The Search for Cool
Summary for Video Hunting for Good as seen on Frontline
This video was about how to market to the teenagers in today’s society. Market Researchers focused on how to market “cool” to teenagers. A Market Researcher is someone who studies market conditions to find the best way to reach the local/regional/group they are marketing to. They found that the teen population is now the largest teen population ever (around 32 million). Because of this large population they are spending more money in the market than their parents. Teens spend around 100 billion dollars annually and their parents only spend 50 billion dollars. Parents are providing more money as guilt money since they are unable to spend enough time with their children. Due to this large amount of spending it is the reason why marketing has targeted teens. Teens see an average of 3,000 ads for merchandise a year and over a period of 18 years that equals to 10 million ads that they have seen. Marketing strategists have discovered that if they understand how teens feel and think that it will keep them engaged to what they are trying to market to them. The problem they have is that “cool” keeps changing. This line of thinking has emerged a new profession in marketing called Cool hunters. Cool hunters are people who look for teens that are the popular kids and ones that are ahead of the game in regards to music fashion and forward thinking. They look for the 20% of the teen population that are the trend setters to research cool. These kids are typically the leader within their own group of friends. The irony of cool hunting is that it looks for the underground trend, bring it to the masses and then kill the trend that was “cool” to start with. As soon as marketers discover cool it stops being cool. With this new marketing strategy in place people in the marketing industry had to change how they market their products. They market to kids without seeming to do so, become cool themselves.
This video was about how to market to the teenagers in today’s society. Market Researchers focused on how to market “cool” to teenagers. A Market Researcher is someone who studies market conditions to find the best way to reach the local/regional/group they are marketing to. They found that the teen population is now the largest teen population ever (around 32 million). Because of this large population they are spending more money in the market than their parents. Teens spend around 100 billion dollars annually and their parents only spend 50 billion dollars. Parents are providing more money as guilt money since they are unable to spend enough time with their children. Due to this large amount of spending it is the reason why marketing has targeted teens. Teens see an average of 3,000 ads for merchandise a year and over a period of 18 years that equals to 10 million ads that they have seen. Marketing strategists have discovered that if they understand how teens feel and think that it will keep them engaged to what they are trying to market to them. The problem they have is that “cool” keeps changing. This line of thinking has emerged a new profession in marketing called Cool hunters. Cool hunters are people who look for teens that are the popular kids and ones that are ahead of the game in regards to music fashion and forward thinking. They look for the 20% of the teen population that are the trend setters to research cool. These kids are typically the leader within their own group of friends. The irony of cool hunting is that it looks for the underground trend, bring it to the masses and then kill the trend that was “cool” to start with. As soon as marketers discover cool it stops being cool. With this new marketing strategy in place people in the marketing industry had to change how they market their products. They market to kids without seeming to do so, become cool themselves.