Jason Pickar

Marketing Research: Don’t believe the hype (hoo-oo-yea-a-ha-ha)

27 04 2007

Last week, MediaPost printed results from some Gen-Y research. There’s a sweet sweet list of the top 15 brands according to 100 of the most trend-forward individuals. Wow…100 people! And they’re trendsetters so I have to believe them! First of all, here are 15 of the top brands (note, this was before the whole Jet Blue fiasco, but I’m still down with Jet Blue. Sure I may have to wait a long long LONG time, but hey - DirecTV!):

1. Apple
2. Trader Joe’s
3. Jet Blue
4. In-N-Out Burger
5. Ben & Jerry’s
6. Whole Foods
7. Adidas
8. American Apparel
9. Target
10. H & M clothing stores
11. Levi’s
12. Volkswagen
13. Converse
14. Vitamin Water
15. Red Stripe Jamaican beer

Alright, cool I can accept most of these. Sure, Levi’s seems out of place but OK. Now, lets look in depth at one specific case: Trader Joe’s. Now, as a part of Generation Y (Really? Generation Y? That’s the best we could do? REALLY?!), I’m down with Joe’s because I can always get food that I can’t really find anywhere else, I feel like I’m supporting smaller distributors, and all in all the quality of the food is pretty damn high. The chance to support smaller companies and farms follows that pesky cultural trend toward a Greener lifestyle - makes sense, right?

Apparently not. Apparently, I’m supposed to like Trader Joe’s because “the company has a dorky newsletter and makes their employees wear silly Hawaiian shirts.” WHAT?! I don’t go grocery shopping because of HAWAIIAN SHIRTS! Are they kidding? I can just imagine the interviewer - “You like Trader Joe’s? They wear Hawaiian shirts, do you like that?” Come on, give me a break.

Ever since I watched that video about “coolhunting” in both my sociology and marketing communications classes back in college, I’ve been skeptical about the results of Marketing Research. Well, not just because of that video, but work with me here. They were finding the cool trendsetters, you know, like the guy that stopped who was wearing a gasmask. I kid you not, he was an example of a trendsetter. Because gasmasks have been really trendy recently. Well, maybe in…no, I’m gonna hold back from making an Iraq joke.)

What’s the point? Yes, these brands are popular. Many are popular because of the culture within their corporation that then leads to better customer experiences. We shouldn’t look at research and then claim that “they also responded to brands that they saw as ‘dorky’ but ‘totally themselves.’” Let’s use our brains here - it’s not that brands are dorky (hawaiian shirts are dorky? Oh crap…) The brands listed strive for authenticity: that uber-important buzzword that means the brands aren’t bullshitting the consumers, or at least aren’t appearing to. They’re looking at cultural trends and entrenching themselves within different cultural groups - and that’s great.

Come on MediaPost, don’t believe the hype (hooo-wa-yea-yea-ha or however that should truly be spelled). (Yeeeeeeeeya booooyeeeeee.)