The power of moving away from trends

It's not official, it doesn't appear on calendars, and no government in the world recognizes it, but it's widely known that October 3rd is the Official Mean Girls Day. A single scene from the movie directed by Mark Waters and starring Lindsay Lohan was enough to turn an ordinary day into a pop culture holiday in the Western world.

This year, Paramount Pictures (owner of the film's rights) decided to join the October 3rd celebration in a very particular way, as it published the complete film —divided into 23 fragments— on its account TikTok so that it could be seen for free all day.

On its own, the fact seems unremarkable; if you've browsed TikTok in the last quarter, you've surely seen dozens of accounts dedicated precisely to publishing full movies, divided into short fragments, obtaining something that is increasingly difficult to earn: user attention.

Any intellectual property specialist could tell you this is a blatant copyright infringement, but instead of grumbling and reporting every account that uploads their movies to TikTok, Paramount opted to embrace the trend and understand what truly captivates their audiences.

Instead of fighting the tide, Paramount decided To surf it, which not only capitalized on the hype not around the iconic date of the film, but rather showed that they read, heard, and understood the trends and changes in content consumption habits of the new generations.

In Gerundio, we constantly talk about The importance of listening to your users to know and understand them better, but it is important to emphasize that «listening» does not necessarily mean doing focus groups or sit with a predetermined sample to chat for an hour. Sometimes, listening to your users involves immersing yourself in their ecosystems, identifying their habits and customs, and actively participating in their social media conversations.

Paramount did it. They understood the power their movie has every October 3rd and rode a wave that generated massive social media buzz. Along the way, they reminded us of an important lesson: research will never be a passive task; research can also be a dynamic strategy that helps companies or startups to adapt to a constantly evolving world.

Are you interested in getting to know and understand your users better? Are you interested in people-centered research for your business? Send us a message and let's see what we can do together.