The Birth of Cool

Cool is born out of the will to be different, to play by other rules. It is not destined to change society or to rally everyone. In order to survive, cool has to stay niche, somehow small, and has to be heavily coded so it is not easily reached or used by mainstream culture. If Cool stays small, can it be a sustainable market positioning for a brand? In other words, can Cool make money?

Seth Godin's answer is yes, and he even says it's the only way forward, because mass is dead (he wrote a cool book We Are All Weird). He states that people will spend more money and time getting engaged with brands in which they truly recognize themselves because all we want is to be unique and considered as such. So Cool or at least Niche is the future of branding?

In the past, it seems Cool had to get mainstream to survive. It could be quick or it could take decades, but eventually Cool lost its edge. Today it's different, consumers get all the information they want, they are aware of trends, quality, prices... They feel confident enough that their behavior is not dictated by advertising or media anymore. They know when a brand pretends to be what it is not. Today's consumers seek authenticity, for themselves and for the brands they buy.

So Mass is dead, and mass-appeal brands are getting commoditized... The good news is: it is possible to bring Cool back. Nike did it, it created exclusive products, exclusive retail locations, exclusive collaborations, exclusive marketing... Nike slowly excluded the Mass, the people who allowed it to grow big in the 1990s and brought back the "Cool Factor" using pricing, limited editions, and guerrilla marketing. Nike gained iconic status, it became a lifestyle to aspire to, more than a brand.

This is exactly what a brand like Puma has so much trouble doing right now. Puma is not Cool, because it is not clear what it stands for, or who it is talking to. Branding is at the core of marketing strategy because it reveals what brands stand for, what individuals they should talk to, how they should communicate, how they should design their stores and their products. If a brand is not clear on its core values, then they are just buying time...