Chapter One
In Chapter One: The Cool Media, Rice lays the groundwork for the entire book by defining the word cool. This definition is necessary because the textbook is all about how “being cool” defines today’s culture. Rice focuses on people that embody cool qualities, including James Dean and Marlon Brando. The rebellious, independent look of jeans and a leather jacket during the 1950s is an icon of what cool was back then, and today’s consumers have developed their own ideas of what cool is today. Cool is undoubtedly characterized by an independent and often rebellious attitude, and is now considered a personality trait or behavior. Web sites have incorporated cool into webpages and addresses because of the word’s connotation as being “hip,” “good,” or “in style.”
Chapter Two
Chapter Two: Surfing the Internet for Cool gives a bit of history on the development of the internet into pop culture. Rice says that “leftover hippies of the 1960s” are responsible for developing the Web as an open forum for sharing information. These leftover hippies opened the door for “cool” cyberspace. Some of today’s cool websites include music downloads, e-mail addresses, educational materials, cool quizzes, and cool advertising from cool brand names. These websites form strategic partnerships with businesses that see teenagers as target market with a large amount of spending power. The design of these websites focuses on being cool and making money at the same time.
Chapter Three
In Chapter Three: Advertising, Rice explains how advertisers make money by being cool. According to Rice, advertisers appropriate cool for commercial purposes because the desire to be cool is a common thread throughout the culture of America. Icons also exist in American culture. People can serve as icons, such as the “cool” James Dean or the “gangster” Snoop Dogg. These icons advertise products, such as Michael Jordan and Gatorade, which create consumer identification with the products. These products, in turn, become icons themselves. Gatorade wants to be the only identifiable sports drink, while Nike strives to capture the entire athletic apparel and footwear market in a single swoosh. Rice focuses on Nike and their ability to use sports icons to sell their products– a common person can be just as good as an NBA superstar if they also buy Nike shoes.
Chapter Four
Chapter Four: Advertising and Youth Culture focuses on how “cool” is identified in youth culture and how by harnessing the power of cool, advertisers are able to control consumer spending habits. “Coolhunters” are people that track down popular youth styles on the street and then report their findings back to designers and manufacturers. Companies that market their products specifically toward Generation Y, focus on their lifestyles. The Mazda car company uses slang terms that young people identify with while Converse sneakers focus on youth and their constant quest to be different. (The sneaker ads center on “being yourself” instead of conforming.) The soft drink company Sprite even centers its whole campaign on personal image and independence, but even their obsession with independence and rebellion against image and cliché has become a cliché in itself.
Chapter 5
Chapter 5: Resistance to Advertising: The Cool Approach is the antithesis of the preceding chapter—for the most part. This chapter primarily focuses on two methods of resisting advertising: cultural jamming and adbusters. Online, contemporary cultural jammers critique advertisers with their own cool writing. Subvertise.org, a cultural jamming website, tries to subvert commercial advertising in order to highlight the original intention, for example, appropriating the word and image of “cool” for profit. The second approach to resistance advertising, Adbusters.org, encourages consumers to question their daily interactions with advertisements and mass production. Both organizations have websites full of “cool” writing, proving that those concerned with profit are not the only ones utilizing the cool writing tactics.
The Merchants of Cool
I think that it would be very difficult to disconnect cool from consumerism now. Within the past five years, the exponential growth of the information age, along with the increasing independence of teenagers in America has opened up Pandora’s Box in the world of marketing. There was a time when teenagers had very little influence or purchasing power, so therefore they were not targeted. Marketers now spend countless hours figuring out not how to get teenagers to purchase products, that’s the easy part, but getting teenagers to want to purchase their products. Kids these days can have almost anything they want with the click of a button and their parents’ credit card, so the challenge for marketers is differentiating their product or service from the next guy’s. Enter in “cool.” A company makes products that are cool and hip and in style with today’s teens, and then it must find the best outlet to advertise. According to Rushkoff’s video, one-third of 3.2 million teens in the country has a personal computer and spends two hours a day surfing the information superhighway. The consequence of this is a barrage of cool online advertising aimed at teenagers with daddy’s money. But, I don’t know if I could imagine the two being disconnected. While there would be fewer pop-up ads to deal with, not all the effects would be positive. I am a part of the Generation Y, and I will admit to clicking on banner ads and making purchases online. I think the World Wide Web is just next medium in the world of advertising and consumerism, much like cable in the ‘60s and radio in the ‘20s. For a company to survive, it must reach out to a target audience, even if that includes being “cool.”
I don’t think that teens would have taken the time to produce such a documentary. They might tape some of their activities and hobbies, but it would look more like a music video than a documentary, lacking background research and hard evidence.
