Coolhunting, account planning and the ancient cool of Aristotle

Nick Southgate Cogent Elliott, Meriden, UK

Keywords living proof that there were smarter people Introduction agencies, Accounts, out there doing things in a smarter way. strategy, 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 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. studies in ``diffusion research'' the most Traditional research suggested that famous of which studied the spread of a new ordinary people saying ordinary things could seed variant on Iowa farms in the 1930s and be interpreted to be actually revealing 1940s 5Gladwell, 2000). insights about what they actually wanted However, planners and coolhunters have brands to suggest to them. This led, in its not adopted diffusion theory because it is a extreme form, to the ``depth men'' and their useful description of how an innovation researches made famous by The Hidden spreads through a population. For Persuaders 5Packard, 1960). Agencies aimed coolhunters, diffusion yheory has the to sell to us by harnessing impulses we were strength and power of a law of nature: entirely unaware of and would never universal, all encompassing, and irresistible. consciously or spontaneously voice. This completes the damnation of the This had been the traditional area of uncool. Once cool people have an idea, a operation for planners. Planning relied on chain of events is started that means all of us interpretation as much as observation. The 5even the uncool) will come to adopt it. demands of developing a simple and Naturally by the time the uncool masses have persuasive advertising proposition involved adopted an idea it will have become a process of reduction and refinement that necessarily uncool. planning specialised in. Consumers were The elusiveness of the cool, combined with unlikely to serve up such propositions the inevitability of today's niche cool being perfectly formed. tomorrow's mass uncool, underwrites the Conversely, coolhunters talk to coolhunter's power. Client's needed them extraordinary people saying extraordinary because, as an inevitable consequence of the things. The coolness of the respondents way markets work, what was cool amongst makes their pronouncements de facto the coolest would be mass, if uncool, predictions. One could easily feel that one tomorrow and only the coolhunters could would only have to write these pearls of guide them to these few individuals who wisdom down and the job would be done. A determined all our futures. Planners and practising coolhunter goes as far as to say, researchers, unable to offer such precise and ``The judgement of whether it's important or determinate predictions, were left looking not comes from them'' 5Gordon and Lee, decidedly old-fashioned and out of touch. 2001). Indeed, the subscription reports offered by coolhunting agencies seem to draw much of Putting the heat on the their weight from simply aggregating the coolhunters pronouncements of the cool. If enough cool people say the same thing this critical mass However, the coolhunting process can be makes it a foregone conclusion the trend will pulled apart. When this is done one arrives at break. a rather different view of what is cool. With The implication is that it is no longer this different understanding of what is cool necessary to probe universal human truths we can take a very different approach to to find insights. Coohunting has discovered a using cool as a guide and inspiration in segment of the population who will serve up building better brands and communications. tomorrow's trends, if not ready digested then We can also feel better about using the certainly heavily chewed. supposedly leaden research methodologies planners traditionally rely upon. Cool today, mass tomorrow If cool was indeed so impenetrable to Despite the congenital ignorance that everyone except the cool, a quandary would renders them uncool, there is one arise for the coolhunter. Their model relies commercially magical fact about the uncool; on people who are not cool adopting the uncool will be doing tomorrow what the examples of cool practice and cool behaviour. cool are doing today. The motivation for this cannot be just that We are all familiar with the precepts of the the uncool believe that these things are cool ± model that divides the population into remember the uncool do not and cannot [ 455 ] Nick Southgate know the cool. Instead there must be and the identification of new trends with Coolhunting, account universal and shared desires and goals that what is cool should not be a foregone planning and the ancient cool both the cool and the uncool respond to. of Aristotle conclusion. The uncool must, therefore, be driven to It is one thing to say that cool people often Marketing Intelligence & Planning adopt previously cool behaviour while set trends. It is another thing to say that 21/7 [2003] 453-461 dealing with some universal problem that trend seeking is a necessary condition of cool people have already solved. This being cool. Coolhunters provide no argument adoption doesn't, and cannot, make them for this being the case. The problem lies at a cool, but it does spread the trend. The deeper level. Ironically, it is also a product of coolhunter, therefore, has to explain what the very success of the coolhunt. are these parallel concerns that both the cool Brand owners 5brand owners who and the uncool share. ultimately make their money by selling things) pay the coolhunter. The coolhunter, Cool and authenticity therefore, is not truly interested in The truest hallmark of cool behaviour understanding or documenting what cool is. according to coolhunters is Authenticity. The coolhunter is, instead, interested in Authenticity is a quality itself worthy of documenting cool . lengthy discussion 5Southgate, 2003a). Hopefully, it is self-evident that consumer Nonetheless, we can gloss it here to equate to behaviour is only a subset of all human the people's desire to have ownership and behaviour. It is possible to be cool in all of autonomy over their own identities. one's behaviour. Therefore, if one limits Grounding their enquiries in authenticity one's search for cool only to when it is suggests due profundity and seriousness on demonstrated through consumption, or the part of the coolhunter and suitably something that can be made consumable, beguiles the client. However, the concept is then the remit of the coolhunt will fall short rather too abstract for the coolhunter's of a full investigation of all that is cool practical street level purposes. Therefore, a 5Southgate, 2003b). more concrete translation is needed. The It is coolhunting's championing of cool favourite is self-expression. The cool are consumerism that attracts the ire of so many always looking to express themselves in ever critics. It is also why planners should treat it better, clearer and more evocative ways. with suspicion. If planning is to provide a This drive for self-expression, coolhunters creative springboard for the creation of claim, is a natural part of what it is to be cool. better brands and better advertising Cool people need to be outwardly expressive coolhunting's endless mimicry seems and socially engaged. This is unarguably true inexorably stultifying. of the teenage and 20-something audiences that coolhunters pre-occupy themselves with. These life stages are pre-eminently about The coolhunt saboteurs: critics of social engagement and the kudos necessary the coolhunt to achieve successful and fulfilling engagement with one's peers while The critics' complaints of the coolhunt fall commanding their respect. under three subheads. The cool are, on this analysis, on a hiding First, there is an emotional rejection of the to nothing. Their status depends on their very idea that cool can be hunted down and authenticity, and authenticity that can only mounted up as a trophy on the Corporate be proved by self-expression. As we have Boardroom wall for the suits to enjoy 5Albom, already seen, the value of this self-expression 1998). will be chronically eroded when its ways are The second complaint is that coolhunting adopted by the mass. The cool person is given is the most pernicious form of marketing that no choice but to move on. This gives another Corporations engage in today 5Frank, 1995; defining quality of the quarry of the 1997; 2002; Klein, 2000; Lasn, 2000). coolhunt: the cool are driven by 5and to) an Finally, the third complaint grows from endless quest for novelty. this accusation of exploitation by brand owners. These critics level the complaint that Cool and novelty brand owners who wish to profit from cool A fine but important distinction needs to be would both make more money and more drawn here. The kind of people who drive friends if they went to the effort of inventing trends will tend to be drawn towards and new kinds of cool rather than manipulating fascinated by novelty. These are exactly the and hijacking existing forms of cool kind of people coolhunters observe. However, 5Rushkoff, 2001; Shalit, 2001). this choice is loaded with bias. Coolhunters This final criticism is of most interest to are interested with discovering new trends planners because they are the people charged [ 456 ] Nick Southgate with providing the inspiration and insight quicker the chase, the quicker the flight'' and Coolhunting, account for new kinds of cool. However, the nature of continues: planning and the ancient cool The act of discovering what's cool is what of Aristotle this objection is best understood in light of the second criticism of coolhunting's causes cool to move on, which explains the Marketing Intelligence & triumphant circularity of coolhunting: Planning pernicious and exploitative nature. 21/7 [2003] 453-461 because we have coolhunters ... cool changes The perniciousness of the cycle of cool more quickly, and because cool changes more quickly, we need coolhunters 5Gladwell, 1997). Naomi Klein punctures coolhunting's cool by arguing it is a euphemism for something In fact, coolhunters should be worried rather more unpleasant: because this cycle will ultimately be bad for As designer Christian Lacroix remarked in business. The reason is simple. The cycle that Vogue, ``It's terrible to say, very often the is being increased is not the cycle of cool most exciting outfits are from the poorest itself, but the cycle of cool consumerism. The people''. Over the past decade, young black faster the cycle of cool consumerism, the men in American inner cities have been the more expensive it is for brands to chase it market most aggressively mined by brandmasters as a source of borrowed and more expensive it is for consumers to ``meaning'' and identity. The truth is that the keep up. Something will give. ``got to be cool'' rhetoric of the global brands Could it be possible that cool itself would is, more often than not, an indirect way of stop being cool? Those of us who cherish the saying ``got to be black''. Just as the history of notion of cool in our hearts need not worry cool in America is really 5as many have that this will happen. However, what will argued) a history of African-American happen is that consumerism will stop being culture ... for many of the superbrands, cool cool. The substantial sales of writers like hunting simple means black-culture hunting Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Thomas Frank, 5Klein, 2000). Kalle Lasn and Douglas Rushkoff surely On this analysis, the coolhunter is a stooge of serve as proof that this is in fact happening. white-corporate America making sure that This establishes the third objection; the even if black culture is going to influence coolhunt has failed the notion of cool and that what Americans wear, the profits will still we deserve something better. Maybe flow where they always have done. surprisingly this objection finds its most For critics like Klein and Kalle Lasn, articulate voice in the words of Douglas founder of Adbusters, what is to be lamented Rushkoff, normally one of the most gloves-off here is the colonisation of public space and critics of contemporary marketing. Rushkoff ideas. We should demand to have arenas of is persuasively clear both as to what the argument and discussion free of ``content'' solution is and the extent to which we are all from corporate sponsors. Lasn sees this as being let down by not rising to the challenge. part of a broader problem that he dubs ``The As it would be difficult to find a better way of ecology of mind'' 5Lasn, 2000). This corporate putting these arguments Rushkoff is worth invasion results in a decline of quoting at length: ``infodiversity''. Coolhunting is guilty Instead of dedicating your budgets to because it co-opts ideas and force-feeds them exacerbating this problem by drawing ever- to us reducing their chance to flourish and tighter circles of teen research, have you considered spending it on designers, instead? our chance to choose. Lasn writes: Let your own studios and workshops become Cultural homogenisation has graver the locus of discovery, not some photographs consequences than the same hairstyles, on a trend-watching Web site. Dare you lead, catchphrases, music and action-hero antics instead of follow? perpetrated ad nauseam around the world. In all systems, homogenisation is poison. Lack Instead of identifying a trend and then of diversity leads to inefficiency and failure. mass-producing it before it has had a chance The loss of a language, tradition or heritage ± to mature into something of depth, why don't or the forgetting of one good idea ± is as big a you develop some trends of your own? Spend loss to future generations as a biological your scouting money identifying new species going extinct 5Lasn, 2000). designers and then fostering their talents. If you simply must capture the vitality of youth, Coolhunting can hardly consider itself let off why not bring in kids as interns or apprentice the hook because other graver sins are being designers? Let them learn from your best committed. This problem of coolhunting senior people, so that instead of re-inventing killing the very thing it studies has not teen fashions every season, you build a escaped the attention of coolhunters legacy. themselves ± although they feel differently How can teens develop their own culture about the problem. when each new idea is co-opted and sold back The ever quotable Gladwell dubs this to them before it's had a chance to mature? I problem ``The first rule of the coolhunt: the know your revenues depend on staying ahead [ 457 ] Nick Southgate of the curve, but that curve has come full intact. This practical concern means that Coolhunting, account circle. The very coolest thing in a world cool behaviour affects even the minutiae of planning and the ancient cool where nothing lasts is continuity itself. That's of Aristotle behaviour. This is also true of Aristotle's why 1960s, 1970s and 1980s clothing revivals ethics, which are more concerned with Marketing Intelligence & are happening with such disarmingly practical execution than with providing Planning regularity. Kids are aching for something 21/7 [2003] 453-461 immutable and overarching rules. with more longevity than the current cycle affords them. Don't adults have anything to Latterly, as cool has moved from an offer them besides a mirror? 5Rushkoff, 2001). attitude for the marginalized to an attitude for both literal and lifestyle outsiders, as The closing sections of this paper will be an America became relatively more prosperous attempt to rise to Rushkoff's challenge; for and more equitably, the parallel becomes this is the planner's creative duty. stronger. Aristotle writes for an audience who would have enjoyed the ancient world's equivalents of ubiquitous consumer plenty. Cool for cool's sake Notwithstanding the still vast inequities First, it is useful to try to define cool apart within American society, it is still the richest from the concerns of the coolhunter, i.e. to in the world and cool its pre-eminent separate cool from cool consumerism 5for emotional style. more detail see Southgate, 2003a or 2003b). Second, an analysis of cool will be offered using Aristotelian ethics as its basis. Aristotle and the cool: theoretical Finally, some concluding remarks will be parallels made to suggest how we can change what we For the purposes of this paper the theoretical do so we can make use of what we have learnt parallels have been limited to the four most about the cool. important.

Parallel 1: Cool and the life of reason Aristotle and the cool: contextual The aim of human life is to pursue happiness. parallels Happiness will be achieved by pursuing what Before looking at parallels between is good for human life. According to Aristotelian ethics and the cool attitude, it is Aristotle, the good of something is best worth remarking on the parallels between served when it acts in its most characteristic Aristotle's social context and Post-War way. For example, a good wheel is perfectly America. round, a good athlete runs well. Aristotle played a significant role in The defining characteristic of humans is ancient Greek society. He was involved in the having and exercising reasoning. Happiness, Lyceum in Athens, and also spent time in therefore, is to be achieved by correct Macedonia. In this time Macedonia was a exercise of the reason in accordance with the military powerhouse, a sort of ancient virtues. superpower. Aristotle's connections were This finds its parallel with cool because impeccable as he was engaged as tutor to cool responses are always appropriate. Alexander the Great. Considering the context the action is made in The society Aristotle lived in, and had in arrives at appropriate action. Consideration mind when he composed his ethical writings, is the correct exercise of reason. was therefore the most wealthy and powerful One should remember that consideration in the world at that time. This is, of course, of context does not have to imply deep, the position post-war America has enjoyed. reflective thought on each and every Aristotle's ethics are intended as practical occasion. One can know the right thing to do instruction for the sons of the wealthy and because one is well attuned to what is well connected. This is why there is necessary in a situation. This is why doctors considerable concern with the exercise of wit can train to work under pressure, or karate and the correct attitude to money in contrast experts can learn to anticipate an adversary's to the rather more austere concerns of moves. Prior consideration produces later modern ethical enquiries. correct action. It is true that the converse appears to be This parallel is also reflected in our use of true of cool's origins as a code of behaviour language. We talk about people ``keeping for the marginalized in society 5MacAdams, their cool'' when they act appropriately. 2002). However, like Aristotle, cool is Conversely, when people react badly, we talk concerned with practical reactions with one's of ``losing one's cool''. People who act well are situation, i.e. how to react to the day-to-day cool people. This sense of acting well can be indignities of oppression with one's dignity extended beyond moral actions. This is why [ 458 ] Nick Southgate we feel it is cool when people know exactly ethics by judgement against the virtues. The Coolhunting, account what to wear, or admire the cool wit of virtues discussed in the Nicomachean Ethics planning and the ancient cool are listed in Table I. of Aristotle someone who has just the right words when they need them. The only virtue that would have to be Marketing Intelligence & Planning added to round out a modern notion of cool 21/7 [2003] 453-461 Parallel 2: Holistic approach to life would be one of aesthetic response. One of Although concerned with practical guidance, cool's concerns is the elegant expression of Aristotle is also concerned to weigh and good actions, which demands an aesthetic balance individual virtues. He is not, sense. Equally, being able to discern the therefore, overly concerned with the worth beautiful is also an important part of being or otherwise of individual actions. He is cool 5particularly given the large number of interested in how these actions add up to a artists we regard as cool). life well lived. Nonetheless, allowing for this one absence, Likewise, the cool is concerned with an Aristotle's list of virtues is remarkably overall approach to life. This has the complete and flexible 5it should also be noted apparently paradoxical affect of forcing that Aristotle's texts are not complete, and he concerns of the cool into every possible discussed aesthetics extensively in other aspect of life. However, when the overall writings). picture is one's concern, anything can make a difference, so this is to be expected. Using the virtues to harness the cool Again this fits in with our notions of cool As should have become clear, cool is a people. To be truly cool is to be cool all of the quality of people, not of objects. Objects can time. Part-time cool makes no sense at all. only be said to be cool in as much as cool people use them 5and this should include Parallel 3: Importance of friendship products and services, although service Aristotle discusses friendship at some length. brands are rarely mentioned by coolhunters). This is notably different to modern ethical We do not, therefore, have to worry about writing which is almost silent on the subject, how a training shoe could be said to exhibit much preferring abstract rules and the virtue of courage. This is fortunate as generalities. that would be absurd. Likewise, cool is deeply concerned with Instead we have to consider how our target personal relationships. Cool people can only audience feel about the exercise of each of the be cool by defining their relationships with virtues. Aristotle urged that each virtue other people in a cool manner. Usually this needed to be exercised in moderation. means choosing cordial and respectful However, what changes from person-to- relationships with those around. However, person and group-to-group is where this cool people will always engage in appropriate point of moderation sits. resistance. Cool people stand-up to the bully. It is easy to understand how courage finds Mohammed Ali increased his cool by a different mean expression for young men in resisting the draft. Hermits can be still be their twenties who follow football teams, cool if the terms of their withdrawal are also than it might for teenage girls interested in suitably cool 5withdrawing through anger high street fashion. What brand owners need would be uncool, withdrawing for to consider is how their brands can reflect contemplation can be cool, hence the high the way their targets express a virtue. The cool factor Zen Buddhist monks enjoy, see more it helps them do so, the cooler the 5MacAdams, 2002)). brand. Therefore, it is no surprise that Stone Parallel 4: Emphasis on the practical Island is a cool cult brand amongst hardcore wisdom football fans. The label's distinctive logo is As already noted both Aristotle and the cool attached like a military insignia, suggesting are interested in practical pursuits. This a martial expression of courage. On the other emphasis on the practical is constantly hand confidence for teenage girls is evident when we talk about cool people frequently concerned with finding a because we nearly always talk of cool people comfortable point of sexual poise. So one ``knowing what to do''. Cool is a body of finds that Miss Sixty, with its apolitical practised knowledge. updating and blending of summer of love motifs, strikes the right tone of cool confidence for many 16-year old girls. Cool and the virtues Generosity and magnificence are clearly virtues of interest to the financial services As already explained the judgement of sector. American Express found that younger correct behaviour is made in Aristotelian consumers rejected the brand values of the [ 459 ] Nick Southgate classic green card. They found it stuffy and truthfulness. Each will create new ways of Coolhunting, account pompous and loaded with suggestions of an being cool and maybe find an audience. planning and the ancient cool entirely anachronistic approach to money. To make these judgements one needs to of Aristotle For young people the Green Card failed to contemplate one's target audience's Marketing Intelligence & Planning meet their moderate expression of generosity judgements about the virtues. This can be 21/7 [2003] 453-461 and magnificence. Amex's response was the done with traditional research techniques. Blue Card. The Blue Card captured an Unlike the coolhunt it is not important to entirely different tone and approach to ask the trendsetters. The challenge is not to money. It caught the way a less openly discover which virtues will be fashionable in status-driven generation wanted to express the future. This is absurd because the virtues their generosity and magnificence. are always relevant at all times. They are Consequently it became Amex's cool card. neither in fashion nor out of fashion. Nor is Go is 5or was) arguably the coolest low-cost the challenge to spot how the fashionable airline. It allowed an upmarket audience to mean point will move. The challenge is not to mark the mean point of several virtues in a reflect what people are expressing. The new way. Air travel had been caught up with challenge is to give people new ways to expense, and was therefore an expression of express that virtue. magnificence. Indeed, business travel With the coolhunt, difficulties occur advertising is full of imagery appealing to because, although the hunt can tell you what our desire for magnificence. By taking cool people are doing today, it can't tell you wealth out of the equation the transaction what they will do tomorrow. This is because was relocated to one of generosity ± the no analysis of the cool is offered. Cool everyday management of money. Air travel people's next moves seem arbitrary. is related to a completely different virtue. Go Virtues, however, do offer an analysis of was also witty and with its retro birth of the cool. If expressing friendliness is important jet age imagery, evoked a sense of the to your target it is surely more inspiring to democratic hopes and possibilities of air think of new ways of expressing that virtue travel. Go therefore also tickled its than it is to try and guess what will replace audience's sense of justice and helped them Cajun-Tex-Mex fusion cocktail bars as the feel good about that weekend trip to Nice. trend de jour. These examples all show how brands One may discover that what is important to reflected their audiences. However, it is the target audience simply isn't well hopefully self-evident how brand owners can addressed by your brand. Maybe your use their brand to provoke and suggest ketchup just can't instil a sense of justice; responses in people's virtues they might not maybe your soap-powder will never deliver a anticipate. In this way one can respond to sense of even temper. The answer here is not Rushkoff's challenge. to try. Make your brand respond to the virtue If one thinks that sport should be appropriate to it and make people respond to democratic, then develop a sports brand that that virtue. It could just be possible that is about justice 5arguably where Nike started, people would like a brand that knows its but not where they have ended up). If you limits and doesn't aspire to brand and think fashion is too magnificent, rediscover intrude on every aspect of their existence. its generosity. If fashion is too witty, use it to tug at justice. If fashion dealing with justice is too rich for you, reassert its friendliness or Conclusions Table I Account planning is most valuable to The virtues as discussed in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics 8NE) agencies when it provides a bridge between Virtue Sphere of exercise Discussion in NE analytic and creative thought. Good research and careful observation will always provide Courage Fear and confidence III.6-9 raw material for this analysis. However, they Temperance Bodily pleasure and pain III.10-12 cannot replace the contribution of good Generosity Giving and retaining money IV.1 planning and the inevitable paucity of Magnificence Giving and retaining money on a large scale IV.2 information provided through coolhunting Greatness of soul Honour on a large scale IV.3 demonstrates this point. 2Nameless) Honour on a small scale IV.4 The challenge for account planning is to Even temper Anger IV.5 help create ideas for communication and for Friendliness Social relations IV.6 brands that allow people to have new Truthfulness Honesty about oneself IV.7 experiences. Making the effort to ground our Wit Conversation IV.8 thinking in a subtle and inventive Justice V understanding of the human condition will Friendship Personal relations VIII-IX help achieve this. Despite its current [ 460 ] Nick Southgate popularity, coolhunting fails to provide an www.gladwell.com/1997/ Coolhunting, account understanding of the underlying dimensions 1997_03_17_a_cool.htm planning and the ancient cool of cool consumerism preferring to perpetuate Gladwell, M. 52000), The Tipping Point, Little, of Aristotle the shrouding myth that it defies analysis. Brown, New York, NY. Marketing Intelligence & Planning This paper has taken a peek beneath that Gladwell, M. 52001), ``PBS frontline: merchants of 21/7 [2003] 453-461 shroud to reveal that an appreciation of the cool interview'', PBS, available at: virtues derived from Aristotelian ethics can www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ be used as the basis to assess cool cool/interview/gladwell.html consumerism and if applied appropriately Gordon, D. and Lee, S. 52001), ``PBS frontline: can appease consumer's need for ``cool''. merchants of cool interview'', PBS, available Account planning must come to terms with at: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ the need to acquire, develop and maintain its shows/cool/interviews/gordonandlee.html own expertise ± and in doing so, define itself Klein, N. 52000), No Logo, Flamingo, London. as a discipline. Without this effort, planners Lasn, K. 52000), Culture Jam: How to Reverse will either revert to being in-house agency America's Suicidal Consumer Binge ± research managers or will be supplanted by and Why We Must, HarperCollins, the coolhunters and their next incarnations. New York, NY. MacAdams, L. 52002), Beat, Bebop & the American References Avant-Garde, Simon & Schuster, London. Albom, M. 51998), ``How corporate America Packard, V. 51960), The Hidden Persuaders, hijacked cool'', The Holland Sentinel, 8 July, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth. available at: www.hollandsentinel.com/ Rogers, E.M. 51995), The Diffusion of Innovation, stories/070898/opn_cool.html The Free Press, London. Aristotle 52000), in Crisp, R. 5Ed. and Trans.), Rushkoff, D. 52001), ``The pursuit of cool'', Nicomachean Ethics, Cambridge University Sportswear International, available at: Press, Cambridge. www.rushkoff.com/essay/ Frank, T. 51995), ``Dark age: why Johnny can't sportswearinternational.html dissent'', The Baffler, Vol. 6, pp. 5-16, 174-92. Shalit, R. 52001), ``The early-adopter wars'', Salon, Frank, T. 51997), The Conquest of Cool: Business 22 March, available at: http:// Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/03/22/ Consumerism, Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL. hipsters/index2.html Frank, T. 52002), One Market under God: Extreme Southgate, N. 52003a), ``Coolhunting with Capitalism, Market Populism and the End of Aristotle'', Proceedings of the Economic Democracy, Random House, Society Conference 2003. London. Southgate, N. 52003b), ``Coolhunting with Gladwell, M. 51997), ``The coolhunt'', The New Aristotle'', International Journal of Market Yorker, 17 March, available at: Research, Vol. 45, pp. 167-89.

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