Example research essay topic: Marketing Strategies Youth Culture - 1,555 words

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The Concept of Being Cool What does it mean to be cool? Cool is actually a rather old slang word which is still used very widely today. Its meaning is difficult to identify exactly, as cool is more of a behavior style, attitude and self-confidence than some particular thing. At the same time, being cool can be some kind of fashion or trend statement. All in all, peoples idea of being cool seems to come down to 2 major categories: superficial, artificial material cool and real, authentic internal cool. The former one implies that a person tries to achieve some material goals for the sake of making other people notice, appreciate and perhaps, feel jealous of things he possesses.

Will this make the person cool? In the eyes of some people, definitely. If he has things that are appreciated, wanted, longed for by others, certainly he will acquire this coolness quality, but not because of who he is, but because of things that are in his possession. In fact, its these items that are cool, not the person.

That is why this version of being cool is considered inferior to being internal cool, as in this case people are not attracted to the personality but they rather be close to things that he has and that they want themselves. Being cool because its your own quality, not dependent on material possessions, is much more rare to come by. Internal coolness means this in-born feeling of confidence, the ability to attract people because you yourself are interesting and your personality is desirable. This kind of coolness implies that you have balanced character, not too introvert, not too extrovert, you have the reigns over your mood and find enough time to get to know other people and win their respect. All this is done without any tension or trouble or excessive desire to achieve these results, it happens naturally. Being cool in this case, means being relaxed and not specifically getting people to respect you.

Actually, cool person will not worry about what others might think of him, its not that he doesnt care though, - he simply will not let this make him tense or uncomfortable. This relatedness comes from the same source absolute and total confidence in oneself. It is this quality of quiet confidence that draws peoples attention and makes a person cool, really cool. There are no clear clues as to why exactly the word cool is used. Some opinions are expressed, however, about the origin of the word. It seems to have appeared in the 60 -s and then it was used to describe people who were against the existing system and order, who were laid back and refused to be small people in a big social machine, refused to be suppressed or influenced.

They were cynical and cold for the simple reason of being cynical and cold. They were not afraid to express their emotional side and were true to themselves. Perhaps, as time passed, cold became cool and the notion was formed accordingly defining a comprehensive set of life-guiding concepts, a way for social survival, acceptance, popularity and success. Concepts of what is cool more often than not are determined by advertisers, who use this coolness as means of promoting and marketing goods.

This material coolness or, as others describe it, media coolness, is the most common one, and it would be interesting to make research and analyze how this type of cool is created and developed. Marketers often use cool to sell their products and teenagers (teenagers being the basic group of cool people) find their attitudes and views influenced by media perception of what coolness actually is. Marketing companies who want to attract kids and teens will hire people to act as cool hunters. These cool hunters go to places where young people hang out (school yards, basketball courts, skateboard parks, clubs etc. ) in order to identify and interview trend setters those really cool kids and teens who are more avant-garde than their peers, but whose tastes might eventually be adopted by the general population. (The Anatomy of Cool, web) Once, fashion trends were set by the big couture houses and cool wasnt important.

But sometime in the past few decades things got turned over. Its now about chase and flight-designers and retailers and the mass consumer giving chase to the elusive prey of street cool and the rise of cool-hunting as a profession shows how serious the chase has become. (Malcolm Gladwell The Coolhunt Who decides whats cool? ) As Michael R. Solomon writes in his book Conquering Consumerspace: Marketing Strategies for a Branded World, attaining the status of cool is the holy grail when marketing to youth. Its an elusive concept that has defined cultural icons from James Dean to Puff Daddy. It seems so easy: Create a cool product and kids will flock to your brand in droves. But theres a nasty paradox afoot: If you have to work at being cool, by definition youre not.

Kids have super-sensitive detectors that go off at the slightest sign someone is just trying too hard. The quest for cool has spawned a cottage industry of cool hunters who scour the streets to report on emerging trends. Some of these amateur anthropologists rely upon a network of "correspondents" who periodically report back from the field. Correspondents typically supply headquarters with videotaped interviews of cutting-edge kids spouting off on topics from spirituality to blue jeans, then these random bits of data are used to craft a cultural scouting report that is sold to clients like Nike and Coca-Cola. The advice the author gives is the following Cool kids are the innovators of the youth market. Track their ever-changing preferences quickly and reliably, and stay ahead of the new product development curve.

Use a collection of techniques including ethnographic work (live with the natives), online surveys, and simple observation of street culture to triangulate the direction of these trends. (Michael R. Solomon Conquering Consumerspace: Marketing Strategies for a Branded World) The same idea is supported in the article The Coolhunt Who decides whats cool? Certain kids in certain places and only the cool hunters know who they are by Malcolm Gladwell. In this work the author defines the rules of actual cool-hunting and explains the subtlety and the difficulty of such an undertaking. The first rule of cool-hunting says, cool cannot accurately be observed at all, because the act of discovering cool causes cool to take flight, the second rule says that cool cannot be manufactured, only observed, and the third says that it can only be observed by those who are themselves cool, thus linking media cool with internal cool and making them interdependent. The key to cool hunting, - he writes, - is to look for cool people first and cool things later, and not the other way around.

Since cool things are always changing, you cant look for them, because the very fact they are cool means you have no idea what to look for. What you would be doing is thinking back on what was cool before and extrapolating, which is about as useful as presuming that because the Dow rose ten points yesterday it will rise another ten points today. Cool people, on the other hand, are a constant. (Malcolm Gladwell The Coolhunt Who decides whats cool? Certain kids in certain places and only the cool hunters know who they are) Frontlines interview with Look-Looks co-founders, Dee Dee Gordon and Sharon Lee gives the point of view of cool-hunters themselves: clients are looking to us to be kind of the eyes and ears of youth culture. We have some clients who are interested in taking a product that already exists and finding a way that it can appeal to young people. So they will use our information to find out if that product is even interesting to them or if theres a way that they could make it more interesting.

Same thing with advertising. They take out information to assist in inspiring project designers, in helping them market the new product, even in naming the product, and then eventually testing (Cool Hunting. Whats it like to hunt for cool? Frontlines interview with Look-Looks co-founders, Dee Dee Gordon and Sharon Lee) So this is the way in which artificial material cool is created, developed and brought to the consumers. However artificial it might be, it will always be connected with genuine cool, those people who are actually the pioneers of attitude as well as style.

Being cool will always remain a timeless emotional as well as material need, with both, people who are internally cool and those who are eager to use it to achieve some goals playing with this notion. Reference list: Cool Hunting. Whats it like to hunt for cool? Frontlines interview with Look-Looks co-founders, Dee Dee Gordon and Sharon Lee, web Malcolm Gladwell The Coolhunt Who decides whats cool? Certain kids in certain places and only the cool hunters know who they are, The New Yorker, March 17, 1997, ANNALS OF STYLE Media Awareness Network, The Anatomy of Cool, web Michael R. Solomon Conquering Consumerspace: Marketing Strategies for a Branded World, CHAPTER 3: O Pioneers!

Scanning Global Youth Culture. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY

Research essay sample on Marketing Strategies Youth Culture