Commentary

RAM: Look-Look Buzz-Buzz

When it comes to tracking the ever-shifting tastes of young hipsters, focus groups are so over. Look-Look, a Los Angeles-based youth-market research firm founded by Sharon Lee and Dee Dee Gordon, takes pride in its ability to stay up to date with the country's most viable market. So how do they do it?

"We feel that a focus group is an artificial setting," explains Brandy Fons, Look-Look's spokeswoman, adding, "We try to have meaningful conversations with our audience and their peers in their natural environment to gain honest insight."

Look-Look has spent the better part of a decade building an online youth network of people aged 17 to 35. Look-Look now employs this virtual army of 35,000 to research, advertise, and even package their clients' products and services.

When Look-Look clients such as Calvin Klein or Lucky magazine want to create buzz about a new product, network members start creating blogs and designing packaging. In fact, it was Look-Look's network that approved the name of Calvin Klein's scent Crave. What better way to reach the tween, teen, and young adult markets than to have them promote their own products?

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