Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Oakland-ish
Posts: 6032

COOL

Everything you wanted to know about the commodification of cool but were afraid to ask:

The Merchants Of Cool http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/

Tuesday, May 1, 10 pm on your PBS affiliate

From the synopsis:

"They spend their days sifting through reams of market research data. They conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools, and the malls, hot on the trail of the "next big thing" that will snare the attention of their prey--a market segment worth an estimated $150 billion a year.
They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts--and wallets--of America's youth?

FRONTLINE correspondent Douglas Rushkoff examines the tactics, techniques, and cultural ramifications of these marketing moguls in "The Merchants of Cool." Produced by Barak Goodman and Rachel Dretzin, the program talks with top marketers, media executives and cultural/media critics, and explores the symbiotic relationship between the media and today's teens, as each looks to the other for their identity.

Teenagers are the hottest consumer demographic in America. At 33 million strong, they comprise the largest generation of teens America has ever seen--larger, even, than the much-ballyhooed Baby Boom generation. Last year, America's teens spent $100 billion, while influencing their parents' spending to the tune of another $50 billion.

But marketing to teens isn't as easy as it sounds. Marketers have to find a way to seem real: true to the lives and attitudes of teenagers; in short, to become cool themselves. To that end, they search out the next cool thing and have adopted an almost anthropological approach to studying teens and analyzing their every move as if they were animals in the wild."




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"if you never take it seriously, you never get hurt and if you never get hurt you always have fun"

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Bangor, ME
Posts: 10181

i smell a conspiracy

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"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
-Ernest Hemingway

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19584

Where the hell else did you think the backstreet boys and britney spears came from?

-m


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Freedom means taking the bad with the good.

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