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.