One of the fundamental conundrums facing marketers trying to reach the young adult market is that what’s cool instantly becomes uncool once big business gets involved. And in an age when social media has broadened the definition of word of mouth, people in their 20s and early 30s are able to share information about cool bars, restaurants, bands and brands in closed circles of communication.
Take Zane Kelsall and Tara MacDonald, for example. The co-owners of the cafe Two If By Sea have established a hub of cool in historically unhip downtown Dartmouth. They estimate that about half of their customers are adults under 35. This young adult base wasn’t built through advertising. Instead, Kelsall and MacDonald have built an online community using Facebook and Twitter. They’ve also leveraged Dartmouth’s underdog status with buttons and T-shirts that read “I (heart symbol) Dartmouth.” The buttons and shirts, once an odd curiosity, are now badges certifying that the wearer knows about a happening little place off the beaten path.
Once a path to cool has been beaten, though, it’s never long before a larger marketer comes along trying to retrace the footsteps. Kelsall laughs as he relates the story of a coffee company that tried to decipher the Two If By Sea strategy.
“Their ad guys came in here, taking pictures and everything. They asked me all these questions like, ‘Your menu’s so small. How did you come upon anti-choice as a theme for your restaurant?’ I showed them the door.” Though it confounded their corporate visitors, Kelsall and MacDonald knew that their appeal wasn’t based on some kind of marketing algorithm. The way they reached out to customers mirrored how they found out about cool stuff when they arrived in town.
“When I first moved here a couple of years ago, it was just message boards,” says Kelsall, who says he frequented the website HalifaxLocals.com. “And then networking through an event that you hear about and people you meet.”
MacDonald, who moved to Halifax in 2008, agrees that true coolhunting is an informal endeavour. “I mainly relied on local people,” she says. “This person works there, so you go there, and it just sort of expands.”
One of the spots young Haligonians reliably congregate is the seaside farmer’s market. “You go there to be seen,” MacDonald explains. Kelsall chimes in his agreement. “Everyone sees everyone Saturday morning at the market, and they all know what’s going on that night,” he says.
MacDonald, a former promotions, tour and band manager with Toronto-based independent record label Arts & Crafts, knows how difficult it can be for marketers to enter these circles. She recalls being hired by music management company S.L. & Associates because “they thought I was cool.”
“You felt like knowledge was power, and a lot of the bigwigs knew nothing,” MacDonald says. That statement applies to more than just the music industry. Coolhunting is often more like shadow-chasing, and the hip kids are most likely to be wherever marketers aren’t looking.
