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How can tracking microtrends elevate your brand and customer experience? Discover transformative insights with Suzy!

By: Tom Reutter, Director, Customer Success

Reflecting on Suzy CEO Matt Britton’s insights from his recent 'Consumer Trends in 2025: A-Z' presentation, I was reminded of the 2007 book Microtrends by Mark J. Penn. Penn's concept of 'microtrends'—small yet influential groups with an outsized societal impact—remains relevant, as these emerging communities often hold untapped potential.

Looking back on Penn’s insights from 17 years ago, I was struck by how what once seemed niche now feels mainstream. Some examples that stood out:

Late Breaking Gays: In 2007, LGBTQ+ visibility was rising, creating a trend of men coming out later in life. While people still come out at all ages, a recent Gallup poll shows 71% now come out by age 30.
Old New Dads: In the early 2000s, more men began having children later, a trend that continues today with the median age of first-time fathers now over 30, and men over 40 accounting for 9% of new births (Stanford report).
Vegetation Diets for Kids: In 2007, vegan diets for kids were rare. Today, dietary preferences are shifting, with 5% of U.S. children ages 8-17 identifying as vegetarian and 2% specifically as vegan (source).

At Suzy, we view these microtrends as early indicators of larger shifts in the market. By leveraging our advanced category and topical trackers, our platform captures these changes in real-time, enabling businesses to anticipate industry trends and adapt their strategies proactively—positioning them to capitalize on emerging shifts before they hit the mainstream.

Today, I would like to identify trends through two additional Suzy capabilities that may not be as familiar to all - Trackers and Subpopulations.

Suzy Trackers: Real-Time Insight into Microtrends

Trackers are powerful, ongoing research tools that capture changes and trends in key consumer metrics, helping brands monitor subtle but meaningful shifts in attitudes, behaviors, and preferences. A majority of trackers are some form of brand, category or campaign tracker, but brands can also benefit from topical trackers, where you measure ongoing consumer sentiment around specific topics, like Ozempic, inflation, or any emerging area of interest. Tracker insights are maximized when they’re conducted with Suzy for a number of reasons. Here’s what makes Suzy Trackers stand out:

Targeted Retargeting for Precision Insights

Because Suzy owns our own panel, we empower brands to retarget respondents between tracker waves to dig into any fluctuations in your tracker data wave over wave. This capability is largely impossible when it comes to traditional trackers, leaving researchers without means to understand the ‘why’ behind emerging trends, including potential microtrends. For instance, if a tracker reveals rising interest in sustainable packaging among eco-conscious Millennials, Suzy enables brands to re-engage respondents who answered in a specific way, whether it’s via further quant surveys, video open-ends, qual interviews, or focus groups. The ability to uncover the nuances and drivers behind shifts allows brands to spot and respond to microtrends as they emerge, ensuring they stay ahead rather than missing the wave.

Expertise and speed

Suzy’s Center of Excellence team brings industry-leading expertise to every brand, category, campaign or topical tracker, providing actionable recommendations wave-over-wave and delivering insights in record time. Again attributed to our proprietary panel that is exclusive to our platform, our tracker team can launch, field and analyze each wave of a tracker in as little as a couple of weeks. In contrast, traditional agencies can take months to get you the same results--but by the time wave data is delivered, the insights are already stale. Suzy’s agility is essential for catching early-stage trends and responding while they’re still emerging.

Unlocking Microtrends with Subpopulations in Data Explorer

Suzy’s Subpopulations feature empowers brands to define precise consumer groups by multi-layered criteria such as age, location, income, purchasing behaviors, attitudes, lifestyle choices, and more. Brands can leverage subpopulations when analyzing each wave of their tracker—like Gen Z, urbanites, eco-conscious consumers, or high-income early tech adopters. This ability to slice and dice your tracker data by highly influential groups enables brands to uncover emerging preferences and trends before they reach the mainstream.

Fuel Your Growth with Suzy’s Microtrend-Driven Insights

Suzy’s platform is designed to uncover and amplify the power of microtrends—those early, subtle shifts in consumer behavior that have the potential to reshape markets. By combining the real-time insights of Trackers with the precision of Subpopulations, we help brands identify emerging interests within key consumer segments, whether it’s Gen Z’s brand preferences, eco-conscious purchasing habits, or regional lifestyle shifts. Our unique approach to tracking, retargeting, and segmented analysis ensures that brands can stay agile, informed, and proactive. Let Suzy be your partner in discovering the microtrends that will shape tomorrow—connect with us to uncover your next big opportunity!

Discover Tomorrow’s Trends Today: Using Suzy to Identify Key Microtrends