Buying Cool..

A recent Advertising Age article discusses how marketing and advertising agency executives spent $2,500 to spend the day with super hip, trend setting youth (aged 16 to 29). The Trend School is a monthly 1 day forum organized by Creative Artist Agency's Intelligence Group at New York's Soho House.

These communications professionals spend all day learning about these cutting edge youth, what they are into, and what drives them.

The idea is that by spending time with these youth, executives will be able to pick up on cutting edge trends and bring them back to their clients. By actually spending time with their clientèle, these professionals are supposed to better understand what motivates these youth to purchase.

My question is "Why haven't these executives been doing this all along?" If I have learned only one thing in my marketing and public relations classes, it is that you need to know who you are communicating with in order to do an effective job. No marketing executive worth their salary should attend something like this "Trend School" and find it eye opening.