In watching, “The Merchants of Cool,” for a second time I was struck by how the search for cool continues today.  The central themes included the selling of cool to teenager as they have become a force in the consumer market, getting the message out and presenting hip and cool in a timely fashion. It is always interesting to look back and see what was considered cool in the past, as compared to today.  It is a little like looking at old photographs or videos of oneself and wondering, “What was I thinking?”  Looking at how advertising and the culture has changed over the last few years, I believe that we as a society will collectively be asking the same question.

            The documentary advertisers assume that everyone has a need to be cool.  Companies and advertisers believe we as a society, especially young people, feel the need to fit in and be a part of the cutting edge of a trend.  Companies spend millions of dollars searching for “the look.”  Then based on a small sampling they try to convince everyone that this is the next big thing.  It is a chicken or the egg issue.  Which came first the cool look or being cool in the cool look?

            The problem in developing and maintaining the market place culture is that, with teens, it is constantly changing. I was reminded at times of The Beatles movie, “A Hard Day’s Night.” In the film a market researcher grabs George Harrison, not knowing he is a Beatle, and begins to show him “what’s hip” and “what he’ll want to be wearing in two weeks.” The researcher calls his model, Susan, the “resident teenager” and becomes upset when Harrison calls her a bore and tells him the guys, “turn the sound down and say rude things about her.” It was an example of adults trying to make the latest teen trend.

            Similarly in “The Merchants of Cool,” Sprite attempted to make their “uncool” drink cool by using a famous spokesperson to make fun of the famous spokesperson commercial.  While at first it worked, the kids finally caught on to the fact they were not part of the inside joke, but the inside joke.  It also didn’t help with the massive cross promotions with MTV and various musical artists.  The cool channel began to channel the old advertising executives that the teens didn’t find cool or trust.

            The value of marketing to teenagers is not new. In fact given today’s market place a good to great company must find a way to tap into this revenue source. What is new though is the amount of advertising exclusively focusing on the age group. In the Sixties teens didn’t have much disposable income, today teens have guilt income. Guilt income flows to today’s teens because the parents feel guilty because they have to work, don’t want to spend time, or don’t know how to spend time with their teens, or feel guilty because their teen isn’t keeping up with his or her friends in owning the latest gadget.

            Perhaps this is a consumer “Hedgehog” effect.  The consumer is passionate about being cool, “What are you deeply passionate about” (Collins 118), and cannot be cool without the latest Nike shoes, “The key is to understand what your organization can be the best in the world at, and equally important what it cannot be the best at” (118) and finally what drives this individuals need to be cool, “What drives your economic engine” (118).  So, just as the Hedgeog Concept drives a good to great company; the Hedgehog Effect can drive the uncool to cool.  This may be what is driving advertisers to push the idea of cool to the great unwashed masses.

            Never before have companies had the technology to get their messages out.  Today the television is on twenty-four, seven.  Almost everyone owns a computer and with that the ability to belong to numerous social networks.  The constant communication between people via Twitter or any of a number of iPhone applications keeps everyone tuned in to what is going on.  There are advertisements at movie theatre, during the movies with creative product placement, and even on the DVDs you rent or purchase.  Want to know the latest trend or hot product, connect to the internet.

            As Jim Collins points out in Chapter Eight, “The good to great companies use technology as an accelerator of momentum, not the creator of it” (162). Given how technology is constantly changing how we live and communicate, a company has to know which types of technology will be of benefit to them. Just because something is “new and improved” doesn’t necessarily mean that it is better. A known entity that can continue to move the company forward is better than risking the growth of a company by hoping the latest fad will create momentum.

            The problem with much of today’s society is that we want to be cool, regardless of our age.  Scientific advances and changes in lifestyles are keeping people alive longer, often with a better quality of life than previous generations.  While on the face of it, this may not seem to be a problem, but in the way that the marketplace reacts to this change has created changes in the types of products sold and how they are advertised.

            We are so use to being bombarded with thirty second commercial spots that our attention spans are such that we expect everything to be presented to us in nice short quips and stories.  We have lost our ability to focus for more than thirty seconds at a time. It seems that advertising
has created the “bumper sticker mentality’ or “sound bite response.”  Is this lack of patience on the television in some small part responsible for our want for instant gratification and road rage?

            There is a need to be constantly entertained and because of this advertising has become art. If we were to look at the amount of money spent in making and broadcasting just during the Super Bowl it is fairly obvious that advertising is almost a mini movie making industry. Just like the movies of today, our commercials focus on sex and, in the case of video games, violence. Consumers almost prefer being entertained as opposed to informed; this could also be a commentary on today’s news channels. 

            Marcel Danesi discusses how art is indistinguishable from life (177) and how through stories we can relate to one another.  We tell stories to get our ideas across and, sometimes, influence people to come to our way of thinking. Stories can be a shared experience where, while I was not there, I can relate to what happened as something similar once happened to me. 

           In marketplace communications, stories are used to get us to buy a product or service. We may see a story of a harried housewife preparing for a family visit, and she is using a product that not only cleans the floor, but ceiling fans as well. She manages to get everything set just as her parents, in-laws, cousins and Aunt Bess ring the doorbell. While our experience may be slightly different, we understand the hassle of cleaning and getting ready for a family visit.  Therefore, I may buy this magical product to make my life easier. That is beauty of advertising.  We all strive to be cool, or own the cool product. Even as we age, we let the marketplace dictate what it is we need, whether we want it or not.

            As we become more connected we need to become aware that, “Google is changing our societies, our lives, our relationships, our worldviews, probably even our brains in ways we can only begin to calculate” (Jarvis 231).  The marketplace in an attempt to get us to purchase their product or service has aimed towards our vanity, our sexual appetites and our need to belong to a group.  Instead of elevating our view of society advertisers have rushed to the bottom, presenting our young people as sex hungry brats and demeaning women, and present men as incompetent boobs.

            The internet can now present these images, unfiltered, around the clock to anyone who has an internet connection.  Much like when television was first introduced as an educational resource, the internet has been heralded in much the same fashion.  Yes both can be used for positive purposes, yet the advertisers in marketplace diminish the positive possibilities. 

            In time we may be living in Philip K. Dick’s “Minority Report” world, where advertisers can gear their commercial directly to the individual.  One day as we walk through the mall we too might experience, as Tom Cruise did, store fronts calling out to us by name, 3-D ads directly changing commercials to suggest products we might be interested in and, of course, stopping crimes before they happen.

            Regardless of where technology and advertising take us, ultimately it is our responsibility to see that used to improve our lives.  There was a time when corporate leaders had an interest in preserving social standards, and offer some inferred moral leadership.  Companies would not sell certain products to teens, or young people, they would have a standard of advertising that while it wasn’t Shakespeare, spoke to the common decency of a community.  Today, it seems, companies rush to the lowest common denominator to advertise and sell product.  While it is easy to be satisfied with good, it benefits us all when we strive for great. 

Works Cited

Collins, James. Good to Great. New York: HaperCollins, 2001.

Danesi, Marcel. Of Cigarettes, High Heels, and Other Interesting Things.  

NewYork: Palgrave MacMillan, 1999.

Jarvis, Jeff. What Would Google Do? New York: HarperCollins, 2009.

Since the first caveman picked up a stick to defeat his opponent, man has continually searched for more effective ways to win wars.  Advances in technology that in many ways were created to make life easier often morph into weapons and tactics the more efficiently kill human beings.  To the politician the solider is a pawn on a huge chessboard, to scientists they are lab rats and to the citizens of nations soldiers are the oft forgotten protectors of freedom.  While leaders promise peace and an end to war, they continue to create for the soldier hell on Earth.

            At the turn of the Twentieth Century war was still a pretty simple affair.  Wars were fought on the ground and sea where the battling sides could see one another.  The airplane and automobile were new and promised quicker transportation.  The cavalry was still an important part of a nation’s standing army. 

            After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo author John Keegan in his book, The First World War, describes the mobilization of the militaries in this way, “

Horses, like men, were mustering in the hundreds of thousands all over Europe in the first week of August.  Even Britain’s little army called up165,000 mounts for the cavalry and draught animals for the artillery and regimental transport waggons.  The Austrian army mobalised 600,000, the German 715,000 the Russian-with its twenty-four cavalry divisions-over a million. The armies of 1914 remained Napoleonic in their dependence on the horse; staff officers calculated the proportion between horses and men at 1:3 (73).

The leaders of these nations believed that this war would be fought in the same manner of wars past, and would only last six months.  It became apparent as the trenches were dug and the battle lines were set that World War I would become a long and deadly affair that would forever change the ways war was fought.

            The most effective armament used in the First World War as artillery. Runners and aircraft would gather information on troop positions and movement; this information would be sent to artillery units who would bombard the enemy troops.  The British lobbed thousands of bombs during the war, but the Germans developed “Big Bertha” a massive piece of artillery that could fire at Paris from over 75 miles away.  It was only the artillery that was improved during the war, but the shells were upgraded as well. Instead of ordinary shells, new high-explosive shells were developed. These were thin cased shells that were filled with tiny lead pellets. The improvements were such that artillery fire now could kill hundreds and thousands of men.

The machine gun, first used in the Civil War, also was improved.  The German Maxim machine gun was fed by a fabric or metal belt, making it a very effective automatic weapon, its relatively small size also made it difficult for the enemy to destroy. On the opening day of the Somme offensive the British suffered a record number of single day casualties, 60,000, the great majority lost under withering machine gun fire.

Sir Winston Churchill in his book, The World in Crisis, wrote of the machine guns at Somme, “Even one machine gun is skilled resolute hands might lay five hundred men dead and dying on the ground; and along the assaulted front certainly a thousand of such scientifically related in several lines of defence awaited their prey” (655).

The British also had machine guns; however they were based on the German Maxim.  The Vickers Gun was water cooled, via a jacket around the barrel which held approximately one gallon of water. The Vickers was loaded from a 250-round fabric belt mounted on a tripod.  It fired some 450 rounds per minute; after some 10,000 rounds had been fired the gun barrel invariably required replacement.  The difficulty with this weapon was that it took six men to operate it.

The battles on the ground in the First War World were horrifying. Men left the trenches crossing “no-man’s land” in a hail of gunfire, often getting tangled in barbwire. Even in the trenches soldiers were not safe due to the use of chemical weapons.  The massive use of chemical weapons cut both ways.  Gas was effective at killing and demoralizing soldiers, as well as stopping advancing attacks. However depending upon the weather conditions it could be ineffective or even blown back onto the troops that were using it as their weapon. (Keegan, 197-202).

At the beginning of the war, aircraft were used for reconnaissance, flying above the enemy lines, helping to direct the artillery bombardments or to detect and troop movements, it was soon realized though that bombs could be dropped from the planes onto the enemy causing as much damage as possible.

This led to the development of fighter planes, the Sopwith Camel was developed by the British and the Germans retaliated with the Fokker Triplane. The most famous pilots of The Great War was a German pilot named Manfred Von Richthofen, better known as the Red Baron, He was responsible for shooting down over 80 Allied aircraft before he himself was killed when his aircraft, a Fokker Triplane, was shot down over France in 1918 (Keegan, 359-360).

Tanks were introduced into battle for the first time in 1916 by the British, these proved to be unreliable though, A later model played a vital role during the allied advances of 1918, flattening barbed wire, crossing enemy trenches and acting as shields for the advancing troops.  Tanks creation of the tanks was brought about as “the trench lines on both sides reached the sea, and there was no longer any open ground for manoeuvre or any flanks to turn” (Churchill, 304).

Another interesting insight of Churchill’s was, “The armored car was the child of the air; and the Tank its grandchild.  Churchill, who was involved in the creation of the tank (304-306), could see how the needs of the fighting forces changes, weapons needed to evolve to maintain or gain the advantage.

Churchill is an interesting character; he entered the Royal Military College of Sandhurst, and graduated with honors in December of 1894. Then he later saw action in Cuba, India, Egypt, Sudan, the front lines of World War I, and even took part in one of the last British cavalry charges in history (Severance, 17).  He is a bridge from World War One and World War Two, where he served as Britain’s Prime Minister.  It is often said that the cause of WWII was WWI, and Churchill experienced both first hand.

The advances of weaponry in World War I were improved on in World War II.  The use of submarines became more deadly during the Second World War than could have possibly been imagined in 1914.  The role of aircraft grew in land, sea and air.  The bombs and shells of battle became even more deadly.

The submarine in its infancy in WWI became a deadly and terrifying force in WWII.   In the Atlantic, where German submarines again acted against Allied convoys, this part of the war was very reminiscent of the latter part of World War I. Many British submarines were active as well, particularly in the Mediterranean and off Norway, against Axis warships, submarines and merchant shipping.

In the Pacific, the situation was reversed, with US submarines hunting Japanese shipping. By war's end, U.S. submarines had destroyed over half of all Japanese merchant ships sunk, totaling well over five million tons of shipping (Blair, 878). British and Dutch submarines also took part in attacks on Japanese shipping, mostly in coastal waters. Japanese submarines were often ineffectual, and by doctrine concentrated on attacking warships, rather than more-vulnerable merchantmen. A few German and Italian submarines operated in the Pacific Ocean, but never enough to be an important factor, inhibited by distance and difficult relations with their Japanese ally. The submarine was a silent, effective and deadly killer in both theaters in World War II.

One example of the power of artillery can be seen in the Battle of Bastogne.  The HBO special “Band of Brothers,” paints an excellent picture of the terror, panic and suffering of American troops during this week.  The constant bombardment of the troops was almost as much psychological warfare as it was an attempt to kill American soldiers. The American soldiers were outnumbered and lacking in cold-weather gear, ammunition, food, medical supplies, and leadership Due to some of the worst winter weather in years, the surrounded U.S. forces could not be resupplied by air nor was tactical air support available.  The attitude of the 101st Airborne could be summed up in most famous quote of the battle came from the 101st’s acting commander, Brigadier General McAuliffe. When confronted with a written request from German General Luttwitz for surrender of Bastogne, he replied “NUTS!”(Ambrose, 224).

            The use of aircraft to drop massive tonnages of bombs changed the complexion of war.  In the past civilian targets were avoided, but the Germans bombed ports such as Liverpool and Manchester, as well as. London.  The British in turn began bombing German cities in an attempt to destroy their military manufacturing capabilities.  One of the most infamous bombing raids took place in Dresden. It “has been called the most barbaric, senseless act of the war” (Ambrose, 306).   It is believed that 250,000 people were killed in twenty-four hours.

            The Japanese near the end of the war used their aircraft as weapons.  Kamikaze pilots would crash their planes into naval ships in attempts to inflict damage and hindered their capabilities.  The British, Germans and Americans engaged in dogfights in aircraft that became fast and more maneuverable in the air. Planes could now strike from the oceans, thanks to aircraft carriers and air power became the deciding factor in battle.

            There are two examples of how the technologies of war change man forever.  The first is the atomic bomb.  Its impact can still be felt today and the fear of their use by a nation or terrorist groups will be with us forever.  The other example is the concentration camps designed by the Nazis for the extermination of the Jews.  Man’s inhumanity to man was almost incomprehensible to the soldiers and people of that time, as it is to many today.  The fear here is that many have forgotten those atrocities of the past and some even deny that they happened.

            The Vietnam War introduced some guided weapons systems in an attempt to reduce civilian casualties.  Helicopters became the new cavalry, as they could move troops to battle quickly, transport the injured to field hospitals, move equipment and do reconnaissance.  The use of aircraft continued its evolution from WWII and Korea almost, at times, becoming the main fighting force in the jungle terrain.

            While American casualties have declined in the wars of the past 40 years, the technology has made the killing of troops more efficient.  In the Gulf Wars Americans were witnesses on live television of how effective smart bombs had become.  One of the most memorable clips was the destruction of a bridge as a civilian vehicle was just getting off the bridge.  There have been examples of aircraft sending a missile down and air vent destroy the enemy, or bunker busting bombs that can penetrate below the surface destroying hard to reach targets.

            It seems that a new conflict is always just around the corner, and the military leaders are constantly reaching for the next great weapon that can end war quickly.  However we have seen that wars do not end quickly or without great cost.  The great advances in technology that could one day cure cancer, send humans to Mars, or even just move us place to place more efficiently will one day be used to destroy what it was to protect or cure.

            As long as there are old men who lust for power and seek to advance their way of life to others, the young will sacrifice themselves for the cause.  I wish it were not so.  If we were taught the horrors of war instead of reducing them to video games, were you never really die and war is cool, tomorrow’s leaders would consider the consequences of sending our youth into the battlefield.  In the words of Robert F. Kennedy, “Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”



Works Cited

Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin, 1987. Print.

Ambrose, Stephen E. Citizen Soldiers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.

Blair, Clay Jr., Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2001.

Churchill, Winston S. The World in Crisis 1911-1918. New York: Free Press, 1959.

Keegan, John. The First World War. New York: Knopf, 1998.

Severance, John B. Winston Churchill: Soldier, Statesman. New York: Clarion Books, 1996.