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I find the prospect of meeting MTV’s cool hunter rather daunting. After all, as somebody who mixes with rappers, graffiti artists and Mexican gang members to get a line on youth trends for a music television channel, Claudine Ben-Zenou has got to be one of the coolest people on the planet. Accordingly, I fix our rendezvous at the trendiest bar I know, and go along dressed in ancient jeans and a black T-shirt advertising the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, as purchased on a market stall there a few months earlier.
I needn’t have worried: Ben-Zenou is not some thrusting style maven in shades, but a friendly, discreetly well-dressed woman in her mid-20s. However, for somebody so outwardly normal-looking, Claudine has some very specialized areas of interest that have made her invaluable to MTV.
‘I’ve always been immersed in subcultures and youth trends,’ she says, without pretentiousness. ‘I’ve been involved in the hip-hop scene for more than 12 years – I was part of a hip-hop collective called Sin Cru when I lived in London. I was also into skateboarding from about the age of 14 and had a lot of friends involved in that culture. Later I got interested in the urban music scene and the rave scene. But, while I found all this fascinating, I didn’t have a clue that I could put it to any practical use.’
She studied marketing and advertising, but at the age of 19, while still at university, she got a job at a small marketing agency in Hoxton. At the time, the area was beginning to emerge after years of neglect as one of London’s most vibrant districts, a veritable Petri dish of trends. ‘The agency specialized in underground and youth marketing, and as I got more involved I realized that I had inside knowledge and connections that could be very useful,’ she recounts. ‘We were working on [beer brand] Fosters Ice and doing lots of stuff with street art and graffiti. It really opened my eyes to the possibility of using subcultures for marketing. Collaborations between mainstream brands like Nike and Adidas and underground designers are very common today, but we were among the pioneers.’
Since that first job, Ben-Zenou has acted as a consultant for global brands such as Levi’s, Casio G-Shock, Pepsi and even Disney, always providing them with the inside track on street culture. ‘The way I position myself is that I’m equally at home in the boardroom and on the street. I’m the connection between the two. I can talk to kids on their own level without coming across as a suit. What they’re doing is not some abstract concept to me – it’s very real.’ She also describes herself as ‘a huge geek’, and she has forged many of her underground connections via internet chat-rooms. ‘A lot of the people I got close to in the early days have since become quite famous in their fields. I’m able to pick up the phone and talk to a friend who’s a graffiti artist or a hip-hop MC. And, as they’re my mates, I’m not trying to interpret these quite complex scenes as an outsider. Youth brands that try to connect with these communities have a habit of getting things wrong and basically getting everyone’s back up. I feel strongly about trying to avoid that.’
Brands who try to target niche opinion-formers without doing their homework often find themselves exposed to ridicule. ‘You can miss a step very easily. The key is to work closely with influential people within the communities, and listen carefully to what they say. Graffiti is a good example. I hear all the time about brands that’ve plucked some random kid off the street. If you’re using somebody who’s not a respected artist, the result may not be obvious to you, but it’s extremely obvious to people within the scene, which undermines your credibility as a brand. It’s very important to develop long-term relationships, rather than just latching on to a scene in the short term and sucking everything you can out of it in a parasitical way.’
I ask Ben-Zenou if she ever feels in danger of being regarded as a sort of double agent – a suit in hip-hop clothing. ‘Most of the people I deal with know exactly what I do,’ she replies. ‘I’ve always tried to make a positive contribution, encouraging brands to create events that will bring money back into these scenes and elevate artists who might not have been able to make it in other circumstances.’ For a while, she acted as an agent for a group of graffiti artists and breakdancers, liaising with brands on their behalf. ‘A common attitude among marketing executives was that they were just dealing with a bunch of kids doing graffiti, so they didn’t need to pay them or even particularly acknowledge their contribution. But these people are extremely talented and often do a lot for brands, so I’m keen to get them the recognition they deserve.’
She originally worked for the MTV website, but talked the broadcaster into creating her current role after observing that ‘although we were very good at mainstream research, we didn’t seem to be monitoring trends’. (And yet the stars of MTV’s music videos have always had an impact on trends – brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Dolce & Gabbana swear by the access the channel provides to a young, logooriented public.) She is now based in Chicago, although she travels frequently. In addition to providing regular email newsletters, she writes a quarterly trend report called ‘Switched On’, which is sent to MTV’s advertisers and their agencies, as well as acting as an internal primer for staff. ‘It’s a creative tool designed to inspire people and give them a snapshot of what’s happening out there. I pick up on micro-trends rather than huge shifts in behaviour.’ Following her own rule of working within cultures, she often gets hip-hop artists and DJs to write their own articles. ‘I think it’s important to get people to talk about their scenes in their own voices.’
Although she’s one of the global elite of cool hunters, Ben-Zenou doesn’t feel part of any such group. ‘I’m aware of people who do a similar job and I’ve met a few of them, but I always have the impression that I’m taking a somewhat different approach. They tend to come from a research background, while my training is in marketing. I suppose the main difference is that I’m not approaching it objectively – I’m deeply, passionately involved. I still go to hip-hop events, my boyfriend is from that community. . . What some people don’t realize is that you can’t just turn up one day and break into these scenes. I get a lot of respect because I’ve been involved for years. If I didn’t do this for a living, I’d be doing it anyway – always reading magazines, going online, chatting to people at parties and trying to find out how they think.’ Hence her recent brush with Mexican gang members. ‘I met them at a party and got talking to them. It wasn’t a work thing – I just found them interesting. I’m like a cross between a journalist and a sociologist.’
Perhaps because I’m a decade older than Ben-Zenou, it occurs to me to ask if there’s an age limit for being a cool hunter. Isn’t there a danger that, one day, she’ll no longer be able to relate to icons of hip? She says, ‘I’ve occasionally wondered about that myself, but I think attitudes to age are changing. I’ve got lots of friends who are older than me and who are still very much involved in the scene. There’s a graffiti artist called Futura 2000 who’s 50 years old and still considered an icon of cool. He’s recently done some work with Nike. Then you’ve got someone like Vivienne Westwood, who’s still very influential. As for me – let’s face it, I’ve got 200 pairs of trainers. I can’t see myself suddenly giving up everything I love and dressing in beige anoraks.’

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