What is Cool?

Advertisement ads used to be the annoying, straight to the point commercials that interrupted our favorite shows and songs on television and radio. Advertiser became aware of this and realized that if they wanted to boost the sales of their product they would have to find a better way to reach their consumers.

They developed what is now called "Cool Hunters" or "The Merchants of Cool". A Cool Hunters job is exactly what you would think; it is to hunt what is cool. The cool marketers develop series of questions and then they gather a random group of teens to be surveyed.

Why teens you may ask? The reason Cool Hunters choose teens as their market of sale is because teens spend the most money and they also have money to "waste". Parents want to make their child happy so they give them money to buy what the teen thinks is "cool". It is the Cool Hunters job to figure out just what the "cool" they want is.

The Hunter must have a certain personality that can speak with teens and relate to them so that they can get the full idea of what it is teens are after or what to have to make them seem "cool".

There are many different forms of what cool could be. What marketers want is the most current, hottest, most have item at that time. Companies want to be the first producers to put out the "coolest”, “to die for" item. There sales raise to the roof, teens buy into the product and everyone is happy.

What happens when the cool runs out? Once the new trend of cool is started then it's no longer the new "cool" thing. No one wants lasts months "cool", now teens are over it and moved on to once again trying to find that edge, the attention and individuality they strive for.

The cool Hunters must continually survey teens, take photos of new trends and find what the next “cool” item is. It is a cycle over and over again of finding what is cool, producing a new “cool", and then the “cool" item no longer being cool.

Since these new way of making money is has been had to tell if the teens are doing what they think the world wants to see or it they really do act and think they way marketers think they do.

For example, a teen guy is captured on film doing ludicrous acts for attention; the question is why he is showing off is it because he has seen men doing on MTV, or because it is his individual personality.

Ads are becoming no longer just and Ad. They are now apart of our culture. Who can tell the difference? In the Merchants of Cool film we watched in class the used example of becoming apart of our culture was Sprite.

Sprite found a new way to sale their product by immersing their product into the hip-hop world. They created commercial were people were partying and playing hip-hop music while drinking an ice cold sprite. Sprite also hosted parties with hip-hop artist as the entertainers and MTV joined in the air the party. It was a win for everyone involved. Now it seems every time we think hip-hop we think of Sprite.

It is clever tricks like that in Advertising that can really pull in the big dollars for a company and no just short term either. Immersing your companies into a culture means you’re in for a long term comment with regular buyers year after year. So who’s the "cool" one now?

Growing up with Television

In the early 1960’s more than 90 percent of U.S households owned at least one television set. Programs moved away from radio and onto a new identity, television programming. This changed the way advertisement was ran and also who ran it. Before T.V it didn’t matter if you had the look or if you were a great actor. Voice and the sound you presented over the air waves was all that matter. Television greatly changed structure of how business was conducted. New actors where hired to host the television shows, advertisements had to be creative and eye catching. This meant in order to hold to public’s attention interesting shows had to be invented to draw people in and hold them their day in and day out. Marketers now could show their products on television and make a great profit of the consumers who where the program viewers.

            Television leads into a new age, a change of the way family household was run. No longer did families want to go out to enjoy a movie, they wanted to stay in. Everyone was so engrossed into the television sets, they never wanted to leave. Family and culture began to revolve around the television. The T.V set was place in the middle of the home living room so that the whole family could gather around and watch their favorite shows together.  

The more television evolved the better advertising marketers got at producing better shows and better ways to display their products. They began surveying what shows people where most attracted to in order to make sure they weren’t losing interested and money in their advertising.

Dramas had always been popular, because they were created back when the radio was popular. From this we moved on the specific topics like; action, romance, comedies, and thrillers shows and movies play on T.V. The Marketers will place certain ads on certain shows that the viewers of that specific show would be interested in. For example a young boy who watches a sports show would be shown a commercial about a new Nike shoe invented for the use of playing Basketball and the actor would typically be a famous Basketball player.

The power of visual culture is what drives most of our economy. It is the way we are entertained but most importantly it is the way we shop and are informed on what is new on the store shelves. Without advertisement our economy would greatly suffer, because people would not be so persuaded into spending, creating, and producing as much as we now in to 21^st century do. 

Video Killed the Radio Star

I always get annoyed when a radio station over kills on playing the same song over and over again. Before learning about the music industry in this class I wasn't able to understand why out of thousands of songs they would choose to play the same five. Before the age of music videos the focus was on a true musician with completely raw talent. It didn't matter if you were blind or ugly, if you could sing or play an instrument like no other than you were signed. Records were sold like crazy and people didn't care if the artist was old, out of shape or even had buck teeth. Musicians had to fight to work they’re way on a record deal based on there ability to write, sing and play.

From this..

to this...

People may wonder why there are so many instant pop stars now rather than hard working naturally talented artist. The answer is because the only thing record producers are focusing on is the income from radio advertising. The emphasis has been switched from talent to youth and beauty. It doesn't matter anymore if you can write your own songs or play an instrument like no one else all the producers are looking for is a made over voice and a look that draws people’s attention and takes their money. Today, you must have the whole package deal, there’s no exception for a pop star that isn't top of the line all around an attractive person to look at.

Today in the business if you are not interesting, you do not get signed. Advertising dollars own the radio industry. For example Clear Channel is a radio station that is in control over many stations and is in command of what gets played on the radio. The company will actually create a playlist of tops songs they know the majority of the mass will turn into hear and that is all that gets played. Repeatedly over and over again we have to listen to the same tunes, because producers figure if we hear something unfamiliar we will change it. A station can not risk loosing our attention so they play it safe and continue to repeat the same ten songs all day long. This means in order to be a successful musicians you either fall in or you fall out, bottom line.  

The extinction of the publishing industry

What once was a booming industry is now plummeting down the same path as the dinosaur. The issue of having to compete was the internet is what the publishing industry is facing today. Small publishers are no longer able to compete effectively and profitably. The biggest threat for advertising dollars comes from online sites. We are spending more time using the internet and advertisers have found a way to reach us more effectively.

For example notice when we log onto our Facebook accounts on the right side of the screen we are shown ads for all kinds of services and products. Advertisers now actually pull information based on what we click that we like and will use are data to pull the ads they think we would be interested in. This way they have our attention and they can try to persuade us into buying their product. Advertising is also done through supporting search engines. The published paper can only hold so much information but the internet pulls up exactly what we want in the click of a button. Instantly we updated on the latest news and entertainment, but we can also publish our own. Between 1999 and 2004 the time spent on the Internet escalated by 24 per cent and online advertising rose by 22 per cent, where as the traditional media spending declined. 

Publishers are not longer interested in the quality of writing anymore. What publishers want now is sale volume. Therefore authors now have to use services like Lulu or CafePress so that they can sell their books. Most only make about .75 cents a book. It is easier now to do so this way because they don't have to deal with an agent they are self publishing their books. Publishing has significantly changed and what we read the quality we once had is being taking away, because of the fact that we must compete now for the dollars instead of focusing on talent. One example that caught my attention was the story of a young author who changed the names and titles of a Jane Austen book. The author submitted the book to 18 publishers and out of those only one caught the plagiarism and the rest flat out rejected the book!!

 The sad reality is with the way times are changing there will no longer be printed paper. We won't buy the paper anymore and the future generation will be asking question like" What is a newspaper?” People in the future most only know of the search engine way to update themselves on the latest news.

Save The Internet!

I chose to write about the website SaveTheInternet.com. This website caught my attention for obvious reason; one being because I couldn’t live without the Internet and two because I think it’s an important issue that everyone should be aware of. On the   SaveTheInternet website at the top of the page they share with us a statistic that states “There are two million everyday people that band together with thousands of nonprofit organizations, businesses and bloggers to protect internet freedom.” When seeing this I realized that I have been blind to the realization of just how important it is that we have the Internet available to us.

I have been taking the freedom of the Internet for granted. SaveTheInternet is a website created to get people on board with Internet issue and the idea that one day our freedom could be taking from us. One of the topics they focus on is Net Neutrality. This is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet. The service providers are not aloud to discriminate between different kinds of content online. Net Neutrality is the reason we have free speech online and it protects the consumer’s right to any equipment or service without interference from the network provider.  SaveTheInternet informs it’s viewers on the consequences of a world without Net Neutrality. Without Net Neutrality competition would be limited and access information could be restricted. Innovation would be stifled and free market would be sacrificed to the interests of a few corporations.

SaveTheInternet addresses what’s happening right now in congress, lets us know who else is supporting Net Neutrality and what we the public can do to help. Before looking into this website I was unaware that currently The Free Press filed a legal challenge to Open Internet rules. The blog site on STI allows people to post current issue they would like to write about on their website. They also have a place to find resources and tools that can help us contribute to their cause. Two of those tools are already very popular ways to inform and spread the word to the world one of which is Facebook. You can join their Facebook and keep updated on what’s happening and can post questions or thoughts. The second tool to help the campaign is by following them on Twitter. They tweet about their concerns and post information to their followers.

To save the Internet they have an act now link that you can click on and you actually are able to virtually sign a letter to the Senators to demand that they protect our right to an open Internet. The company says that they will deliver the signed letters to their offices in Washington. On the right side of the page is the document being signed and you are able to read it and then on the left side are boxes to fill in your information name, email, etc. They have already had 88,472 actions taken. This is already 88% of their 100,000 goal. To run this website they do take donations and there is also a link for that as well. They do not take money from the Government or any other association so in order to keep this cause up and running they have to ask for our donations.

SaveTheInternet.com is a cause that will help to further our media and democracy, because it is determined to get people on broad and to gain backing on saving our rights to Internet freedom so that we can have the media that we have today. If this website and others like it weren’t around we could easily have our rights taken from us and not be allowed to speak, watch, reach out and openly share videos on the Internet.

Silencing the journalist

Journalism is a very competitive industry. Journalists are not only gathering the information we read but they are also in a daily battle to get their stories printed. The media companies choose what they want to print for the public eye and regardless if it's the truth or not they will publish the story, because they want the big bucks. 



The issue I have with the media deciding what gets published is how will we ever know what the truth is if there are only lies on top of lies. The Media Producers silencing the truth and controlling our Journalism is a problem that has caught my attention, because I believe we should know the truth and nothing but the truth!




Imagine waking up one day grabbing the news paper and everything you read was completely ran by the government or even a high CEO of a company. It's becoming all about dollars and ratings now and people are losing their values of what is right and wrong. Think about it like this; if our government wanted people in our country to believe that the war was over then all they would need to do is pay the big bucks for a producer to twist a story here and there. As the readers at home we would have no evidence of the truth from a lie and therefore we would be persuaded towards whatever way they wanted us to think.
What a scary thought!




 If journalist are paid and silenced from writing the truth, then we as the people of America are going to be in the dark. It would be taking our civil rights away and we as a united country would begin to fall apart. I think we need to make sure that journalist are able to do there jobs by informing us on what really goes on in our world and they should be able to publish the whole truth.