Trend spotter - Barbara Coulon of Youth Intelligence tells how she found her dream job - Brief Article

CosmoGirl!, Dec, 2001

barbara coulon

A step-by-step guide to scoring your dream job.

Her gig: She's vice president of trends at Youth Intelligence, a company that figures out what trends young people will be into before they hit the mainstream. With her team, she helps clients use the info to create products, ads, and promotions.

How she got started: "Trend spotting as a field has existed for about 20 years but has only taken off in the last few years, so when I was younger, I didn't know this is where I'd end up. After I graduated from college (I studied art and business), I got a job at an ad agency as a research assistant. One of my duties was to ask consumers which ads worked for them. I learned that to market something, you have to find out what the people you're targeting think. When the woman I worked for started Youth Intelligence, she hired me to create surveys and scout trends."

Daily grind: "I don't have a set routine, but I do always read the paper and tons of magazines. Once a month, I travel to Miami, Seattle, L.A., or another city where trends start. I go to record stores, restaurants, and flea markets, looking for people ages 14 to 30 who are doing quirky (not mainstream) stuff. I ask them about their favorite musicians, magazines, clothes, and what they enjoy doing. Then I study their answers to look for patterns, and report them in our newsletter."

The secret of her success: "You have to be interested in other people, and want to talk to them about what they're wearing and doing, and what's important to them. So you can't be shy."

your career road map

Sponge up information:

Pop culture, politics, and the stock market all affect people's buying habits, so read newspapers (The Wall street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today) and as many magazines as you can, including one entertainment magazines as you can, including one entertainment magazine (like Entertainment Weekly or Rolling Stone) and a gossip magazine (like The National Enquirer). Read business trade publications like Advertising Age and Marketing Week to get familiar with consumer buying behavior. Go to Web sites like dailycandy.com, popaci.com, pagesix.com, and citysearch.com for the latest pop culture news in trend setting cities. Watch TV (all of the new shows and the news). see the latest movies, and listen to new music. Try to hane in on what's grabbing people's attention now.

Practice trend spotting: Get a notebook with folders in it, and save any newspaper or magazine articles about people's buying habits. At trendy spots in your town, ask people questions like these. What things are you buying? What thing are you buying? What magazines do you like? What's important to you now that wasn't six months ago? Write it all down. Each month over the course of a year, see if you can find common treads.

Do something "trendy" after school: Write a trend column for your school paper or get a part-time job working retail, which lets you study what people buy and when, Or put your trend diary to work E-mail Youth Intelligence with updates on youth behaviors in your area. You can send your reports to into@youth inteligence.com. (Be sure to put "cosmoGIRL" as your subject.)

Study hard: In college, take journalism (to learn to interview), psychology (to find outwhat makes people tick), and busines classes (to learn how companies tailor their products to consumer demand). "There's no exact major for this career," says Barbara. "I got a liberal arts education, and included lots of business courses."