d Blog

Welcome to d blog, also known as Dan's rant. The content herein is essentially comprised of miscellaneous ramblings and random thoughts on the nature of contemporary existence.

"Cool sandwich, thoughts on the mechanism"

As I write this entry I’m listening to an NPR report about a pizza joint in Baltimore (Hot Tomatoes) that has perfected the ultimate sub sandwich, a deep fried cheesesteak creation. It is extremely popular although it’s not even on the menu and despite the fact that people know it's something they probably shouldn't be indulging in. As a matter of fact it's 12:29 PM here in Fort Lauderdale and I want one. Hmmm, a perfect marketing storm. The news piece has me fantasizing about the cheesesteak. I'd have to say it has accomplished all the goals of any marketing initiative save one. I'm not about to travel to Baltimore for lunch. But if that sandwich was available locally they'd have another customer. You can’t create this type of audience reaction by saying how good it is. You can’t be cool by saying we are so cool. You can't get audience simply by saying we're so cool come on in.

There are three levels of existence, 1) be, 2) do and 3) have. 1) I am a fisherman, 2) I go fishing and 3) I have a fishing rod. Pretenders are soon exposed. A fisherman doesn't need a rod to go fishing. He is one with the fish. Going through the motions doesn't make you a fisherman whether or not you catch anything. Certainly possessing a fishing rod and all the gear doesn’t make you a fisherman.

There are so many contemporary examples of this fisherman analogy, at all levels ranging from abject failure to unprecedented success that I hardly know where to begin. AOL's recent attempts to attract an audience by proclaiming itself to be cool and saying look we have all the new and coolest web 2.0 facilities seems to be falling on deaf ears. I think it possible that they have to change their name to regain popularity. Can anything with the AOL moniker be cool at this late date? MySpace is out of control and pseudo ridiculous with it's pretense at security. Their own polls show that they lose members after a short time when as in the words of one ex-user, "I've moved on because the MySpace friends weren't really my friends and just became a boring waste of time." I won't go into great detail about how they are counting on convicted sexual predators to use their listed public email address.

Even when you get it, cool can be fleeting. Hugh Hefner once the cat's meow is now a symbol of anti-cool. What young man would want that lifestyle if he had to be Hef? I can understand how the Maloof family is generating revenue off the Playboy brand with their Vegas hotel and TV shows but who buys the magazine anymore?

Cool is ethereal and fleeting almost undefinable. Cool can get you to popular, maybe. Certainly popularity can obliterate your cool. You can’t buy permanent cool or sell it for very long. There exists in the bean counters administrative offices a chart with a bell curve indicating the profits available over the course of any cool phenomenon’s existence.

Very Interesting...

05 Jan 2007 12:24am, rob at design215.com

"So if I post this article on Digg and people like it, does that make you cool or uncool?"
 

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