Brands are obsessed with appearing cool; therefore, they capture and mine youth

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Brands are obsessed with appearing cool; 
therefore, they capture and mine youth 
subcultures for their ideas.
A brand can succeed or die depending on 
whether or not it is considered cool. Companies 
therefore spend vast amounts every year trying 
to find out what is seen as cool and then 
incorporating this into their brand.
This fixation with coolness stems from the 
companies’ overreliance on the youth market to 
generate sales. In previous decades, baby-
boomers drove the consumer economy, but 
during the recession of the early 1990s they 
began to seek cheaper alternatives to high-end 
brands. This forced brands to find new 
customers, and so they turned towards the 
growing teenage population.
To properly target teenagers, companies 
analyzed youth cultures and incorporated the 
traits that were considered cool into their brand 
images. Aspects of traditionally alternative 
subcultures in music and fashion, such as punk 
and grunge, were appropriated by brands. Even 
rebellious characteristics like ‘retro’ and ‘irony’ 
were turned into marketable commodities.
Consider for example hip-hop and Black culture. 
The break out of hip-hop artists in the 1980s led 
to the style becoming popular with young people 
throughout society. Brands such as Nike and 
Tommy Hilfiger were able to ingratiate 
themselves into the movement by sponsoring 
artists and sports stars and engaging in 
aggressive marketing that pushed their image to 
center stage. The strategy was so massively 
successful that brands now help to dictate the 
development of this subculture and directly 
influence which products are considered cool. 
Black culture and identity has been captured by 
the brands and transformed into a profit-
generating 
phenomenon, 
and 
Black 
communities are forced to follow where the 
brands lead.
Brands are obsessed with appearing cool; 
therefore, they capture and mine youth 
subcultures for their ideas.