Here's an article from yesterday's Fox News. Fascinating, some of you will say, a load of old cobblers may say others. However there is no denying that some products just are COOOOL. Apple know it for a start - just check out that coooool web site. Cool is what allows people like Apple to plonk a perfectly functional and attractive mp3 player on the market and (for no reason other than its somehow cool), charge 2 or 3 times the going rate for it AND sell more than anybody else.  Hey, good luck to them, but is it something we can somehow reverse engineer? Copy, in other words? What we mean by that is can cool be replicated? Can we add a dash of it to the design process and test for it at final inspection? We can see it now, quarantine areas filled with defective items labelled "Not Cool - Customer Concession Applied For", tested and failed by guys in the most fabulous shades. Or even The Fonz

Maybe all that is a bit of a stretch, especially since the article doesn't suggest that there is initially anything too special about cool products when they are looked at in the buff. It actually suggests that the marketing more or less does it all. Yes, that's right we're all sucked in by the glitz and patter, and once we've all been manipulated into officially designating something as "cool" by custom and practice, the manufacturer is quids in. In your face Creative Zen

We particularly liked the final piece in this article. We quote:

"Is there potential for abuse? Such as manipulating children?"

Nooooooo!!!!! Surely not!!!!   

Who could even dare to think such a thing? What with Christmas coming up and everything. There will NEVER be unethical use of neuro-marketing. That would NOT be cool