1/7/15, 10:54 PMToward a Universal Theory of 'Cool' - Business - The Atlantic

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Toward a Universal Theory of'Cool'By Derek Thompson

What makes things cool? What penumbral principle explains not only the marketing campaigns ofHarley Davidson, Apple, and Dos Equis, but also the appeal of cowboys, James Dean, and JenniferLawrence?

A new paper in the Journal of Consumer Research takes a stab at answering what might be anunanswerable question by studying how brands and companies become cool in the eyes of consumers.And, to my surprise, it's decently plausible.

To understand their theory of cool, compare it to another possibly undefinable concept: humor. Whatmakes something funny? Plato and Aristotle offered what we now call the Superiority Theory.Basically, we laugh at other people's misfortunes, or when we feel superior. This theory explainsphysical humor, most of Family Guy, and a joke like this:

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: ''Ugh, that's the ugliest baby I've everseen!'' The woman walks to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her:''The driver just insulted me!'' The man says: ''You go up there and tell him off. Go on, I'll hold yourmonkey for you.''

But Superiority Theory doesn't do much to explain why we recognize other jokes as jokes. For example:"There are two fish in a tank; one says 'How do you drive this thing?'" Puns are funny (some of them,anyway, theoretically) for reasons besides superiority. They need a broader theory. As Shane Snowexplained in the New Yorker, academics are coming around to a more sophisticated idea called BenignViolation.

Benign violation means your expectations are subverted—obvious jokes aren't funny—in a way thatposes no threat or sadness to the audience. "A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar and order a beer" isn't

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a joke; "a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar and die right there on the floor" isn't a joke; but "a priestand a rabbi walk into a bar—ouch!" is recognized as a joke (let's ignore its quality) because it subvertsexpectations in a way that doesn't feel menacing. Snow writes:

Benign Violation explained why the unexpected sight of a friend falling down the stairs (aviolation of expectations) was funny only if the friend was not seriously injured (a benignoutcome). It explained Jerry Seinfeld’s comedic formula of pointing out the outrageous things(violation) in everyday life (benign), and Sarah Silverman’s hilarious habit of rendering off-colortopics (violation) harmless (benign) in her standup routines. It explained puns (benignviolations of linguistic rules) and tickling (a perceived physical threat with no real danger).

Like humor and beauty, coolness seems to defy definition. The literature tells us that coolness issubjective rather than universal (is U2 cool?), and we know that it changes over time (is smokingcool?). But a new paper by Caleb Warren and Margaret C. Campbell applies a more constrictivedefinition that proves surprisingly workable: "Coolness is a subjective, positive trait perceived inpeople, brands, products, and trends that are autonomous in an appropriate way."

If funny is a benign violation of expectations, cool is a measured violation of malign expectations.

Cool means departing from norms that we consider unnecessary, illegitimate, or repressive—but alsodoing so in ways that are bounded. The 1984 Apple ad that said, essentially, "you have a choice; don'tbuy IBM!" was considered one of the coolest commercials of all time, because it was, in the researcherswords, "autonomous in an appropriate way." But a 1984 Apple ad saying "you have a choice; don't payfederal income taxes!" wouldn't be cool, because taxes are legitimate; and a 1984 Apple ad saying "burnIBM's headquarters to the ground!" wouldn't be cool, because that's just overdoing it. Cool requires abit of Goldilocks.

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It also requires something worth rebelling against. In my high school, as in many high schools, one ofthe clearest ways to show classmates that you were cool was to violate the dress code in clever ways.Isn't violating a repressive clothing regime sort of inherently cool when you're 14 years old? I wouldthink so. In one study from the Warren and Campbell paper, participants saw ads asking them tofollow or break a dress code. Some learned that the code existed to honor a dictator. Others were toldit honored war veterans. Although both groups considered breaking from the dress code a sign ofautonomy, it only seemed "cool" to be autonomous in the former example, when they were breakingfrom a norm that was clearly absurd.

Where this definition of cool—iconoclastic, legitimate, and bounded—runs into trouble for me is theconcept of success. Some people who break rules but don't achieve success are seen as losers orfailures. For others in the business world—Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg—it's preciselytheir thrilling success more than their "bounded" "autonomy" that's the real source of their coolness.They accomplished something. Warren and Campbell could argue that the real source of these CEOs'cool factor is that they confront pre-existing norms. But every business confronts norms: You're eithercreating market share or you're stealing it. Autonomy is cool. But so is power and money, even when itcreates or supports norms that iconoclasts want to destroy.

One of the most interesting implications of this research is what it means for marketing—particularlywhen trying to persuade young people who are more caught up in the race to be cool. For example,rather than browbeat teenage consumers with earnest pleas to not smoke or drive drunk, the paper

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recommends aligning negative behavior with a loser mainstream. In fact, that was the thesis behindThe Truth's famous campaign against smoking: Associate teenage smoking with an idiot conformity. In2010, the American Journal of Public Health published a study which concluded that these adssignificantly reduced teen smoking around the turn of the century. Now that's pretty cool.

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