Short Answers on Merchants of Cool - Assignment Example

2) The current teen generation, which is approximately 33 million, is the largest and the wealthiest teen generation ever in America. Statistics show that the teen generation spent over $100 billion and influenced other generations, especially their parents, to spend approximately $50 billion. 3) “Marketers have to find a way to Seem Real” means that the marketers have to give an impression that they are ‘real’ by living lives that the teen generation can identify with.

They have to adopt attitudes that teenagers perceive as ‘cool’. 4) Marketers have embraced the anthropological approach to study and analyze the teens’ trends in their search for the next cool thing.6) Does it result in a more nuanced portrait of the American teen? YesWhat is a “Mook and the Midriff”"Midriff" is the character inclined to teenage girls. It is highly sexualized, sophisticated, and populates television shows such as Cruel Intentions. A juvenile and boorish behaved character on the other hand brands the “mook”.

The "Mook" is a misogynistic, crude, and extremely angry adolescent.7) The system designed to appeal to the “MOOK” keeps the teens under incessant surveillance. This helps the researchers determine the things that trigger the teens’ emotions and actions thus understand them better and 8) The major challenge faced by this type of commercial machine is that marketers are expected to market whatever product the manufacturers produce regardless of their shortcomings. 9) To overcome the resistance, marketers have to embrace the challenge and market the products in spite of their inadequacies.

For instance, in the case of Insane Clown Posse, MTV marketed their music relentlessly even though the genre of music they created represented violence, profanity, and misogyny. Today, the band has become a big name in the music industry. 10) Marketers have gone too far in their efforts to sell to the youth. Every marketer has his or her version of what should be perceived as cool. This readymade version of ‘cool’ has taken away the teens’ power to focus on their desires.Most advertisements encourage teens to feel in a certain way, lonely and frustrated hence having a negative impact on society.