Thursday, December 15, 2011

The Demographics of Cool

Last week Harward Business Review had an article titled "The Demographics of Cool". It talks well about the waves that really make some products to become cool and how the message is distributed. Basically the question is about the fact that no longer can advertising lecture or dictate to customers; marketing to the group conversation must be seamlessly incorporated. Basically social media enhances the fact that once in the hands of the tastemakers, consumers gravitates en masse to the seller's offerings. Below is a video with more about this in the form of an interview.



This demographics of cool is a devolution away from segmentation of smart cross-cultural or multicultural marketing strategy. As a society, the western cultures are more and more melted culturally, and the meaningful identity is changing according to the situation you are at the moment. The categories are not relevant anymore and the identity is evermore complex.

Still, the demographics of cool is more than just trying to define a new meaning for demographics. Steve Stoute is arguing that out of hip-hop, a new culture has emerged, one "shared mental complexion" that no demographics can capture. Age, race and income don't matter. Only the mind-set matters. 34-old Indian bluecollar worker, 16-year old high school kid from the UK and 45-year old whitecollar from Japan worker are all the same demographics. In the modern world, urban has nothing to with place or race and everything to with attitude.

iPod 6G | Silhouette

These consumers, choose what becomes cool and, more crucially, decide when something isn't cool anymore. Remember the champage Cristal's fall from grace, just because Jay-Z said so? When the importance is the psychologic, the demographic data and quantitative research become meaningless. Because when you define a market by how people in it think, not by who's in it, the definition process is far mor complex and expensive.

Just think of the Apple iPod's now-iconic silhouetted hipsters sporting white earbuds, striking poses. You can't tell if those silhouettes are 18 or 34 years old, rich or poor, black, white or asian, from Helsinki or from Tokyo. All you know for sure is that they're cool!

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Christmas Calendar is Here!

Publishzer is going to publish a Christmas calendar for this festive season 2011. The calendar will be in finnish, as it is a testbed for some advertising features and the results will be published on January. I strongly believe that this kind of advertising will be highly valuable, as part of the content.

In the calendar, you'll find a magazine for each day leading to Christmas eve. There will be videos, photos, christmasrecipes and gift ideas. So go and check it out AND please follow the calendar facebook page.

Below is embedded the latest calendar, updated daily:

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Are kids more tech savvy than parents?

Most, meaning 90%, of the parents think that they are more internet-savvy than their kids. But are they? In this video Lydia Leavitt and Leila Makki went out to find out.