市场营销学系学术讲座（1月20日）

Cool: What It Is, Why We Want It, and How It’s Changing Society

Speaker: Caleb Warren，Professor of Marketing

Robert A. Eckert Endowed Chair in Marketing，

University of Arizona

Time: 13:30-15:00, Jan.20^th (Tuesday), 2026

Venue：Siyuan Building, Room 624

MC: Prof. Yiqi Yu

Abstract:Coolness has been touted as the solution for ailing brands, dismissed as a trick to get consumers to buy stuff they don’t need, and pursued by people—especially those young in years or in heart—everywhere from San Francisco and Sydney to Santiago and Shanghai. But what is cool? Why do people want to be cool? And why has this word—and the concept that it represents—spread from American jazz clubs to the silver screens, shopping malls, and Facebook feeds on all six inhabited continents?

I attempt to answer these questions by synthesizing research on coolness. My review suggests that coolness emerged as an alternative form of social status bestowed upon people, brands, practices, and other cultural objects who depart from the norm in a way that seems desirable. This cool status, however, is often fleeting. As a cool object is widely adopted, it becomes the new norm, begins to lose its cool, and is displaced by something seen as more autonomous. By rewarding those who change culture for the better, coolness inspires people to create, innovate, and otherwise “move fast and break things.” Consequently, coolness has become a valued marker of status in cultures, economies, and industries that value the creation of informational and symbolic goods more than material production, physical protection, hunting, or gathering.

Bio:Caleb Warren thinks, writes, and teaches as the Robert A. Eckert Endowed Chair in Marketing at the University of Arizona. He thinks about what makes things funny, what makes things cool and what helps people reach their goals. He writes about these ideas in academic journals, including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Psychological Science, the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Caleb teaches undergraduate, masters, MBA, and PhD students how to communicate and how to understand consumer behavior. In his spare time, he hikes, skis, and performs songs about townies and the boys and girls who party with them.