Ricerca scientifica e ricerca di mercato. Sinergie e conflitti tra campo accademico e campo del coolhunting

Within the market research it has been developed, in recent years, a set of research techniques inspired by sociology and anthropology, known as coolhunting or trend research. The aim of coolhunting is to intercept and document emerging trends in consumers’ lifestyles, providing the enterprises with reports containing guidelines for planning future production and communication. Starting from an empirical investigation based on 43 in-depth interviews to the professionals engaged in trends prediction, together with a participant observation of the Dutch agency Science of the Time’s activities, the paper tries to identify: (1) the methodological features of coolhunting and its links to the non-standard social research; (2) the relationship between coolhunting and academic field: on the one hand, the benefits that coolhunting obtains from the academic research (especially the symbolic legitimation); on the other, its potential advantages for an employ in the explorative social research.