RE: Aston and Mercedes are officially cool
Tuesday 25th September 2012
Aston Martin owners on PH will doubtless be insouciantly unconcerned by the fact that their brand beat 9997 others to finish third in the 2012 CoolBrands® list.
Now in its 11th year, this list is voted for by 3000 British consumers and a panel of 39 ‘key influencers’ including Millie Kendall MBE, Luke Peters, Plan B and David Harewood MBE.
Be they who they may, the list’s definition of ‘cool’ is a mix of innovation, originality, style, authenticity, desirability and uniqueness. Apple was the outright winner, with Mercedes-Benz holding up more motoring honour in 16th. Nike came 19th, followed suspiciously closely by the keyboard-inputting error Niko.
Aston and Mercedes are officially cool
PH perplexingly absent from 2012 'cool brands' list
Now in its 11th year, this list is voted for by 3000 British consumers and a panel of 39 ‘key influencers’ including Millie Kendall MBE, Luke Peters, Plan B and David Harewood MBE.
Be they who they may, the list’s definition of ‘cool’ is a mix of innovation, originality, style, authenticity, desirability and uniqueness. Apple was the outright winner, with Mercedes-Benz holding up more motoring honour in 16th. Nike came 19th, followed suspiciously closely by the keyboard-inputting error Niko.
The top 20 CoolBrands® list 2012:
| 1. | Apple | 11. | Sony |
| 2. | YouTube | 12. | Bose |
| 3. | Aston Martin | 13. | Häagen-Dazs |
| 4. | 14. | Selfridges | |
| 5. | 15. | Ben & Jerrys | |
| 6. | BBC iPlayer | 16. | Mercedes-Benz |
| 7. | Glastonbury | 17. | Vogue |
| 8. | Virgin Atlantic | 18. | Skype |
| 9. | Bang & Olufsen | 19. | Nike |
| 10. | Liberty | 20. | Niko |
Discussion
ukaskew said:
I assume as I haven't even heard of two of those (Liberty and Niko) I'm somewhat uncool.
I suspect if you look up Liberty (as in Liberty of london. Big department store) you will go "oh ye...". Niko though, no idea. Is heating and lighting cool? I suspect I may not have enough money to ever have come across them.I can't see how most of those brands are cool. How are Ben and Jerrys and Haagen Dazs cool? Asuming they are not just pun based entrys. It's just mass market Ice Cream FFS.
Edited by Electro1980 on Tuesday 25th September 12:32
tommy vercetti said:
Rawwr said:
I don't understand any of this.
Same, just a load of crapWith the exception of Aston Martin and Mercedes and possibly Vogue, nearly all those things are much-of-a-muchness products and services I'd merely use according to availability rather than anything particular about the 'brand' that makes it unique.
The fact they're referring to brands rather than products says it all TBH - it's all about surface-appeal and marketing image rather than the nuts and bolts of what you're actually getting.
tomoleeds said:
Aston Martin are cool,have they never been cool,ever since there first James Bond appearance.
A couple of times, firstly back in the early '50s when, even though they made decent sports cars, they were just A.N. Other car firm considered worthy-but-dull alongside the Jaguar XKs - then Ian Fleming wrote a DB 2/4 MkIII into Goldfinger and they won Le Mans with the DBR1 and they became definitely cool. The second time came in the early '70s when they nearly went bankrupt and had to at least in part appeal to fans and owners' clubs to bail them out.To be honest I'm not sure they're that cool these days. There's no doubt they make brilliant cars, but there's something a bit ubiquitous and obvious about them, especially when you see legions of businessmen driving them in James Bond Resale Silver. They no longer stand out.
To me, Aston Martin were at their coolest around 1988 when the original Virage came out. Forget whether or not the car was any good to drive (it wasn't), it was just unlike anything else on the road, and when you saw one you knew you'd seen something seriously rare, special and utterly modern and British at the same time. Not even Ferraris carried a plaque in the boot telling you who'd they'd specifically been built for, and yet in a world of Testarossas and Diablos it didn't feel the need for side-strakes, huge wings or appearing in a cloud of dry ice accompanied by an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo wherever it went. Also, it was a product of the 1988 Birmingham Motor Show, forever remembered as the debut of the Jaguar XJ220, a reminder that we British could do mid-engined Italian-style supercars too. But the Aston was uniquely British. Uniquely anything, come to think of it.
I spent my childhood recognising this as the pinnacle of pride in car ownership:
Then decades later I drove one and was utterly underwhelmed. I think my favourite Aston to drive is probably either the DB4GT or the V8 Zagato.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff