The definition of cool

‘Coolness’ is a big issue in advertising, especially in youth advertising. What a brand says about you, and how it influences your relationships with your peers is, as a tween-ager, a matter of greater importance than life or death.

The ability to make a brand cool, using some magical combination of words, pictures and sounds, is one of the rarest of abilities in the entire ad game.

The factors to be considered are multiple: is your headline ‘on-point’, is the slang ‘with-it’ or are your writers showing their age? How about the make-up? Nose ring or tongue stud? What about the hair, the oh-so-important hair? How many models, what are they doing, what are they wearing, where are they? How do the answers to the questions in the previous sentence relate to your brand? Coolness is a minefield and, as they say, you either got it or you don’t…

The youth market is one of the harshest critics of the lot, for them it is all ‘black and white’. If they love you they are with you ‘for life’ (which for them equals tops nine months), but if they sense in any way that something ain’t right they will tear you a proverbial ‘new one’ via fb, twitter, text, graffiti, secret notes in class and even via Faiba’s smoke signals.

It has been said many times before that the secret of looking cool is not to look like you’re trying to look cool. The youth can smell a thousand miles away when some one (or some brand) is ‘trying too hard’ – they are like a Tyrannosaurus Rex (Google T Rex sense of smell).

So, for those of us who have to make ‘cool’ ads, and for whom youth was some time in the mid-90’s (though no doubt Wu Tang still kicks the behinds of these Lil-sijui who’s), what is ‘the way forward’?

Allow me to break it down: coolness is about two things, authenticity and attitude – get these two right and you’ll have the youth market eating out of the palm of your hands.

Authenticity is the ‘barrier to entry’, and it basically means, as they say, ‘keeping it real’. If your ad isn’t first and foremost authentic in it’s depiction of the aspired to culture and lifestyle of your target audience, you will not get past the first hurdle and through to the stage where you can actually start pushing your brand.

Authenticity is much harder to achieve than you would perhaps think – it’s not just a matter of an afro and a guitar a la this ad. Unless you have an art director who is truly ‘plugged-in’, it is often best to get some representatives of your target audience into the agency and follow their advice to the letter – pink is the new black, mohawks are the new dreads and colored contacts are the new stunners, or so I’m told.

Remember that the youth market is sub-divided into an infinite number of genres – reggae boys and hip-hop girls, house-heads and goth rockers, gospel divas and neo-soul wannabes – and each of these genres build and maintain their distinct group identities on the basis of a wide range of very subtle visual, stylistic and linguistic cues. The point of these cues is to denote membership – you get one wrong, you are not a member – you are not authentic. Therefore, don’t get any of the cues wrong.

Once you have achieved authenticity, i.e. you have dressed or packaged your brand correctly, you are now ready to move to the stage that separates the ‘men’ from the ‘boys’ i.e. attitude.

Observant students of both hip-hop and rock will tell you that underlying both artforms is a distinctive attitudinal approach to the world – both are essentially all about posturing (a la peacocks). This posture, as befits the word, is essentially communicated through body language. If you do not believe me, go and look at every good perfume ad on the planet – they are all about body language. If you still do not believe me, go and look at the cover of pretty much every successful hip hop and rock album of the last 20 years – all about body language.

Of course if you are not willing to invest in a proper photo shoot, and pick the right models, and get the right location, and the right wardrobe, and the right hair, then what does body language matter? You’ll just end up with wall paper – barely authentic, zero attitude and absolutely no buzz about the brand.

This is the third full page I’ve seen of these Tecno ads, that’s almost 2M and counting. Take one ad out, use the money to make a properly cool ad and I guarantee that the two ads that you’re left with will outsell this one minimum 10 to 1! #nkt