Reddit reviews The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism
We found 5 Reddit comments about The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
You should read The Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank. It's an entire book about this exact point. Great read.
Try Nation of Rebels or The Conquest of Cool.
1.) This is a commercially produced ad. Nobody has 150k+ to drop on concepting, film crew, talent, location scouting, postproduction etc... this isn't some hacked together youtube spoof. Ad agencies have been releasing 'banned' commecials for years now. It lets them do more radical spots that wouldn't be suitable for their core audience, or simply wouldn't be allowed on the air. Releasing this spot on youtube works because it appeals to their audience of kids, while not offending moms because moms don't watch youtube (at least not 10 years ago when this was released).
2.) lets look at this article that discusses Lunchables..
"This idea — that kids are in control — would become a key concept in the evolving marketing campaigns for the trays. In what would prove to be their greatest achievement of all, the Lunchables team would delve into adolescent psychology to discover that it wasn’t the food in the trays that excited the kids; it was the feeling of power it brought to their lives. As Bob Eckert, then the C.E.O. of Kraft, put it in 1999: “Lunchables aren’t about lunch. It’s about kids being able to put together what they want to eat, anytime, anywhere.”
So.. in this spot a kid is inspired by lunchables to rebel against the norms of school by playing gangasta rap over the intercom, and all his pals congradulate him... Seems dead-on brand to me.
Would you like to know more? Check out this wonderful book about the commodification of dissent.
The Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank
Pretty good so far. I keep reading books like these because I'm at business school and I haven't heard a reference to art or music since I've gotten here. So it's a nice combo of business culture and art/music/creative culture. Even though most of the time I end up hating Capitalism by the end of it
Frank's The Conquest of Cool is also an excellent read. Cultural appropriation is a tricky beast.