Weekend camping in the suburbs and short-distance outdoor adventures are popular among young consumers. Photo: TUCHONG

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Research on young consumers is a rising trend in market analysis. Market research firms act as cultural intermediaries that define and produce cultural capital. By acquiring cultural capital, individuals differentiate themselves from other social strata. As creators and custodians of cultural capital, cultural intermediaries simultaneously produce and affirm their own status. 

This study examines a market research firm, anonymous in this report, as a quintessential cultural intermediary. The company combines products with “youth culture” branding to shape taste, generate demand, and ultimately stimulate consumption. Through its interactions with clients, consumers, and other stakeholders, the firm leverages its understanding of youth culture to establish its authority and define cultural taste. The company refers to this taste making as knowing what is “trendy” and drafts advertising narratives featuring “trendy” youth to attract young consumers. 

Two approaches 

Most sociological research on youth consumption focuses on the behaviors and psychology of young consumers, with less attention given to advertisers who work with this demographic. Sociological studies of advertising typically follow two main approaches. The first involves textual analysis, uncovering the ideologies embedded in advertising content. However, this type of research often applies a “post hoc critique” approach, analyzing ads after they have been created without delving into the production process itself. The second approach documents and describes the production process, as researchers adopt the perspective of cultural intermediaries to examine interactions between advertisers and other stakeholders during production. This study aims to bridge these two approaches, critically analyzing the advertising production process to better understand the position and influence of advertising producers. 

‘Trendy’ youth image formula 

The formula for “trendy” youth image, developed from field investigations, provides an analytical tool for studying youth cultural consumption from the perspective of advertising producers. This formula explores the roles played by stakeholders other than consumers. The formula is as follows: “‘Trendy’ Youth Image = (Target Product + In-Group Products) × Popular Culture.” In this formula, the image of “trendy” youth represents an idealized and aspirational portrait of young consumers constructed by the marketing company in its advertising campaigns. Target products are those manufactured by clients, intended to appeal to young consumers by aligning with youth culture to perform well in the market, such as sports drinks, beer, cosmetics, and electronic devices. “In-group products” refer to items commonly used within specific subcultural circles that also complement target products. For example, this market research company associates beer with rock music as a youth cultural theme. CDs then serve as in-group products connected to beer within the rock music subculture. Popular culture, as defined by the marketing company, refers to contemporary trends in youth culture, particularly in the intellectual or ideological dimensions, including ideas, values, and knowledge. 

Certain aspects of these ideas and values are unique to specific subcultures and can be termed “in-group popular culture.” In-group popular culture does not completely overlap with mainstream popular culture, leaving room for the company to make distinctions. For instance, racial struggles in rap culture may not align with mainstream popular culture in China, but emphasis on giving voice to the voiceless does reflect current mainstream trends among the young Chinese. Both target products and in-group products must be integrated with popular culture; this integration process is encapsulated by the “×” in the formula, meaning that products must be culturally “wrapped” to resonate with the audience. 

Definition of ‘trendy’ 

The company typically goes through three phases: defining, identifying, and constructing “trendiness.” The first step, defining, involves both definition and judgment. During this phase, the company decides what constitutes “trendiness” based on its own criteria, then it matches a target product with a specific youth culture, and explains the rationale to the client, completing the initial alignment between the target product and a particular cultural domain. This step is represented by the formula: “Target Product × In-Group Popular Culture.” 

In the identifying phase, the company conducts market research to determine which in-group products are currently popular within the selected youth culture. At the same time, it transforms elements of in-group culture into aspects of mainstream popular culture. This process is formulated as: “In-Group Products × Mainstream Popular Culture.” 

Finally, in the constructing phase, the marketing firm incorporates its findings into an advertising design plan, creating a “trendy” youth image. This constructed image depicts youth who not only consume both in-group and target products but also embody and engage with mainstream popular culture, ultimately exemplifying in the final “trendy” youth formula. 

Matching a ‘niche’ market 

During the advertising production process, the company’s first step is to identify the “trendy” cultural niche that aligns with the target product. The concept of a “niche,” commonly used in marketing, is similar to the sociological term “affinity groups.” Once the client proposes the target product and their collaboration intentions, the company begins screening its cultural database for “trendy” cultural niches that meet the client’s criteria. For example, a sports drink may need to be associated with youth sports culture, but the client might want to move away from conventional sports like basketball or soccer. After research and evaluation, options such as “mountain culture,” skateboarding, and street dance might emerge as potential “trendy” niches. 

One case study involves the “mountain culture” trend. This niche is typified by ideas like closeness to nature, environmentalism, and urban escape, with activities such as weekend camping in the suburbs and short-distance outdoor adventures. This trend has inspired consumer products like clothing, gear, and tents, typically purchased by urban young professionals. The company sees outdoor exploration as a possible outlet for sports drinks and finds it more distinctive than mainstream sports. 

After determining the cultural niche, the company works to redefine the existing or “old” trend into a “new” trend, demonstrating to the client that the chosen cultural niche has strong commercial potential when paired with the target product. First, the company uses its cultural capital to prove the popularity of the chosen niche, showing that the combination of the target product and the niche’s popular culture can achieve broad cultural recognition among consumers. Next, the company presents successful marketing cases or consumption scenarios to demonstrate the compatibility of the target product with the niche’s culture cache, proving that this integration can lead to commercial success. For instance, a snack brand connected itself to the street dance culture by sponsoring a popular dance competition, which was a tremendous commercial success. 

In the defining phase, the company focuses on augmenting the “trendiness” of a popular phenomenon, which manifests across both cultural and consumer dimensions. As a market research firm, the company captures fashionable and cutting-edge trends within youth culture, ensuring that the cultural niche selected for the client’s target product is trendy but not overly mainstream or cliché. 

‘Trendy’ youth group contributions 

After matching the target product with the appropriate cultural niche, the marketing company shifts its focus to the “trendy” youth group within that niche. It identifies “old” trends in the in-group’s popular culture and refocuses on the mainstream popular culture, transforming the cultural capital of the selected niche and enriching the “new trend” to better align with the target product. In the process of identifying “trendy” youth, this company defines the “new trend” as “In-Group Products × Mainstream Popular Culture” and aims to reshape in-group popular culture. By adding a target product, the marketing company retains branding aspects that overlap with mainstream culture while discarding or transforming the unique elements of in-group culture into mainstream popular culture. 

Then, the company recruits “trendy” youth who are deeply immersed in the selected cultural niche and have rich experiences with in-group popular culture and consumption. In the name of “collaborative brand planning,” these “trendy” youth are invited, along with the client, to a focus group or “offline workshop,” where they are generously compensated to share their consumer behaviors and cultural perspectives. The marketing company then highlights or upgrades elements of in-group popular culture that align with mainstream trends. For example, it expands notions like “lying flat, the rat race, and emotional expression” into broader themes such as “the independent and autonomous self-awareness of contemporary youth,” or reframes “rural reconstruction and localism” as “a call for order and collectivity in the context of individualization.” 

For in-group cultural elements that are outdated or unsuitable, the marketing company discards or rebrands the ideas into expressions relevant to current mainstream norms. For instance, in the context of mountain culture, the concept of “unity between humanity and nature” is not considered up-to-date. In this case, the company rephrases it into ideas like “stepping outdoors” or “intermittent escapes,” catering to contemporary social realities and cultural trends. 

While the defining phase focuses on augmenting the popularity of “trendiness,” the identifying phase ensures that “trendiness” constantly reflects an avant-garde reality. Through a precise understanding of the era’s social characteristics and ethos, the company infuses its products with forward-thinking attributes, resulting in a profound grasp of prevailing mainstream cultural ideas. 

In the phase for constructing “trendiness,” the company integrates target products, in-group products, and mainstream popular culture by designing and crafting the “trendy” youth image in advertisements. This process aims to achieve the ideal form of “new trendiness” to guide consumer behavior. The first step is to create an advertising scenario where target products coexist with in-group products. The second step is embed mainstream popular culture into this scenario, primarily through the “trendy” youth image. 

The “trendy” youth image is based on real individuals from various cultural niches. The company extracts and refines these prototypes into an “ideal type.” When the ideal is compared to its inspiration, it becomes clear that the transformed youth image merges the best elements from multiple sources. For consumers, who are also the audience for the advertisement, this image is both familiar and unfamiliar. It reflects aspects of their own experiences while introducing novel features, which is precisely why it can effectively guide consumption. 

As a cultural intermediary, the company actively participates in advancing projects and reshaping youth culture. First, cultural intermediaries establish their expertise not by directly addressing consumers but by gaining recognition from clients. Second, they not only define and transport culture but also transform and create it. Their ability to identify, reshape, and produce “trendy” culture gives them influence over a wide range of consumption scenarios. 

The challenges for future research on youth consumption include how to balance the perspectives of producers and consumers, and how to advance critical studies of the social structures underlying advertising. It is crucial to address these issues to deepen our understanding of youth consumption and its cultural implications. 

Jiang Ruzhang is from the Center for Studies of Sociological Theory and Method at Renmin University of China. 

Edited by WANG YOURAN