Coolhunting, Account Planning and the Ancient Cool of Aristotle
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Coolhunting, account planning and the ancient cool of Aristotle Nick Southgate Cogent Elliott, Meriden, UK Keywords living proof that there were smarter people Introduction Advertising agencies, Accounts, out there doing things in a smarter way. Marketing strategy, Brand management, Coolhunting has been enthusiastically Planners' reactions to coolhunting were Popular culture embraced by the client community because it consequently conflictingly enthusiastic and seemed unerringly shrewd at predicting the defensive. Abstract future ± and with that most ephemeral, fickle, Planners were captivated by the glamour of ``Cool'' is a quality highly desired will-o'-the-wisp of qualities, cool. Cool is the by consumers and, therefore, the coolhunt. No longer did we want to be the highly desired by brand owners, anvil on which many brands are made or eggheads with the charts and graphs. We yet it is frequently supposed to be broken. Cool is the currency all brands can wanted in on the action, we wanted to be part elusive and obscure. Scouting for profit from when they trade in it. The big of the hunt because we knew when we bagged cool is known as ``coolhunting'' brands that had bought in the coolhunters and its pervasive influence has our first piece of the coolhunt's big game we confirmed this: Reebok, Adidas, Nike, captivated brand owners and their too would be cool. agencies alike. Its claim to be able Coca-Cola, Levi's, Converse, Nokia, Gap, The Yet at the same time coolhunting was to predict future trends by North Face, Pespi and so on. These brands researching cool individuals has were either perennially cool, or widely obviously usurping part of planning's been both an inspiration and an traditional role. Where planning offered irritant to the account planning admired for their ability to rediscover and community. This paper argues that re-ignite lost cool. Meanwhile big brand ``consumer insight'', coolhunting now offered coolhunting is, in fact, factories like Unilever, Coty Beauty and insight into the only consumers that truly self-defeating. The real challenge Seagrams all managed to get their taste of the mattered, the cool. What is more, whereas for brand owners is not to observe cool people, but to create new cool as well. planning offered a link between the cool products, services and In this climate, the coolhunters flourished. consumer and creativity, coolhunting experiences. Account planning, They were the high priests of cool. They claimed to offer a link to consumers so cool with its mix of analytical and alone understood cool's abstruse, obfuscated creative thinking, is uniquely and creative themselves that no such and opaque rules. If we paid sufficient placed to offer a framework for interpretive bridge was required. doing this. One such framework, attention, and money, to them they might Coolhunting threatened to completely based on Aristotle's ethical just let us in on the secret. replace and undermine the planner on theory, is discussed. accounts that valued coolness. Increasingly, this seemed to be all accounts. No wonder Why planners should all care about the hunt many aligned themselves with coolhunting agencies or re-styled themselves as This mystique and hubbub meant that coolhunters. although coolhunting touched few of us in Coolhunting has also attracted the account planning community directly it considerable attention outside of the realms touched us all indirectly. of research, advertising, and marketing. The Some of us are blessed to work with large coolhunters appeared to be manipulative and clients with large budgets to match who can preternatural cultural puppet-masters, afford the luxurious services of a coolhunters. However, most planners work recalling The Hidden Persuaders Vance with clients who do not have these resources. Packard made famous over 40 years ago Yet these clients read of coolhunting and saw 5Packard, 1960). This too concerned the that it was good. They wanted the cool too ± planner, who should be aware how the public debate and understand brand owners' Marketing Intelligence & and so coolhunting became a yardstick for Planning planning to deliver against. Coolhunting was activities. 21/7 [2003] 453-461 # MCB UP Limited The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at [ISSN 0263-4503] [DOI 10.1108/02634500310504304] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-4503.htm [ 453 ] communications that can be inspired by the Nick Southgate A brief overview of this paper's Coolhunting, account cool without having to join the coolhunt. planning and the ancient cool ambitions of Aristotle This pervasive influence of coolhunting is Marketing Intelligence & Planning the motivation behind this paper. The ways of the hunt 21/7 [2003] 453-461 Coolhunting, when properly analysed, The methodology of the coolhunt throws the true concerns of planning as a The coolhunt methodology is typically creative discipline into sharp relief. This three-layered. paper will argue that planning is the more At the bottom sit the cool. These are the robust way to arrive at truly creative small number of enlightened individuals in solutions, and that coolhunting is ultimately the general population who are cool and self-defeating. know cool. What follows is an analysis of how the In the middle are the coolhunters. These coolhunt works. It looks to both question and are the coolhunting agency's foot soldiers. interrogate coolhunting's explicit and They are ``on the street'' acting as the eyes implicit assumptions. Key amongst these and ears of their masters. assumptions is the belief that cool is in some At the top are the executives of the sense beyond analysis. Cool is ineluctably coolhunting agency. They take reports in recondite. It may be described but any from the coolhunters and then follow them attempt to develop prescriptive criteria must up as they see fit. Most also pursue a dogged necessarily be jejune and insipid. coolhunt all of their own. Central to this paper's argument is the All three groups are united by one thing; contrary claim that cool is open to analysis. they are all cool. Account planning is a discipline designed to What makes coolhunting intriguing as a close the gap between analytic and creative methodology is that it boils down to a thinking. Therefore, if cool can be analysed, sophisticated recruitment procedure. planners should be able to help create cool. Important as interpretation no doubt is, the interpretive framework seems neither radical nor differentiated from other forms of Where exactly does Aristotle fit trend analysis 5e.g. little different to the into this? Henley Centre's Social Trends publications). To provide an analysis of cool, this paper will On the other hand the recruitment procedure turn to a maybe unexpected source, Aristotle. is both new and central to the success of Aristotle's notion of cool is to be found in his coolhunting. Shaping the recruitment ethical writings, most particularly the procedure at every turn is the alleged Nicomachean Ethics. A more extensive elusiveness of cool itself. argument will be made later. However, a The methodology is born of the very most brief introduction to Aristotelian cool will be central assumption of the coolhunt: only cool furnished here. people can understand what is cool 5one of Aristotle holds to, indeed can be said to Gladwell's ``Rules of cool'', see Gladwell, have founded, a school of ethical thought 1997). The executives of a coolhunting agency known as virtue ethics. This means that gain their power by brokering this correct behaviour is judged in comparison to transaction between the glistening language virtues such as courage, temperance, of cool and the mundane language of the generosity, wit and truthfulness. According befuddled and uncool client. to Aristotle the correct pursuit of life is Coolhunters insist it is impossible to give happiness. We can only be happy when we rules for what is cool. In this way the usual exercise each of the virtues in moderation. understanding of recruitment is completely Thus, we must not lack courage, for this upset. The notion of writing a recruitment would make us cowards, nor have too much specification is rendered entirely redundant. courage, which would make us foolhardy. There is, instead, much talk of ``instinct'', ``a One might, therefore, typify this approach sixth sense'', ``gut feelings'' and ``people who as one of taking an appropriate response to just know''. one's situation. It is this idea of appropriate Of course, the virtues of good recruitment response that finds rich parallels with the are universally acknowledged. We all know ideas central to the notion of cool; people who that bad recruitment can completely are cool are making the most astute decisions undermine a study. Nonetheless, writing about their lives and their environments. recruitment specs is often left to the more This approach will later be used to show how junior team members while recruitment it is possible to develop brands and itself is executed by recruiters who are a long [ 454 ] Nick Southgate way down the traditional research world's innovators, early adopters, later adopters, Coolhunting, account chain of respect and reward. the early and late masses, and the Laggards planning and the ancient cool By its own arguments, coolhunting simply of Aristotle and Luddites at the end 5Rogers, 1995). It has cannot afford to proceed this way. become a common place in research, brand Marketing Intelligence & Planning Recruitment is done by a mysterious laying and advertising agencies the world over. 21/7 [2003] 453-461 on of hands as one cool person identifies the In his role as both the theorist and next. Necessarily, the sagacity of these documenter of the coolhunt, Gladwell points decisions will need to be constantly out that this model is based on sociological monitored.