Cool Hunting at Seton Hill University

Discuss William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. In-class activity: find a partner. Inspect what he or she is wearing or carrying, and write down every brand name you can spot. We will collate the results and vote on what is, or isn’t “cool.”

Brand Name
Cool rating?
VICTORIA SECRET
14+
Advil14
Hanes13
Adidas12
Smackers12
Eclipse11
Twix11
Blistex11
Bath & Body11
nike10
Old Navy10
Wal Mart10
Bic9
Listerine9
Nickelodian9
Orbits9
SHU9
Visa9
Skechers9
Big Red8
Express8
Giant Eagle Ad Car8
Jansport8
Juicy Fruit8
Maybelline8
Panasonic8
roxy8
Steve Madden8
Verizon8
Kohls8
American Eagle7
CoverGirl7
Dino’s7
ETNIES7
Extra7
FOSSIL7
MUDD7
Nine West7
Aquafina6
Lerner6
Ralph Lauren6
Relic6
Trident6
Wrigleys6
Extra6
Altoids5
Emily the strange5
No Boundaries5
BASIC4
Paper Mate4
PB4
TIMBERLAND4
Kay Jewelers4
Aeropostale3
Fashion Bug3
George3
Hillfiger3
HURLEY3
Jerzee3
National City3
Nokia3
Tachikara3
Tilt3
Vaseline3
Bad cat2
clairs2
J. JILL2
Jeffrey Bean2
Nextel2
ROSE ART2
Kyocera2
Legend2
K-mart2
EB TEK1
License1
Micron1
Northwest Territory1
OPI1
Pilot1
Swerve1
ULTRA BLEND1
Unisoly1
Virgin mobile1
Athletic Works0
Atlantic0
Jerz0
C.E. George0
Canyon River Blues0
East Port0
Ed White Basics0
Jostens0
Modern Book0
Motorola0
Shop n Save0
Uniball0
wccc0
Maxell0
Cartier-1

Cool Hunting at Seton Hill UniversityJerz’s Literacy Weblog)

In the final weeks of term, it’s not surprising that a headache pain reliever rates so highly. I was surprised at how highly various brands of gum and other oral products rated. Victoria’s Secret actually got cheers, with some people, both men and women, putting up both hands. Hanes seems, by contrast, very boring to me, but hey, it’s underwear, so I guess that was good enough for this class.

6 thoughts on “Cool Hunting at Seton Hill University

  1. Daisy, those books sound great! Last term we watched “The Merchants of Cool” in a freshman “Seminar in Thinking and Writing,” and I thought it sparked some good discussion.Are you familiar with The Malling of America? I haven’t read it yet, but it’s a study of shopping mall culture. One of the malls used in the study is here in Greensburg, Pa — or, that is, it was here, until it was pulled down earlier this year to make way for a new Wal Mart, so that the existing WalMart can be turned into a Sams. (I think.)

  2. Have you read any of these books by James Twitchell? Lots of interesting commentary on branding…
    Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in America (1995), For Shame: The Loss of Common Decency in American Culture (1997)
    Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism (1999)
    Twenty Ads That Shook The World: The Century?s Most Groundbreaking Advertising (2000)
    Living It Up: America?s Love Affair With Luxury (2002)
    Branded Nation: When Culture Goes Pop (forthcoming in 2004).

  3. You’re not a pain at all, Karissa. I made this list in MS-Excel, and then saved it as an HTML file, then cut and paste from the resulting file in order to format it as you see it above. It was actually a big pain removing all of the nonsense code that Microsoft adds to anything that it generates via a “save to HTML” function, and at one point when it worked, I just said, “Fine, it works, forget it.” Sorry about the white space! In a few days it’ll disappear into the archives… This is one of those times when I do wish my blog software had an extended entry box, but if I really thought about it in advance I could post the whole thing on a web page and use the blog entry to point to it. (So don’t worry, Will, I’m not giving you something else for your to-do list!)

  4. Have you thought about putting the information into two columns so that it doesn’t take up so much space (and leave so much white space)? Just wondering. Sorry if I’m a pain in the neck.

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