{"id":2251,"date":"2011-01-08T03:21:42","date_gmt":"2011-01-08T03:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=2251"},"modified":"2011-01-08T03:21:42","modified_gmt":"2011-01-08T03:21:42","slug":"need-new-product-success-get-hipsters-and-a-revolving-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/need-new-product-success-get-hipsters-and-a-revolving-door\/","title":{"rendered":"Need New Product Success? Get Hipsters and a Revolving Door"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK, so you\u2019ve got this product that you need to market, so that it\u2019s \u2018cool\u2019, so that it takes off like all those other hip items that you just had to have, the iPad, iPod, tablet, etc.. \u00a0I mean look at the iPod, it\u2019s just a music player, yet for a time everybody had to have one, it became de rigueur to the max. And then you look at that Steve Jobs fellow and you think, yeah he\u2019s got it. Went up against the might of Microsoft with a closed operating system, with a box that continues to be twice as expensive as anything else and yet he\u2019s making a killing.<\/p>\n

\"\"So you\u2019re looking at your marketing guys and you\u2019re thinking, maybe I should dress them up in some naff looking skivvy or polo neck jumper (in black, of course) like Jobs. But you know that won\u2019t work. So, you realize you need to hire someone a little different, someone with an edge, someone like\u2026an authentic hipster \u00a0– to infuse a counter culture in your marketing department.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the first lesson of being hip, or a hipster if you must: it means\u00a0going against the current trend,<\/strong>\u00a0it means being self-consciously anti- whatever it is that\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

When they asked James Dean what he was rebelling against he replied \u2018What have you got?\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"That means, paradoxically,\u00a0whoever\u2019s a hipster today ain\u2019t gonna be tomorrow<\/strong>. Gonna be hard to write that wanted ad isn\u2019t it? A hipster, according to some sources, is someone who is young, middle-class with interests in non-mainstream styles, tastes and behaviors. And hiring one is a very conscious choice: they\u2019re going to be wearing clothes that were in fashion fifty years ago, glasses you once wouldn\u2019t be seen dead in, and with tastes that are intentionally obscure (if everyone\u2019s into it then it\u2019s no longer hip). But, get this, they know it\u2019s uncool \u2013 there\u2019s this complicity \u2013 like it\u2019s really bad taste, and we know that, ha ha!<\/p>\n

I think that in a society that\u2019s increasingly homogenized, marketed to the point of saturation, largely in agreement with its own values and tastes,\u00a0the hipster credo becomes a necessary antidote<\/strong>. It\u2019s no surprise that these people came into being around the 1950\u2019s, after we had won the war and saw a wave of prosperity that seemed to promise everything and in the end seemed empty, devoid of meaning and delivered nothing. We\u2019re looking for something real to fill that void, and if we can\u2019t find it at least we\u2019ll look cool disparaging everything else.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe hipster credo becomes a necessary antidote\u201d<\/em>Anyway here are your tips for hipster startup employees:<\/p>\n

You definitely need a hipster<\/strong>. You need someone who\u2019s going to be the\u00a0absolute\u00a0early adopter with the (potentially) current trend in consumer products; all those endless gadgets we think we have to have now; your hipster will tell you what we need tomorrow. (As he would have already cracked open the products to\u00a0dissect\u00a0it\u2019s insides) \u00a0Whatever product you\u2019re creating should be different then the current trend: think miniature (like wristwatch) HD TV or social networking site where you never actually connect with anyone else or where the goal is to be really unpopular (except with the other really unpopular people). It must be simple yet technologically of-the-moment: these people aren\u2019t entirely vapid and foolish, particularly when it comes to shiny accessories.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a style thing<\/strong>, but there\u2019ll be no particular style which you can point at. Rather they\u2019ll have adopted whatever countercultural style has existed for the past 50 years while at the same time discarding whatever it stood for. Who is Che Guevara anyway \u2013 a t-shirt manufacturer? What does punk and grunge mean in an age when you can record, in perfect digital fidelity, noise?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t expect too much work from your hipster employee. In fact, I wouldn\u2019t even set up that cubicle. You want them out and about in the world soaking up fashion and trends so that they can reject them in a humorous and ironic fashion. This is where you need to take note. Call them in once a year: carefully examine what they\u2019re wearing, using and doing. Don\u2019t listen to them just take note of the main elements of their \u2019style\u2019. Move fast and base your product on this analysis. And then hire another hipster \u2013 cause after that they\u2019ll be hopelessly out of the loop. \u00a0[I am kidding about the\u00a0don’t expect too much work from them<\/em>. The idea is that they will work, and hard for that matter, but WON’T punch in 9-5pm.\u00a0They are going to work when they want. So let them<\/strong>]<\/p>\n

Anyway, in all this, the bottom line is that\u00a0a hipster is someone who can bring a\u00a0dynamic\u00a0perspective to your team.<\/strong>\u00a0Their counterculteral views can be a the magical potion you need to take the market by storm.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Renee Warren<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, so you\u2019ve got this product that you need to market, so that it\u2019s \u2018cool\u2019, so that it takes off like all those other hip items that you just had to have, the iPad, iPod, tablet, etc.. \u00a0I mean look at the iPod, it\u2019s just a music player, yet for a time everybody had to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,313],"tags":[934,935,931,933,102,932,287],"class_list":["post-2251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-reneewarren","tag-counterculture","tag-dynamic","tag-hipster","tag-new-products","tag-perspective","tag-recruiting","tag-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2251"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2258,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions\/2258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}