Sarah | Trend & Digital Strategy Consultant, Rébellion

Sarah is a 2019 Alumna from the Marketing and Society Master's program. She now works as Trend and Digital Strategy Consultant at Rébellion. She talks about her missions within the strategy division, the integrated trend office of the agency, Trends For Change.

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR CAREER PATH SO FAR? WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS PROFESSION?

Before becoming a consultant, I wanted to explore different jobs that revolve around trends: collection development (L'Oréal), trend office, design/color creation department (Vans in the United States) and digital content monitoring and analysis institute (Linkfluence).

This allowed me to forge strong convictions on the importance of trend observatories but also on the urgency to modernize prospective approaches by incorporating social network data and digital culture. In my opinion, approaching the latter is not about "data", it is above all about immersing oneself in a granular, extremely rich, creative, and immersive world, a powerful entry point in words and images for creative and marketing strategies.

At Rebellion, we constantly combine socio-cultural anchoring and the pulse of users through social media data. With this methodology, I can identify emerging signals/trends, new talent to follow, themes, and societal values in specific markets. In this way, we can provide a consumer anchor for both advertising strategies but also for innovation, marketing, and design.

WHAT SKILLS DO YOU THINK ARE ESSENTIAL FOR YOUR JOB?

I discovered the discipline of social listening during one of my courses in the Master's program in Marketing and society and I made it my job. Taught by Guilhem Fouétillou, the course "Insight Mining ou l’écoute du web social" allowed me to become passionate about a new way of approaching web trends and data.

In my daily life, the ability to analyze and synthesize are key skills that I developed at Sciences Po. They are useful to me on a daily basis. Knowing how to synthesize and choose to highlight certain elements rather than others is crucial with data. Understanding sociological mechanisms is also very important in my job. Whether it's for targeting or prospecting strategies, everything starts with a close observation of the human being, whether he is the precursor of a trend, whether he follows it or amplifies it.

Being confident in your ideas, fighting for your convictions through oral or written communication is also fundamental to my work. Communicating well and arguing your ideas as we were taught at Sciences Po with our little timed presentations served as a basis for me to get my ideas across effectively.

Finally, as the web is an international language, my various academic and professional stays in the United States allow me to navigate without any problem in a very Anglo-Saxon semantic universe.

CAN YOU SHARE AN EXAMPLE OF A CONCRETE PROJECT YOU'VE DONE?

For almost a year, we have been working with Decathlon's Pulse team, which is part of the design department (in charge of monitoring societal changes and emerging practices to feed the company's brands). We have created for them a custom-made trend watch to inspire the multi-disciplinary teams (product design, innovation, brand, retail, comm....). Now, we are working with them on the inspirations that will feed the Spring-Summer 2024 season... an important time for the brand as it will be the official partner of the 2024 Olympic Games.

Working on this watch is exciting. Our search for inspiration goes far beyond the sectoral framework. We draw from the world of art, fashion, and traditional and popular culture, as well as digital culture.

Thanks to the real-time analysis of social networks and the web, I was able to bring a very strong user pulse to bring Decathlon closer to the aspirations of tomorrow.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT YOUR JOB?

The constant novelty, the creativity of my missions, and the possibility to push my feeling of the times further. This motivates me every day and pushes me to be more curious. The analysis of social networks and the web makes me discover every day new artists, talents, and emerging signals that make us vibrate. To know where and what to look at / propose to our clients, I appreciate the fact that there is no magic or automated recipe as we often believe. The eye and the brain work simultaneously in front of a universe of photographs and semantics. Intuitions and crossed views on the data come to perfect the choices, and enrich the expertise.

WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING?

When our mission is to scan for new and emerging trends, people often think that it is the constant monitoring that challenges us the most. But that's not what's most challenging. Our eyes get used to it as our expertise builds. The most challenging part is to create a relationship of trust and co-creation with our clients. We never propose the same recipes. We must make choices to advise them in the best way possible. We propose trends and innovations that will take them further while respecting their brand history and culture. It's all about balance, personalization, and co-construction.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO STUDENTS INTERESTED IN DIGITAL MARKETING?

Always go beyond the macro numbers and signs to look, explore, and identify what will soon replace these dynamics.

You must believe in your creativity and your intuitions, in the world of data this is crucial because it will always be impossible to see, read and analyze everything.