This Just In

“CONSUMERS DON’T MARCH IN LOCKSTEP ANYMORE.”

So announces a promotional mailing I just got, hyping a marketing-tips book that “draws lessons from today’s most interesting trends and countertrends.” The book is called The Hummer and The Mini, and that title is meant to suggest how, in today’s modern world, “every category now has many next big things — and they often contradict each other.”

The Hummer isn’t really doing that well right now, but still: Things sure have changed since, say, the 1960s, when some consumers were buying Cadillacs and others bought VW Bugs — “in lockstep,” of course.