What is coolhunting?
For those of you who are not familiar, coolhunting refers to a breed of marketing, where ‘coolhunters’ make observations and predictions on changes of new or existing cultural trends.
The hunt is about finding the source of trends. The idea is that if you know where the source is, you can get a head start on creating a product or selling a product that becomes a part of that trend.
Coolhunting is identifying a certain type of social influence and using it to your advantage.
What is Kickstarter?
The platform allows creators the opportunity to create the universe and the culture that they dream of. These creators are like entrepreneurs, looking to create the product that they see a need or a want for.
Each project is independently created. The creator makes a page, creates the page content, and determines rewards to offer backers. Then they are able to launch and share their product with the Kickstarter community.
Since its initial launch in April of 2009, 104,081 projects have been successfully funded and 11 million people have backed a project.
What does coolhunting have to do with Kickstarter?
Marketers are always searching for trends of consumers.
Kickstarter is interesting (with respect to coolhunting) for the following reasons:
- You can see what people are interested in creating. Are there similarities between projects? What is lacking from products already in the market that makes these creators feel moved to create something new?
- You have access to a massive pool of consumer data. On Kickstarter you can browse through categories and see which types of products are being sponsored, and how many people within the Kickstarter community are interested in sponsoring a project.
- You can identify products that you can create. Maybe you identify a product that people are willing to sponsor, but that could still be improved upon. You get to see where people are headed and skip ahead a step or two.
What do you think?
What do you think about coolhunting on Kickstarter?
How should marketers be taking advantage of coolhunting?
References:
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/coolhunting.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/interviews/gladwell.html
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