How can marketers identify marketplace trends? Discuss the various methods available for identifying trends.

Forecasting,data mining,and futuring are the three primary methods used to identify trends in the marketplace.Forecasting involves looking at past and current data or behavior to identify trends that can be expected to extend into the future.Data mining involves searching through available information to detect relationships among behaviors or to identify original descriptions of consumption phenomena.In particular,data mining is the "extraction of interesting (nontrivial,implicit,previously unknown and potentially useful)patterns or knowledge from huge amounts of data." Futuring extends basic forecasting by considering longer time frames,incorporating a broader set of tools (including qualitative and speculative judgment),and looking not only at where trends in past and current data are headed,but also at what might disrupt those trends.