Cool hunting is when the track what is cool. They used cool hunters to try and identify trendsetters and get ahead of them. That's kind of a risky thing to do since you can't really tell for sure whether or not something will become a trend. But they seem to be confident in this strategy, I mean they said that they are able to train these people so that they can identify a trendsetter. I guess that something big to look for is the fact that trendsetters dress differently than what is popular. It just depends on how different it is and whether people are willing to go that kind of different. Sometimes the things that are 'in' aren't really that different. I might be a change from what was currently popular, but these styles cycle through and it could have been really popular decades ago. The biggest one that I can think of is mom jeans. Other times it might be something that is actually new hasn't ever been the main trend, but even then I think that it would still draw from past styles.
The paradox with companies trying to sell cool to teens is that once they discovered it, it stopped being cool. There are a couple of reasons that this happens. The first problem is that they could have just been too late. Trends are always temporary and have changed, but now, they seem to be changing even faster than before. Companies tried to fix this by getting ahead of the trends. One way you could see this is by them sending out cool hunters. Another problem for companies is that when teens are aware that they are trying to sell cool to them, that drives them away. It can't be obvious that they are targeting teens. Instead, they have to mask it by making it seem like they get them and understand that teens don't want that. That is why anti-market marketing seemed to work for a while, until it became obvious that was also a marketing strategy.
I agree with what you have said in your blog. I was thinking the same thing as you since there are trends from the past that have come back to present time and although they became a trend they quickly faded since we all know trends are temporary. Something that came back and lasted for a while were scarf headbands. They really took our school by storm since they were not really common then the next day boom! there were many girls wearing them. Since they became such a trend last year many companies produced many scarf headbands with different patterns that may appeal to teens in high school. I think companies took advantage and hopped onto this bandwagon by using cool hunters which allowed companies to get an insight into the life of a teenager and what a teen might think is cool without particularly asking them face to face. Instead they took a defensive approach in simply observing what teens happen to be wearing. This might have allowed many companies to make big profits. Even though the companies may have made profit it did not last since that trend died out a few months after it started so I think that this might have happened since teens started to notice companies selling cool to them. Which in turn could have caused them to not buy or wear them anymore. Overall I really enjoyed reading your blog.
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