Merchants of Cool

Frontline: Merchants of Cool

The main target market that marketers are trying to sell to right now is teenagers. This is the largest population of teenagers that America has ever had, totaling 32 billion. These teenagers want to spend the money that they have. They have more money now than ever and therefore have more say over how they are spending it. Last year teenagers bought 100 billion dollars worth of products with their own money and spent another 50 billion dollars of their parent’s money. Parents spend money for their children as a way to compensate: some parents give their children their credit card and say go buy some things because I cannot spend time with you today. These teenagers go out and buy the products that are “cool” and therefore they become cool and part of the “in” crowd. In order for marketers to get teens to buy their products they need to understand and know how teenagers think and act. Corporate America needs to figure out what these “cool teens” like, who they are, and what they want. In order to best get across to the teens they need to speak the language of the teenagers. Therefore the teenage population is one of the most studied. When trying to get across to the teens the marketers need to figure out what works the fastest, not necessarily the best. Because they are focused on what will work the best, they are not so worried about standards and sometimes the standards are brought down. One marketing firm did a study on a group of teenage boys. They asked questions such as what do you like to wear, what do you like to eat, what do you like to listen to, and what do you like to watch. Each teen was given $125 compensation for participating in the study. The teens were also given a worksheet that had many popular brand names on it. The teen were asked to circle what brands they like and use and X off any that they do not like. This research can then tell the marketers what is “cool” and what is not. Another way marketers figure out what is “cool” is by doing an ethnography study. This is when the researchers go to teens homes and study them in a natural habitat. All of the visits were filmed by a camera crew. They ask the teen to talk about clothes, dating, parents, problems with friends, and music. With these clips of the visit the marketers then put the clips together into a short movie and add music. This is then shown to other marketers to allow them to see what the new and “cool” things are.
Everyday people are exposed to marketing messages whether you are aware of them or not. A total of 3,000 marketing messages are seen by one person per day. By the time you are 18 years old, you will have seen no less than 10 million marketing messages. This increase of marketing messages over the years is mainly because of the new technology available to everyone. In America, 75% of teenagers have a TV in their bedroom and about 1/3 have their own computer in which they spend an average of 2 hours per day. Sometimes teens feel an overload of these advertisements and messages and therefore may block them out. This is why marketers need to figure out what teens will listen to and what will attract their attention.
The major question that marketers have is what is “cool”? The “cool” keeps changing because the “cool” belongs to the kids and the kids keep changing. In marketing firms there is a job position called the Cool Hunter. These people are sort of a culture spy. These people go out and look for trend setters, which make up only about 20% of the population. They then take picture of these kids and post them up to the LookLook website. Many other marketing firms have a subscription to this website and they have access to these new looks that are considered “cool”. This process becomes a giant feedback loop in which the media watches what the “cool” kids are doing. Then the kids watch what the media has found, which is basically a duplicate of themselves, and then the kids try to emulate that image that the media is giving. This makes the difference between reality and TV blur together and it is hard to figure out what is reality.
Sprite is an example that they give about trying to get the message across to teens. Sprite hosted a party to kick off for Sprite.com. Kids were paid to come and attend. Several popular hip hop and rap artists played live at the event. The whole event was aired live on MTV. This was a bonus for everyone: the teens were happy and wanted to drink coke, the artists were happy because they were being aired on national TV, and MTV was happy because their ratings were going up. MTV brought in a large revenue for Viacom: $1 billion profits. MTV is almost completely advertisements and infomercials. MTV broke one of the major rules of marketing: do not let your marketing show. This obviously was working in a positive way for them. One of the major examples of this is TRL (Total Request Live). This was a show in which MTV aired music videos that were on popular demand. Several kids would be a part of the show and many would gather outside the building staring up at the 2nd floor windows where the show was taking place.
In trying to get teen’s attention the fastest, the standards of society may be dragged down. There are two characters that have been made up by the media, the Mook and the Midriff, that exemplify this effect. The Mook is a representation of a male who is arrested in adolescence, does not care what people think, and is crude. The Mook is driven by “testosterone driven madness.” One example of this is the people in the movie Jackass. The Midriff is prematurely adult, consumed by appearance, and is sex obsessed. An example of this is Brittney Spears in her first album: Hit Me Baby One More Time. She was a cute, innocent teenage girl who flaunted her body in front of millions. The boys loved her because they thought she was hot and the girls loved her because she showed them that girls should flaunt their sexuality.
There are many other examples of sex portrayed in the media. This seems to be the most common way in getting teens attention. Dawson’s Creek is a show about sex obsessed high school teens. If they were not having sex, they were talking about it. The first episode showed a 14 year old boy having an affair with his teacher. MTV’s Undressed was a show with very little plot, and was mostly based around sex. The movie Cruel Intentions was about step sister and step brothers who were very promiscuous. This movie “pushed the envelope.” This needed to be done so that the movie stood out from everything else. Also, MTV’s Spring Break programs and events show sex. One example of a show that does not take this route is 7th Heaven. This was a show on the WB and was made so that families could watch it together. It was a very clean and appropriate show for all ages.