The
Battle For Coca-Cola
Rages On.
Ain't
Nothing Like
The Real Thing, Maybe.
I
Don't Mean To Say
I Told You So, But...
Are
Consumers Smarter
Then We Are?.
The
Four Great Myths
Of Global Branding.
Mr
Bevis Butts Heads
At Mitsubishi
The
Best Laid Plans
Of Mice And Men.
Dare
to Be Great:
The Mad Genius of "The Matrix"
Mitsubishi's
New Marketing Boss
Out Of The Frying Pan.
Concept Is Stronger Than Fact.
Value
Perception In A World
Gone Mad With "Cool"
The
Future of Advertising
The Brand
The
Future of Advertising
The Targets
The
Future of Advertising
The Grid
The
Future of Advertising
The Swarm
Technology
Making The Message
Meaningful
The Only Business That Matters Is The One You're In.
What
Ever Happened To The
Big Idea?
The Post-Advertising Era Is Here
Confessions Of A" Liar For Hire"
Good, Bad and Ugly At the Moment of Truth
A Post-Advertising "Big Idea".
The Value Of A Paying Pustomer.
Emergence Of the "Empire of One".
All customers Are Created Equal
Playing God An Other Atrocities
the
City That Spawned
The Age Of Advertising..
Fear And Self Loathing In Advertising.
The Greatest Success Metric Is Sales.
Foot
In (Word Of) Mouth Disease
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The True Cool. Year after year there seems to be one word that never plays out in describing what each generation aspires to be in one shape or form. We never seem to outgrow our need to be cool. But the strange thing about the word is that every time you attempt to use it as a descriptor, someone ( usually a generation younger) feels the uncontrollable urge to pipe up with, "Nobody uses that word any more." And so you struggle to come up with another word. And the first thing out of their mouth, once they hear it? "Cool." It never fails to piss me off. Just let cool remain cool and don't try to time frame it or put it in a box. |
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Actually there is " Cool." Which we all are at some time or another in our miserable little lives. And there is "The True Cool" which we never are, but we can secretly aspire to be, when we see it in others. I can remember my first encounter with the True Cool. I was 14 years old and I had run off to the Newport Jazz Festival with a motorcycle gang called the "Untouchable Cruisers" from Tonelle Avenue in Bayone, New Jersey. Thirty or more big Harley Duo Glides can bring a lot of thunder into a small town like Newport, Road Island. So the cops shut us down and made us park the bikes and take a shuttle bus to the Festival. Not the entry we had in mind. |
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Do you actually do advertising any more, or do you just talk about it. –B. Koner, Chicago Blah,
blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. |
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When we got there it was a little past nine and Nina Simone was finishing up her set. You could cut the dope cloud with a knife. The Newport Jazz Festival was one of the iconic events of the late sixties and early seventies. I had been going since the tender age of 12. The first year I went with my father, who covered the "Jazz Scene" as he liked to call it for The "Amsterdam News, The Pittsburgh Courier and the "Baltimore Afro American." They were the three largest Black newspapers in the country at the time, so promoters treated him like royalty. Then he started his own night life magazine called "after hours" and the invitations stopped coming. So, never one to let details stand in my way, I had been hitching a ride with the Cruisers for two years straight. We found a spot on the grass and spread out. All sixty three of us. Somehow bikers get to clear a path through any crowd they choose to clear a path through. Me, as usual I had my favorite tree to climb. I knew where the best seats in the house were. The crowd was getting restless. Like any festival, you could get your Doctorate Degree in the time it took for the set ups between acts. This one was taking longer than most. The stage went black. And then the velvet toned voice of Symphony Sid, the godfather of all Jazz Radio Show Hosts, oozed through the sound system. " Ladies and anyone else lucky enough to be here. I am proud to present the man who only needs one name to take him around the world....Miles." Key light up. Center stage. Orange suit. Back to the audience. Hunched over his horn. Miles Davis. Ten staccato horn stabs. Machine gun fire in c minor. The 24 piece band explodes in front of him. And he does the entire 30 minute set, with his back to the audience. Then walks off stage in the middle of the last number. Never to return. Not even after 20 minutes of thunderous applause and audience chants for an encore. My first encounter with The True Cool that was Miles Davis' back. Later in life I had the opportunity to ask the great man about playing with his back to the audience that night. He just laughed at me and rasped, "I was busy." The True Cool. The True Cool is understanding that you don't really have to be understood by anybody but yourself. The True Cool is being able to leave the room without leaving your seat. The True Cool is knowing that the color red comes in many shades but just one attitude. The True Cool is never caring about what you will never know. The True Cool is waking up in the morning and having no idea what time or day it is. The True Cool is realizing that a smile is just another kind of gun. The True Cool is believing half of what you see and none of what you hear. The True Cool is being your own best friend. The True Cool is believing in your heart that life and death are the same. The True Cool is dressing up for that one person who knows you're not wearing underwear. The True Cool is never accepting the word "no" as the final answer. Stay tuned.
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