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?
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