December 11, 2003 - Ed in search of hats

On Wednesday sometime just after noon as the sunny warm morning was turning into a windy cold afternoon, the dedicated edhat staff went counting on State Street.  It was hats today.  What kind?  What did they say?

The first things we noticed was that it is rare to see a women wearing a hat on State Street.  Just as the day before we only saw two woman at Surf Dog, today we only saw two women wearing hats.  And none wearing baseball caps. After making this astute observation, data collection and reporting focused only on the men folks.  Overall we passed 304 men on State Street.  They were in all shapes and sizes, and 57 (19%) of them wore some kind of hat.

Quick on-the-brim decisions classified berets and bandanas as hats, but not the hooded sweatshirt (they’re hoods, not hats).

Beanies, a hat we expected to find on young, defiant types, were mainly worn by ‘transient’ looking people who were focused more on the hat’s warmth than on its style (it was cold outside with the wind).  Some older men wore those soft fisherman hats (no flies), while a very not homogeneous few sported cowboy hats.

But, as expected, the chapeau of choice was the baseball cap which came in a wide assortment of teams, logos, and company names. Similarly to our bumper sticker survey a few weeks ago, we did not see any dominant brand or team ... Billabong, Quicksilver, Volcom, Raiders, Titans, Trojans.  None came up more the twice. 

See the complete survey results!

But, in the future we think this might change. A new brand of hat will be released any day now that could potentially have a disruptive effect on the fragmented hat market.  The dedicated staff of edhat envisions a world where all the people will unite under one hat ... and that hat will say “Ed”.  Check your e-mail soon for a dealer near you.

The contest yesterday looked like “ask-the-audience” for a $200 question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.  The vast majority of subscribers correctly guessed “company/logo” as their prediction for top hat.  A lucky hat drawing produced an indisputable winner named Merlin.  A free coffee card will help Merlin get back to Camelot.

Want to get instant fame and cool prizes?  ... enter today’s contest