Coolhunting: hip or square?
StreetCom is the first coolhunting firm in Warsaw, picking up on a youth-orientated marketing technique that has swept the USA. But, what with Poland's limited teenage market and the ever shortening shelf-life of fashions, will the hippest new trend in marketing research just be a short-lived fad?
Certainly Slawka Morusiewicz, an in-house public relations representative at Arkadius, believes that coolhunting - which seeks out young 'trend-selters' wearing the next fad before it catches on with the population as a whole - is not only a very useful marketing tool, but that it is in fact increasing in value and usefulness in today's youth-led market. Furthermore, she insists that Warsaw is a "very cool" city, where the market is ripe for coolhunting firms.
That said, though, Warsaw's marketing firms have yet to jump on the bandwagon. While Jacek Wlazło, strategic director at DDP Warsaw, affirms that coolhunting is a worthwhile tool, acknowledging that there is a definite demand for youth-orientated items, such as mobile phones, jeans and junk food, he sees the market as "very limited."
Coolhunters, so the logic goes, can provide insight into which product will sell to a specific youth market, aid in product development and predict the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. And it is this forward-looking aspect of coolhunting that has made it so attractive.
Coolhunting allows companies access to an expansive information source, detailing general future trends as opposed to relying on a smaller sample group, such as the CEO's adolescent son, or picking the brains of parents. America's Look-Look firm, for example, taps into a database of over 10,000 'cool kids' worldwide to give their clients the most reliable information possible.
However, some criticisms of the technique have begun to emerge. Complaints surround the idea that many coolhunters have a preconceived notion of what they are looking for, which taints their findings, and that coolhunters may compromise their findings in order to keep their pay masters happy.
Furthermore, in Poland, where there is arguably a more limited teenage market, the demand for such a service is questionable, as teen purchasing power is significantly less than in the West. And while, in time, this is likely to change, 'datamining,' whereby researches scour the Internet for the latest hip thing without having to traipse the streets for cool kids, is now threatening to supercede the technique.
Certainly Slawka Morusiewicz, an in-house public relations representative at Arkadius, believes that coolhunting - which seeks out young 'trend-selters' wearing the next fad before it catches on with the population as a whole - is not only a very useful marketing tool, but that it is in fact increasing in value and usefulness in today's youth-led market. Furthermore, she insists that Warsaw is a "very cool" city, where the market is ripe for coolhunting firms.
That said, though, Warsaw's marketing firms have yet to jump on the bandwagon. While Jacek Wlazło, strategic director at DDP Warsaw, affirms that coolhunting is a worthwhile tool, acknowledging that there is a definite demand for youth-orientated items, such as mobile phones, jeans and junk food, he sees the market as "very limited."
Coolhunters, so the logic goes, can provide insight into which product will sell to a specific youth market, aid in product development and predict the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. And it is this forward-looking aspect of coolhunting that has made it so attractive.
Coolhunting allows companies access to an expansive information source, detailing general future trends as opposed to relying on a smaller sample group, such as the CEO's adolescent son, or picking the brains of parents. America's Look-Look firm, for example, taps into a database of over 10,000 'cool kids' worldwide to give their clients the most reliable information possible.
However, some criticisms of the technique have begun to emerge. Complaints surround the idea that many coolhunters have a preconceived notion of what they are looking for, which taints their findings, and that coolhunters may compromise their findings in order to keep their pay masters happy.
Furthermore, in Poland, where there is arguably a more limited teenage market, the demand for such a service is questionable, as teen purchasing power is significantly less than in the West. And while, in time, this is likely to change, 'datamining,' whereby researches scour the Internet for the latest hip thing without having to traipse the streets for cool kids, is now threatening to supercede the technique.
