed her arches as she ran after you in shoes that were not meant for running. Her joints eventually became stiff and arthritic from all the times she put herself in unnatural positions to find that toy you had just dropped, or teaching you how to play leap frog, or picking you up and carrying you from the playground after you fell from the swing, again.

Before you were born, that lady you now call your mom paid more attention to how she looked when she went out. Her ensemble was carefully put together, even if it was more bohemian and less Chanel. She might have even worn makeup and had her nails done. After you came along, though, she was happy if what she was wearing didn’t have any fresh stains and if everything matched it was more by coincidence than design. Your mother’s stylist thought you were cute, but secretly hated you because your mother went from trying out different cuts and colors to short and easy-to-manage.

After  you came along, your mother didn’t go out with friends as often, didn’t travel as much, gave up on trying to fit into Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and damn sure wanted to make sure there was sufficient coverage between her and her Calvin’s. Almost everything that had gone into making her so physically desirable to your father either you ruined or she had to give up to care for you, except for one thing: Love.

And that’s what we remember on Mother’s Day: her love. After all, that’s what is important, right? Nothing else matters, at least, not now. A mother’s beauty isn’t defined by how “hot” she looks, how many heads she once turned, or how many hearts she once broke. A mother’s beauty is defined by how she could kiss a boo-boo and make the pain go away, or how she knew exactly when you needed her to make those special pancakes, or how she could mend a broken heart then help you plot revenge. She likes that definition.

Mothers don’t care about what they’ve given up for you. The love you and, in the vast majority of situations, would do everything all over again (with the benefit of a little wisdom from the experience). She loves you, you love her, and that makes everything beautiful enough for her. But don’t you ever forget that she did make those sacrifices. I’ll tell you what she might not: you owe her. Big.

A poet, whose name escapes me at the moment, once said that a mother’s beauty is defined is defined by the grace and compassion of her children. Your mother gave up a lot for you. Make her beautiful, damnit.

 

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Fashion  /  PotD
Female Entrepreneurs Do It Better
May 7, 2016
charles i. letbetter - female entrepreneurs do it better

I never felt oppressed because of my gender. When I’m writing a poem or drawing, I’m not a female; I’m an artist. —Patti Smith

 

charles i. letbetter - female entrepreneurs do it better

Female entrepreneurs are more successful than men, especially when under the age of 25.

Being in business for oneself is a dream that a lot of people have had, but for centuries, conventional wisdom held that men were the safer bet for investors. Being born female automatically put one at a severe disadvantage in the business world. Even now, for all the positive strides that women have made, venture capitalists still prefer to put their money on all-male teams. Call it the good-old-boys network or outright chauvinism, being female and trying to run your own business is more than a bit challenging.

Opinions may soon change, though, after a 10-year study by venture capital firm First Round has shown that many of those old, prevailing concepts of what makes a new business a good investment are just plain wrong. Being young isn’t bad, and being a female is actually a blessing. So much so that new business with at least one female on the management team out-performed traditional all-male teams by a whopping SIXTY-THREE PERCENT! In terms of business statistics, that number is huge! Combine that with the same research showing that having a founder under the age of 25 increases performance by thirty percent and we’re starting to wonder why every new business isn’t being fronted by young women!

The results of the study were first assimilated into a non-academic structure by the Harvard Business Review and should, hopefully, not only encourage investors to put more money into businesses started by women, but should also encourage more women, especially young women, to not hesitate to put that business plan together sooner rather than later. We’ve already seen that having a female at the front of the business is more likely to result in a successful Kickstarter campaign. Successful categories for women include technology, fashion, and games, but across the board, women beat all-male startups every time.

Perhaps the big question here is why we’re so surprised by these findings (and, universally speaking, we are)? Women have been running operations with complex financing and investment structures for thousands of years; they’re called homes. To claim that there’s no parallel between making a home successful and doing the same for a business is naïve and ignorant. Moreover, women have proven themselves more than capable of leading armies, running countries, and heading up Fortune 500 companies while still taking care of children and keeping their families in tact. Good luck finding a man who can pull off the same tasks with as much gracefulness.

Numbers compiled about this same time last year show that female entrepreneurship is on the rise. The number of funded startups with at least one woman on the management team doubled between 2009-2014. Still, that only accounted for eighteen percent of the whole, significantly low for the size of the whole picture. Women not only find it more difficult to secure VC financing for their companies, they have more difficulty gaining support from friends and family, especially in traditionally conservative areas of the country, such as the deep South and the Midwest. There are still too many people who challenge a woman with silly questions such as, “How are you going to balance both a business and a family?” or, “Does this mean you’re not going to have children?” That nonsense just needs to stop.

One possible area of concern, though, is that the same First Round study shows that where one goes to school does actually seem to matter. Specifically, startups did better when at least one member of the management team had attended an “elite” school, ie.,  anything in the Ivy League, Stanford, or MIT. That factor creates a significant challenge for any entrepreneur, but especially for women who cannot count on the legacy factor to get them into those schools. With rising education costs continuing to bring into question the value of a college degree, justifying the expense of going to an elite school over state schools with national standings in specific fields becomes a more difficult argument. Is it worth having a diploma from Harvard just to get funding for a business?

There are a lot of factors that go into making a startup work, though, and part of the reason for having a management team rather than trying to do it all on one’s own is that a diverse team spreads out those qualifications and experiences so that one doesn’t have to stretch to be perfect in everything. One of the dichotomies of the study is that, while startups with founders under the age of 25, having work experience at a top tech company is also an important factor. How is one supposed to go to college, get experience at a top tech company, and still start a company by the time one turns 25? I suppose if one graduates high school at 16 or something along those lines, it might theoretically be possible, but that is still a lot to ask of one person. Utilizing the skills and experiences of a team keeps the pressure from landing on the shoulders of one person.

What we do learn from this research, though, is that the time for young women to be starting their own business is now. The concept of waiting until one has several years of experience under their belt has proven to be ineffective. If you have an idea, do the research, write a solid business plan, and assemble a strong management team. Get yourself out there and do things. All the evidence points toward unprecedented success.

Go. Do it. Make yourself proud!

 

Continue Reading

Art  /  Photography
Five Years’ Difference
March 21, 2016
charles i. letbetter - five years' difference

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. —Winston Churchill

 

Five Years' Difference

Five years can seem like a long time, but having the time to mature can make some things all the more beautiful

I sometimes joke that I know I’m getting old when the even the best scotch in the world is half my age. While that’s not entirely true on either end of the equation, there’s a point at which one no longer thinks that they’re improving with age. There’s no definitive point at which that occurs. Some start feeling old when they hit 30. Others still feel young at 70. Only you can determine how you are going to feel at any given stage of your life.

The kids were watching a cooking show recently wherein Bo Derek was a guest judge. Yes, the same Bo Derek that raised more than eye brows when she appeared in the 1979 movie 10 opposite Dudley Moore. The difference between her look then and now, more than 35 years later, was astonishing. Derek, who turns 60 later this year, had not bothered to attempt to conceal her age nor the marks of a lifetime of experience. She was still beautiful, but in a way defined by maturity.

 

Our model for this set of portraits, who I’ll simply refer to as K. in order to keep stalking to a minimum, hadn’t quite hit that 25-year-old mark when life led her to do other things. She changed occupations, had new experiences, and even attempted to settle down a bit. There were ups and there were downs and there were lessons learned that one would rather read about than experience. She comes back now, five years since she was last in front of the camera, more mature, wiser for the experience, and even more beautiful than before.  She’s sporting some amazing new ink on her back, and a revised attitude toward life. The difference is significant.

We have Owen Tate to thank for the take on K.’s hair and make-up, a slight revision from what he did for a contest last month. I found the violet color on her lips and the just-rolled-out-of-bed look to her hair a refreshing difference from her older pictures.

I don’t mean to imply that every young model should take five years off and mature. I’ve missed having K. in front of the camera and I can’t say that going through some of the same experiences would make as positive a difference as it did with K. Not everyone would necessarily survive. Yet, that five years’ difference is a positive for K. I’m hoping this set of portrats might prove inspirational for others we’ve not seen in a while to take a moment and try again.

Beauty doesn’t stop at any given age. Beauty grows with us if we let it. Don’t ever hide because of a few years difference. Embrace your beauty and enjoy.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Continue Reading

Fashion
NYFW: One Week To Go
February 4, 2016
charles i. letbetter - NYFW one week out

“I can handle crazy, but this is like a whole new batch of crazy.”—Overheard at NYFW

 

charles i. letbetter- NYFW ONE WEEK OUT

NYFW is only one week away!!

One week from today, the madness better known as #NYFW starts at The Dock with Nicholas K at 9:00 AM. From that point forward, we will spend the next four weeks carefully watching fashion show after fashion show after fashion show. Those that impress us the most we will review for Pattern. Those that don’t impress (which will be the majority) we’ll likely ignore. Those that are truly horrible, and that does occasionally happen, we’ll trash in the hopes that, like Mark & Estel, they don’t return next season (actually, we are beginning to wonder if Mark & Estel are going out of business. Their website hasn’t been updated since immediately after NYFW last year and no new collections have been added.).

With only a week left to prepare, we’re anxiously watching for any major announcements, especially should someone such as Hedi Slimane announce that they’re leaving their current label. For many designers, contract negotiations come down to the wire about now and it’s not at all unusual to see some of those fail right before a designer’s final show. So, here’s a quick look at the major topics we’re looking at for the moment, all of which are subject to change should something bigger come along.

Diversity is still an issue. We’ve talking about the lack of diversity the past two seasons, and last season (shown in September) was better than the one before it. Still, the early word from agents and casting directors is that very little is going to change from last season. That means we’ll still have an overabundance of runway presentations where two or three models of color appear only as tokens. What will it really take to change the status quo? Major editors and buyers staying away, which they’re not inclined to do. No one wants to accidentally miss a breakout line, so they put up with horrible behavior on the part of designers and fail to hold them accountable. When so much of fashion’s core demographic is any color but white, you’d think designers would do a better job of playing to a multi-ethnic audience. Unfortunately, this doesn’t look to be the season we see significant change.

How old is that model? Russian model Kristina Pimenova has done an editorial for Vogue Italia and campaigns for Armani, Gap, and DSquared² juniors lines. Her career is so hot at the moment that she just moved to LA. She’s ten years old. Yes, you read that correctly. Ten. While child labor and child modeling laws in Europe limit the age of runway models, there are no such restrictions at NYFW. While the CFDA strongly discourages the use of models under the age of 15, they have little recourse should a designer decide to not follow those rules. With the current editorial trend being toward young and younger models, there is more than a little concern that some may attempt to slip younger girls into the mix. This can be very  difficult to catch, though, so we may not know until it’s too late to do anything about the situation.

Challenges in the contemporary market. If you’re not sure which labels classify as contemporary, think Theory, Alexander Wang, 3.1 Philip Lim, and Public School. Those and other brands rely less on traditional silhouettes and focus more on styles and designs that are more modern, and often more urban, than what we get from older houses. We tend to think of contemporary brands as more cutting-edge and trend-setting, but that doesn’t always translate well when it comes time to fill store shelves. Shoppers want clothes that are distinct, but at the same time they want looks with which they are comfortable. They’re also wanting deeper discounts, such as the pricing they get from fast fashion. Supply is currently outstripping demand and same-store sales have declined dramatically. We’re expecting contemporary labels to step up the high-end game a bit more this season in an effort to woo those more traditional designer shoppers.

Zoolander references everywhere you look. It is no mistake the movie Zoolander2 opens next Friday, the day after NYFW begins. Cross-marketing between the movie and the fashion world is excessively strong and multiple designers cooperated in the making of the movie, including cameo appearances by more than a few. As a result, catching the direct and indirect Zoolander references is likely to become something of a game. The only problem is, with the NYFW schedule so very, very full, who has time to stop and go see a movie?

Who are all these new people? Looking through the NYFW schedule, there are new names on almost every day. While there are always some major designers, such as Marc Jacobs, who show off-site and off-schedule, there are more than a few recognizable names missing from this season’s lineup. In their place are not only a larger-than-usual collection of new designers, we’re seeing more group and retail shows signing up for presentations as well. Kids Rock! hits the catwalk Thursday night, Fashion Hong Kong shows Friday afternoon, Asian Fashion Collection hits Sunday at noon, and the much anticipated JD.com show is next Wednesday at 7. For those not familiar, JD.com is China’s largest online retailer and their presence at NYFW is notable. We’ll be watching the newcomers very carefully and won’t hesitate to lavish praise on those who do especially well. Who knows, we may even find a new favorite!

Still being a week out means there’s plenty of time for additional issues and concerns to pop up as well. We’re trying to find reasons to get excited for what has recently been the most boring month imaginable. Let’s cross our fingers and hope this season is an exciting one!

 

Continue Reading

Advertising
Ad Trends for 2016
January 5, 2016
charles i. letbetter - ad trends for 2016

It is in revolutionary periods that the culmination of previous trends and the beginning of new ones appear.—C. L. R. James

charles i. letbetter - ad trends

Minor Rebellion. Model: Kat Gulling. Makeup: Danelle French. Hair: Kelly Walsh. Styling: Jantina Anderson

Advertising is all about trends, when to follow and when to start new ones. Get it right and your client loves you. Miss the boat and millions of dollars go down a worthless hole. There is no sure thing. Trends have to be played just right or they can make a brand appear insincere. Declaring trends is easy, but knowing which ones to follow is extremely trepidatious.

We’re here to help. Looking at numerous sources, including Sparks & Honey’s A to Z Culture Glossary and AdWeek’s exhaustive trove of trend research, we’ve compiled what I think are going to be the most important trends for advertisers in 2016. Whether or not we’re correct is, as always, arguable, but these are almost certainly worth considering more than once.

Strong, Powerful, Independent Women

The only way I would put a woman in a kitchen this year is if she happens to be running her own cooking network. Actually, Food Network president Brooke Johnson claims she’s not a good cook, so yeah, totally can that idea. There’s no more “little woman” waiting at the door to greet … anyone. The marketable influence of women has grown exponentially and those who ignore such are risking doom and despair. Yes, they can still be sexy (see Ronda Rousey’s ad for Carl’s Jr.). Yes, they can still be vulnerable while showing tremendous courage (see Ram Truck’s “courage is already inside” ad). What they are not is weak, dependent, desperate, or needy on any level. This includes young girls, by the way, who can play with light sabers just as well as any little boy.

What this trend means for a lot of companies who have yet to catch on, or think they’re somehow immune from the trend, is re-thinking their approach toward women, especially if women are their primary market. There is no tolerance for any level of condescension, even in jest. Women with small children need to be shown as competent and caring in the face of exhaustion. Girls should be shown as not merely cute or sexy but equally as intelligent, witty, and humorous. Oh, and they play video games with a blood-thirty vengeance that is frightening. This is one trend that is only going to grow stronger. Ignore it at your own peril.

Rethink The Concept of Gender

LGBT rights scored some tremendous victories in 2015 but if you think merely placing a same-gender couple somewhere in the back of an ad has you covered, think again. Watch the 16-24-year-old demographic very closely on this one. If you’re not already familiar with the term gender fluid, you might want to ask your intern. Older teens and young adults are leading a rapidly growing trend wherein claiming a specific gender identity just doesn’t work for them. They’re not merely gender neutral, mind you. They are gender fluid, a term and a lifestyle that is just beginning to make its way into mainstream consciousness, even though the practice has been around for centuries. As we build upon the successes of the past year, gender fluidity is the next step toward total acceptance.

We saw the ire Target drew when they removed gender classification from toys in 2015. When moving forward in matters like this, one has to expect backlash and possibly even consider building in an appropriate response as part of the campaign. The issue goes beyond toys, though, and forward-thinking advertisers will find ways to include transgendered and gender fluid people into normal office and social settings without trivializing or being condescending toward anyone. As more young people grow comfortable expressing themselves in this fashion, expect older adults to do so as well, making public lifestyles they’ve kept hidden their entire lives. Smart advertisers will position their brands to stand for inclusion and acceptance in increasingly meaningful ways.

Finding Moral High Ground

A touching, heartfelt ad makes everyone feel good about themselves and the brand. Transference is what psychologist call it; because the ad shows people representing a product or brand doing something good, consumers feel they are also participating in the good thing, whatever it is, by buying that product. This is far from being a new concept, but what we saw especially in the last quarter of 2015 was a rather surprising uptick in just how responsive people were to ads and products that have some participation in the greater good, whether that might be environmental, economic, or health-related. So, a company that addresses iron deficiency in Cambodia sees sales increase in the US and EU. Car maker Volvo records an increase in dealership visits after announcing a spray that keeps pedestrians safe at night.

Let’s be real honest here, finding a moral high ground that someone isn’t already attempting to stake as their own is going to be challenging. What’s more, once one claims such space the company is obligated to make a commitment to that cause beyond the life cycle of the current campaign. This is not a cheap trend to embrace and doing so for the wrong reasons are almost certainly going to backfire. However, as the world grows smaller and awareness of interactions and their consequences becomes more common, people care more about what is going on in places other than their backyard and truly want to help. Find a way to help your target audience help someone else and your brand becomes a champion.

Not Being Perpetually Online is Death

Connectivity issues are going to be huge this year and for all the talk about needing to unplug the reality is that not only are we afraid to be disconnected from the Internet, in some cases being disconnected can be life threatening. This gives advertisers and marketers a giant opening that we’re just now beginning to study and understand. Even more, the biggest opportunity may be for small- to mid-sized companies in markets that have yet to leverage the digital potential in any significant way. Going beyond merely having a website, which is still a big deal for small, entrepreneur-driven business, interacting with customers via third party apps such as Instagram and Periscope represents the new way of communicating directly with a brand’s consumers.

Fashion is already learning that what happens on Instagram impacts the retail market. What happens next is seeing that same interaction in other business models, especially those that historically have not been able to facilitate high levels of customer contact. Think how such interactivity might affect business-to-business models or allow a reluctant tourist to see what actually happens on a cruise before booking their trip. What might be the benefits of a restaurant that allows patrons to live-stream their meal being prepared? People are afraid to put down their mobile devices and that means advertisers have to find creative ways of making sure that is where they interact with customers.

Even Higher Tech

From virtual reality hoods to a Japanese noodle company that provides a digital “companion” for those eating alone to customized fragrance experiences to live-streamed medical assistance, if you’re working with last year’s technology, you’re already behind. With the rapid development and deployment of new tech reaching something close to the speed of light, advertisers can no longer wait two or three years, or even months, for a new technology to prove itself. Yes, this means assuming some higher level of risks as not all new tech is going to survive. However, that is a risk well worth taking as falling behind the tech curve increasingly becomes a death sentence, especially for retail-centric products and businesses.

Think you’re already pretty tech savvy? If you’re not familiar with twitch.tv, typographic neuroscience, ultrasonic sciences, 4D smart paper, or brain-computer imaging (BCI), you have some heavy catching up to do. One of the most important trends for advertising this year is going to be the ability to recognize break-out technologies and being among the first to use them in marketing and advertising situations. For many agencies, especially in smaller markets or those with boutique clients, this likely means making technological innovation a team-wide responsibility. Those with sufficient budgets already have personnel whose sole function is to reach out to new tech companies and find ways to apply science and innovation to the ad experience. Failure to follow this trend may well mean some smaller shops close their doors by year’s end.

Of course, there’s more

I could go on for several more pages, I’m afraid. There are a lot of more niche-oriented trends, such as senior tech for an aging but still mobile (and well-financed) population, family outsourcing, and a lot of really amazing medical innovations. What we do with our leisure time is changing as well and that impacts how consumers respond to certain methods of advertising.

What matters most is that we not rely as much on our past experience and use these trends and innovations to spark our creativity, finding new and exciting, perhaps longer-lasting ways to reach consumers and clients. 2016 belongs to the ambitious. Get up and get moving.

Continue Reading

PotD
Relationship Status
November 20, 2015
charles i. letbetter - relationship status

As much as I’m not a journalist, I use journalism. And when you photograph a relationship, it’s quite wonderful to let something unfold in front of you.—Annie Leibovitz

charles i. letbetter - relationship status

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Relationship can be a dangerous word. Neither Kat nor I have anything listed under “relationship status” on social media, and that isn’t likely to change any time too terribly soon. We both hate mushy, public displays of oh-my-significant-other-is-so-wonderful and we laugh and roll our eyes when we somehow still manage to find ourselves being that couple. We’ve both had relationships before, so this isn’t new. Unexpected might be a better word.

Almost three years have passed since Kat and I first met. Once we started talking to each other, we never stopped. Interestingly enough, the one thing we were both fairly sure did not actually exist was love. Having tried the relationship thing before and failed miserably, we were neither one convinced that this whole love thing was even possible. Mutual attraction? Sure. Long-term tolerance for the sake of companionship? Absolutely. Actual love? Nah, it’s a myth.

Okay, so we might have been wrong. We’re not the first two people in the history of the world to start a relationship without giving in to what we were pretty sure was a myth. Once that opinion changed, we still didn’t want to be all mushy about it. After all, there’s 25 years difference in our ages. We get strange looks just holding hands in public, and that typically has less to do with relationship and more to do with my damn legs not wanting to hold me upright. The expression on people’s faces when we do kiss in public is annoying. Of course, the expression on our faces when we see couples kissing in public is pretty annoying as well. Mush. Blech.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]An interesting thing happened as more acquaintances figured out that Kat and I were actually a couple; the disbelief of those friends on the fringe became anger, or jealousy, or something else not exactly in the category of accepting. For Kat, there was a sudden rush of would-be suitors who suddenly felt the need to declare that they had loved her first, they just hadn’t gotten around to saying anything yet. One guy even hilariously assumed that she only liked me for my money. We still laugh about that one.

On my end, though, the response to our relationship was more silent;  the kind of silence that occurs when one witnesses something horrible happening right in front of them. Some just stopped talking. Others unfriended and blocked me on social media. And those who are still emotionally stuck in high school talked behind our backs, but not to our faces.  While no one terribly close was involved, the response is still disappointing. We thought we had chosen only intelligent acquaintances.

Three years in, our relationship status isn’t likely to change. I’m more surprised than anyone that this relationship thing has actually happened because I was so very convinced it wasn’t possible. What we’ve learned is that love does exist, that we’re not on some existential list of doom, and that it’s rather entertaining when I tell the doctor Kat’s my fiancé, not my daughter. To those who still have a problem with us, I have but one word for you: Goodbye.[/one_half_last]

Continue Reading