“Merchants Of Cool”: Exemplar Essay To Follow

When most people imagine a “corporate executive,” they picture a conservative man or woman in a nice suit making sensible decisions. However, corporate executives do not always answer these pictures. In 2001, Barak Goodman, Rachel Dretzin, and FRONTLINE correspondent Douglas Rushkoff filmed the documentary “Merchants of Cool.” The aim of this paper is to analyze how “cool” corporate executives look like and how they influence the world we live in.
Every business has its target audience, and it is not only adults but also teenagers. In the United States, teenagers constitute a significant part of the user market. Every year, they spend more than $150 billion and force their parents to spend even more. Thus, teenagers are a potential money making source for new media, new products, new TV shows, etc. However, in the world where something new appears every day, teenagers become skeptical, and it becomes harder to catch their attention. This fact makes corporate executives get in contact with teenagers and learn their interests and way of life, analyze data received from different focus groups and even attend houses of some of them to understand American youth better. Such corporate executives are called “merchants of cool” and “cool hunters.”
“Merchants of cool” usually do not wear suits; they prefer clothes suitable for active lifestyle. “Merchants of cool” spend most part of their time outside the office looking for new marketing ideas based on the interests of youth. “Merchants of cool” carefully analyze the data and create ads that make big sellers. “Cool” corporate executives run advertising campaigns and promotion actions and make them global engaging TV and radio. Their skills and ambitions could be admired, but in reality, the only aim of “merchants of cool” is to make money. They can popularize everything, even subcultures appeared as a protest to mainstream and popularization.
“Merchants of cool” are corporate executives mostly focused on teenagers. They analyze their interests and life and turn received data into the advertising campaigns. “Merchants of cool” can popularize almost everything, and under their influence, the border between TV and ads and real life blends. Everything teenagers are interested in becomes popular, and, thus, they do not have personal culture formed not under the influence of TV, ads, and “merchants of cool” themselves.