Street Trends: How Today's Alternative Youth Cultures Are Creating Tomorrow's Mainstream [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Janine Lopiano-misdom (Author), Joanne De Luca (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Few age groups are more prized by the corporate world--and more difficult to reach--than the teens and twentysomethings who make up the free-spending, free-minded youth market. Street Trends: How Today's Alternative Youth Cultures Are Creating Tomorrow's Mainstream Markets offers an informed view of the members of this transitory cohort, and in so doing helps businesspeople better understand this independent audience. Authors Janine Lopiano-Misdom and Joanne De Luca, cofounders of a group that monitors these cutting-edge "tribes," provide an illuminating and perceptive look behind the thinking that often shapes widespread trends. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"Street Trends is necessary investment for any company that takes the selling of its product seriously." -- --Stacy Spikes, director of marketing, October Films

"A good window into the mind-set of today's youth and what they will be doing tomorrow." -- Paul Fireman, CEO, Reebok International

"Even more admirable than their prescient ability to decipher the notions of today's (and tomorrow's) young adults is their rare ability to translate these subtle cues into valuable marketing truths. Capturing these insights into a cohesive business strategy is critical to success for every company in the next decade, the next century." -- John Rollins, group publisher, Vibe and Spin magazines

"Required reading for businesses marketing to today's complex young consumer...Shows marketers not just what the trends actually are, but how to understand them. A true educational source on youth culture." -- vice president of marketing and development, Burlington Industries

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; illustrated edition edition (August 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887309291
• ISBN-13: 978-0887309298
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,186,572 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Little outdated, mixed feelings, August 7, 2007

By	Mad Max (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

2.5 stars

First, I will agree with the previous reviewer - this book was self-aggrandizement on the part of the authors.

This affected the content of the book in several ways. The book did read, in parts, like a "pitch" for their services. Also, I am always a bit distrustful of authors who admit they are holding back information, in an attempt to sell you more at a higher rate, at a later date. This, incidentally, made the book a bit "thin". It also upset me just a bit that the Gen-X authors would sell out their generation to huge corporations (it was obvious to me that they were trying to land a big client - not just share their observations about young people). And yes, it was a bit generalized. It seems that they wanted a book simply to justify their careers, without caring much about the quality or content of that book.

Also, please realize this book is a bit outdated. Some of the information is still valid & insightful, but the majority of it is particular to the late 90's.

A final observation is that the false categories of X'ers, which is purely the construct of the authors (the "Hip-Hop", the "Intellectuals", etc) were a bit naive, a bit redundant, and somewhat funny actually to a person trained in sociological method.

Much better book about Gen X'ers -- which are not likely to go out of date for a very long time -- are Generation Debt, Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers, and Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars self-promotion based on wild generalizations, January 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Street Trends: How Today's Alternate Youth Cultures Are Creating Tomorrow's Mainstream (Hardcover)

Pretty clever idea: get thousands of people to pay to read your corporate brochure. The authors blatantly pitch their company's services throughout. That's embarrassing. But many of their insights are based on unfounded generalizations -- that today's youth are responsible for the rise in microbrewed beer, or that all future music will contain electronic components. The result: we can't take these so-called researchers seriously. There may be valuable insights in this book, but what can you believe?

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Luck from De Luca, Wisdom from Misdom, August 19, 1998

By	Ray Simon (Springfield, MA) - See all my reviews

In our quest for The Next Big Thing, many of us have rummaged around in the wrong places, like the drunk who stumbled under the streetlight for hours seeking his keys. Asked why he keeps covering the same ground, he says, "Because that's where the light is!"

In Street Trends, Lopiano-Misdom and De Luca are seeking the keys to hot, new trends - and finding them, too - but not under the bloodless light of statistical research alone (which everyone admits is illuminating ... as far as it goes).

No, these authors venture right into the thicket. They mount an expedition into the surly habitat of those young, independent kids who wouldn't dream of filling out a corny questionnaire, or be caught (duh!) in a focus group.

Whether or not you agree with the authors' observations (and whether or not you'd grant a First Church of Chi-Squared Almighty imprimatur to their naturalist methodology) this apparently modest volume is actually a fascinating, wickedly subversive little book.

Ray Simon (Ray is the author of Mischief Marketing, Contemporary Books, Fall 1999)