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 | | Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today's Cluttered Marketplace by Noah Kerner, Gene Pressman ISBN-10: 9780743497091 ISBN-10: 0-7434-9709-0 ISBN-13: 9780743497091 ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-9709-1 Hardcover 2007-05-01 Atria Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description Cool isn't just a state of mind, a celebrity fad, or an American obsession -- it's a business. In boardrooms across America, product managers are examining vodka bottles and candy bars, tissue boxes and hamburgers, wondering how do we make this thing cool? How do we make this gadget into the iPod of our industry? How do we do what Nike did? How do we get what Target got? How do we infuse this product with that very desirable, nearly unattainable it factor? In this wide-ranging exploration the authors Noah Kerner, a celebrated marketing maverick, and Gene Pressman, legendary creative visionary and former co-CEO of Barneys New York, have uncovered surprising and universal patterns and trends. They systematically parse the successes and failures of the last few decades -- in music and fashion, magazines and food, spirits and hip-hop culture. Their discoveries are pulled together in this definitive book on the commerce of cool. Nike and Target endure as relevant brands not because of a shortsighted and gimmicky campaign. A dash of bling and a viral website don't amass long-term value. Brands are effectively developed when companies take substantial risk -- and face the possibility of real failure -- in order to open up the opportunity for real success. Chasing Cool includes interviews with more than seventy of today's most respected innovators from Tom Ford and Russell Simmons to Ian Schrager and Christina Aguilera. And through this accomplished assemblage, Pressman and Kerner dig beneath the surface and reveal how emphasizing long-lasting relevance trumps a fleeting preoccupation with what's hot and what's not. In a multidimensional, entertaining, and eminently readable book that redefines how to appeal to today's savvy consumer, Kerner and Pressman explore the lessons to be learned by America's ongoing search for the ever-changing concept of cool. Readers will learn how to apply these lessons to their own businesses and creative projects in order to stand out in today's cluttered marketplace. "Simply chasing cool is really a bad idea; inspired by cool is a great idea. Walk the street, see what's going on, and spit it out in your own way. Don't do it because you research it, do it because you breathe it." -- Russell Simmons, chairman and CEO of Rush Communications "I can't imagine having to hire a so-called Cool Hunter. If I had to go to someone else to be cool, I'd just pack up my bags and find a new profession." -- Tony Hawk, professional skateboarder "It's possible to be both mainstream and edgy. You can be the Goliath but you always have to think and behave like the David." -- Scott Bedbury, former Nike and Starbucks marketing executive "I love looking at trend reports because then I know exactly what I shouldn't be doing." -- John Demsey, group president, Estée Lauder, MAC Cosmetics, Prescriptives, Sean John, and Tom Ford Beauty "I don't believe in creation by committee. I think it's impossible." -- Bonnie Fuller, chief editorial director and executive vice president of American Media Inc. "We had to make a big decision at MTV when I was there. Do we grow old with our audience or are we going to be the voice of young America? We made the decision to be the voice of young America, which meant we had to let people grow out of MTV." -- Bob Pittman, cofounder of MTV, former president of AOL | ||
Reviews | ||
when wooody was funny this is woody at the early age , fresh , new , fantastic material - one of my favorites | ||
Hip brand building in 21st Century This book when broken down and despite its topical title is ultimately about how to build your brand and image in an environment where the old methods of media communication no longer work, especially with younger buyers. In many ways it is a mix of many of the messages of Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" with numerous hard examples that "cool" is a result of long term investment and not just luck based on a latest trend. The examples of Quicksilver and Grey Goose vodka among others make for a fast read but the mix of text, quotes (some with OTT photos) and the authors' own personal text sections make for a very "cut and paste" style book. For UK readers some of the US examples are hard to relate to, but a breezy read with some interesting observations along the way. | ||
Brand Strategy is Cool I love this book and recommend it any chance I get. At first glance, one might think that the authors are attempting to be cool because of the book's graphics and cover. Or the authors are cool, because they have backgrounds in music and fashion. But, the skeptic will be surprised to discover that being cool is all about having the right strategy! I think this is one of the best examples of how to effectively align a verbal and a visual identity. How cool is that! | ||
Stay cool! The book `Chasing Cool' is about standing out in today's cluttered marketplace. According to the authors, cool isn't just a state of mind--it's a business. In boardrooms across America, product managers are examining vodka bottles and candy bars, tissue boxes and hamburgers, wondering how do we make this thing cool? How do we make this gadget into the iPod of our industry? The authors argue that we should be inspired by cool. Cool things lead to big profits. Apple's iPod, for example, is cool. Remember the Sony Walkman of the 70s? It was cool. But the iPod is cooler. You can carry around with you over 20,000 songs (depending on the model), and have enough room to fit a few music videos and blockbuster movies. iPods are so cool, everyone wants to own one. In fact, the crime rate in New York City increased by 30% because of iPod thefts. Podcasts are the direct result of iPods, and named after them. iPods makes it easy to download podcasts from the internet and listen to them on the go. Apple's iPod opened a whole new way of communication. Even YouTube videos could be transferred to an iPod! The iPod has become the icon of what cool is all about. Companies now ask, "How can we make our product into an iPod?" In other words, what should companies do to make a product as successful as an iPod? Us magazine is another success story. At first, Us magazine was a monthly magazine that was a complete flop. The editors had no idea what the magazine should stand for. Then a new editor was hired, and she turned the magazine around into something cool. She made the magazine a weekly publication, emphasizing the things she likes. In other words, she made a magazine for herself. She was her own customer. Us magazine suddenly rose in stature and sales, and advertisers flocked to it. Stars are just like us, and Us magazine portrays them as such. For example, Us magazine will have pictures of Catherine Zeta Jones sticking her finger up her nose, and of Britney Spears' dirty fingernails. That made the magazine cool, and the magazine rose to 1.6 million prints in circulation. The iPod was not the first mp3 on the market, nor the first portable music player. The Sony Walkman, back in the 1970s, was the first portable music player; what the iPod is today. But Sony was not able to keep its Sony Walkman cool, and soon lost out to the iPod. Still before the iPod came the Rio. But it was not cool enough and lost out to the iPod. What the authors are trying to say is that being the first to launch a product is not always the best thing. Their advice is not to aim to be first, but rather to aim to excel at what the company does. First is a dangerous place to be. Come second, and make something better. Follow other companies footsteps, but don't aim to be the leader. It is better to follow someone else's footsteps, and learn from their mistakes, than to have others follow your footsteps and eventually become better than you. The iPod has truly become a phenomenon, and the authors keep repeating this and using its success as an example in all their arguments. You can now find built-in connections to your iPod in cars, and even on my Honda Goldwing. U2 and Eminem partnered with the iPod! And hey, you can even buy a Jeans with a built-in iPod! How cool is that? Is your company a slave to today's trends? The authors warn against creating for today. A company should have the vision to create for tomorrow--to seek out what will be cool tomorrow. Hip Hop, for example, has become the iPod of the music world. No one thought Hip Hop will survive. This made the singers more rebellious. Snoop Dog is a perfect example. It is all about giving people what they like; giving them what they think is cool! The authors say that companies can find out what is cool, and therefore what the new trends are, from the internet and especially in chatting rooms. All the clues to the new trends are here today. It is like a puzzle that must be put together. Some companies actually fire their employees if they don't make mistakes. Mistakes mean they are making something new. A company can only thrive in doing new things, as opposed to stagnating on the same old thing. Polaroid is a perfect example. They were not quick enough to realize that the cool thing was digital photography. Though they were the first in instant imaging, digital imaging became the next cool thing in photography. Other companies beat them to it! This demonstrates again that being first is not necessary good. All companies should have trend reports. The US President gets a report everyday on world events. Similarly, companies should receive reports on what the cool trends are. According to the authors, buzz can be bought; consumers can be bought as well. You can spread contiguous info through the internet. To do that, companies hire their own ambassadors to spread a buzz. Where stars go, people follow. For example, restaurants that Paris Hilton frequents are deemed to be hot. Similarly, a brand watch is deemed hot if worn by a star. Stars do sometimes create trends, and companies should keep a watchful eye on them. The authors warn against having people wait outside a discotheque for the sole reason of creating a show or an artificial demand. People will go inside the discotheque and find it empty, and this will backfire on the discotheque's coolness. The name of the game is to remain cool, and you cannot do that by deception. The authors say that if you want to make luxury make it and shut up. Don't advertise the fact that you are making a luxury. Doing so is like a woman boosting that she is beautiful. Besides, what is luxury? What makes a product a luxurious item? Is it its price? You'll often hear people complaining that music nowadays is not as good as it used to be. The question you should be asking is, `who's asking?' In most likelihood the person complaining is not as young as he used to be. Music is different than it used to be, not better or worse. What was cool yesterday is no longer cool today. Can you see teenagers nowadays listening to Louis Armstrong? There is a good chapter on risk taking vs. risk management. All companies must take risk, but it should be managed risk. If you think about risk, you would never be able to create. You must face risk to succeed. Take big risks but with risk management. You have to reinvent yourself or you will lose market share. Less is better; less is more. Tommy Hilfiger is an excellent example of this. They over expanded, and Tommy's apparel became too abundant, available in every department store. They also over advertized. This made it not cool. Customers lost interest in it. The authors recommend to pull back on the reins. Many companies went out of business by over doing it. I really liked what Christina Aguilera had to say about staying cool. According to her, a singer should not repeat the same style of music over and over again. She also says that being in the public eye means being out of the fans' imagination. She doesn't go to too many parties anymore, for not only does partying keep her in the public arena, but also away from creative work. The authors say that the only way to stay cool is to kill yourself when you are hot. Sounds pretty drastic! They cite James Dean as an example. Their advice: Stage your own death. Don't live long enough to spoil your image. I'm sure by this they mean your product! A person might not be cool, but what he does can be cool. Cool must stick. Cool is to be relevant. Chasing somebody else's cool is a mistake. Christina Aguilera is cool. But having Barbara Streisand dress like Aguilera and sing her songs is not cool! This is a really great book and is very easy and quick to read. I really recommend it. It was fun reading it! | ||
Stay cool! The book `Chasing Cool' is about standing out in today's cluttered marketplace. According to the authors, cool isn't just a state of mind--it's a business. In boardrooms across America, product managers are examining vodka bottles and candy bars, tissue boxes and hamburgers, wondering how do we make this thing cool? How do we make this gadget into the iPod of our industry? The authors argue that we should be inspired by cool. Cool things lead to big profits. Apple's iPod, for example, is cool. Remember the Sony Walkman of the 70s? It was cool. But the iPod is cooler. You can carry around with you over 20,000 songs (depending on the model), and have enough room to fit a few music videos and blockbuster movies. iPods are so cool, everyone wants to own one. In fact, the crime rate in New York City increased by 30% because of iPod thefts. Podcasts are the direct result of iPods, and named after them. iPods makes it easy to download podcasts from the internet and listen to them on the go. Apple's iPod opened a whole new way of communication. Even YouTube videos could be transferred to an iPod! The iPod has become the icon of what cool is all about. Companies now ask, "How can we make our product into an iPod?" In other words, what should companies do to make a product as successful as an iPod? Us magazine is another success story. At first, Us magazine was a monthly magazine that was a complete flop. The editors had no idea what the magazine should stand for. Then a new editor was hired, and she turned the magazine around into something cool. She made the magazine a weekly publication, emphasizing the things she likes. In other words, she made a magazine for herself. She was her own customer. Us magazine suddenly rose in stature and sales, and advertisers flocked to it. Stars are just like us, and Us magazine portrays them as such. For example, Us magazine will have pictures of Catherine Zeta Jones sticking her finger up her nose, and of Britney Spears' dirty fingernails. That made the magazine cool, and the magazine rose to 1.6 million prints in circulation. The iPod was not the first mp3 on the market, nor the first portable music player. The Sony Walkman, back in the 1970s, was the first portable music player; what the iPod is today. But Sony was not able to keep its Sony Walkman cool, and soon lost out to the iPod. Still before the iPod came the Rio. But it was not cool enough and lost out to the iPod. What the authors are trying to say is that being the first to launch a product is not always the best thing. Their advice is not to aim to be first, but rather to aim to excel at what the company does. First is a dangerous place to be. Come second, and make something better. Follow other companies footsteps, but don't aim to be the leader. It is better to follow someone else's footsteps, and learn from their mistakes, than to have others follow your footsteps and eventually become better than you. The iPod has truly become a phenomenon, and the authors keep repeating this and using its success as an example in all their arguments. You can now find built-in connections to your iPod in cars, and even on my Honda Goldwing. U2 and Eminem partnered with the iPod! And hey, you can even buy a Jeans with a built-in iPod! How cool is that? Is your company a slave to today's trends? The authors warn against creating for today. A company should have the vision to create for tomorrow--to seek out what will be cool tomorrow. Hip Hop, for example, has become the iPod of the music world. No one thought Hip Hop will survive. This made the singers more rebellious. Snoop Dog is a perfect example. It is all about giving people what they like; giving them what they think is cool! The authors say that companies can find out what is cool, and therefore what the new trends are, from the internet and especially in chatting rooms. All the clues to the new trends are here today. It is like a puzzle that must be put together. Some companies actually fire their employees if they don't make mistakes. Mistakes mean they are making something new. A company can only thrive in doing new things, as opposed to stagnating on the same old thing. Polaroid is a perfect example. They were not quick enough to realize that the cool thing was digital photography. Though they were the first in instant imaging, digital imaging became the next cool thing in photography. Other companies beat them to it! This demonstrates again that being first is not necessary good. All companies should have trend reports. The US President gets a report everyday on world events. Similarly, companies should receive reports on what the cool trends are. According to the authors, buzz can be bought; consumers can be bought as well. You can spread contiguous info through the internet. To do that, companies hire their own ambassadors to spread a buzz. Where stars go, people follow. For example, restaurants that Paris Hilton frequents are deemed to be hot. Similarly, a brand watch is deemed hot if worn by a star. Stars do sometimes create trends, and companies should keep a watchful eye on them. The authors warn against having people wait outside a discotheque for the sole reason of creating a show or an artificial demand. People will go inside the discotheque and find it empty, and this will backfire on the discotheque's coolness. The name of the game is to remain cool, and you cannot do that by deception. The authors say that if you want to make luxury make it and shut up. Don't advertise the fact that you are making a luxury. Doing so is like a woman boosting that she is beautiful. Besides, what is luxury? What makes a product a luxurious item? Is it its price? You'll often hear people complaining that music nowadays is not as good as it used to be. The question you should be asking is, `who's asking?' In most likelihood the person complaining is not as young as he used to be. Music is different than it used to be, not better or worse. What was cool yesterday is no longer cool today. Can you see teenagers nowadays listening to Louis Armstrong? There is a good chapter on risk taking vs. risk management. All companies must take risk, but it should be managed risk. If you think about risk, you would never be able to create. You must face risk to succeed. Take big risks but with risk management. You have to reinvent yourself or you will lose market share. Less is better; less is more. Tommy Hilfiger is an excellent example of this. They over expanded, and Tommy's apparel became too abundant, available in every department store. They also over advertized. This made it not cool. Customers lost interest in it. The authors recommend to pull back on the reins. Many companies went out of business by over doing it. I really liked what Christina Aguilera had to say about staying cool. According to her, a singer should not repeat the same style of music over and over again. She also says that being in the public eye means being out of the fans' imagination. She doesn't go to too many parties anymore, for not only does partying keep her in the public arena, but also away from creative work. The authors say that the only way to stay cool is to kill yourself when you are hot. Sounds pretty drastic! They cite James Dean as an example. Their advice: Stage your own death. Don't live long enough to spoil your image. I'm sure by this they mean your product! A person might not be cool, but what he does can be cool. Cool must stick. Cool is to be relevant. Chasing somebody else's cool is a mistake. Christina Aguilera is cool. But having Barbara Streisand dress like Aguilera and sing her songs is not cool! This is a really great book and is very easy and quick to read. I really recommend it. It was fun reading it! | ||