Hw-29 Merchants of Cool

In "Merchants of Cool" it showed how corporations use teenagers as their source of money making machines. It was interesting to see how they got to the teenagers to find out what the "cool" was, and how oblivious the teens were to the manipulation of the companies.

One of the manipulating techniques that worked really well were the cool hunters. The cool hunters were the people who sought out to find the dominant teenagers who led trends and were unique. When these people photographed the unique and trend setting individuals (the teens), it made them seem like they were special, or meaningful. At least that's how I think they felt because they did not really question it. Little did these oblivious teens know, was that they were suckers to huge corporation stealing their individuality and spreading it everywhere. So now, that person's style was no longer unique.

Another method that companies used were focus groups that had meetings with teens to find out what the "new cool" on the street was. The teens were paid to be in these focus groups made by the companies and in the meetings they are asked questions such as: "What type of music is cool? Whats the most favorite brand of clothing to wear? etc." This gave the teens the sort of power to guide where companies should be looking to spread their business and in what type of style that was "cool" of course.

Probably the most effective of its time and risky but succeeded was the Sprite corporation because they broke the boundary of trying to sell cool but basically become it. It was interesting because of that time, Hip-hop was getting popular and cool, and every teen was into it. The Sprite corporation acknowledged the fact of "coolness" that trailed it and they went along with it. Sprites attempt to become cool scored them big and all the teens associated themselves with the Sprite drink because it affiliated with the Hip-hop scene.