Cool Britannia™
Civitas, 30 September 2010
As abstract concepts go, ‘coolness’ has to be one of the hardest to define. The uncool Oxford English Dictionary has had a go, suggesting: ‘informal, fashionably attractive or impressive’. While this is rather ambiguous, suffice it to say that the idea that being cool is a state of mind, a quality based on a person having a touch of je ne sais quoi, has been replaced by a focus on shiny things. The company CoolBrands has drawn up a materialistic list of, unsurprisingly, the coolest brands in Britain. And what a lot it says about us.
The top twenty cool brands reveal plenty about consumer habits and what people value, which could be endlessly analysed beyond the pale of this blog. Needless to say, some of the brands included are unsurprising, such as the iPhone, a choice driven as much by sales success as any immaterial feeling. Then there are more surprising choices: the Tate Modern (is it even a brand?), perhaps because it contains a few artworks that rely on being aesthetically ‘cool’ in order to appeal because their meaning is absent.
The general point is that this ‘cool list’ list compiles the preferences of British consumers but the list’s British brands are few and far between and those producing goods ‘made in Britain’ barely feature. Other than the top dog of Aston Martin and (featuring further down the list), Lotus, (both undeniably cool), there are few big British manufacturing names on the list. Instead, the majority of the 70 cool brands are foreign or UK service sector based.
Given that the process of forming the list – an ‘expert council’ of 36 people but also a consumer survey – the lack of British manufacturing brands cannot be blamed on the pretensions of a small elite. Instead, the public appears to be lacking an exposure to the products of British firms, something that is not society’s fault. The list merely reflects what is cool, it does not set trends.
What this survey really suggests is that British companies should be looking to publicise themselves more. There are plenty of UK brands out there, cool or not, that never become household names. Exclusivity is not a cause for this, as hardly any of the brands on the cool list are affordable to the general population (is conspicuous consumption now cool?). Brands that are absent from the list include the Morgan Motor Company, which is indescribably cool and would rival any high-end car manufacturer like Aston. Even the more reasonably priced, Poole-based Mathmos is unknown in general circles, despite widespread knowledge of their product the lava lamp.
The oversight of British companies is a symptom of Britain’s post-war manufacturing trend towards niche production. British firms’ cannot compete on a cost basis with cheap labour from other countries so it utilises its remaining competitive advantage as far as possible: in terms of quality. Manufacturing goods for niche markets, where the cost is less important, is where Britain excels and successful companies here can find demand permanently outstrips supply. Morgan Motors, for instance, has a waiting list fluctuating between two to ten years. By definition though, these niches are well-known in general society. Somewhat ironically then, the cool list is perhaps a little mainstream. Not cool.
British firms should be encouraged to display their products to all British people, not just their clientele. A collective awareness and pride in what we produce must start at home before confidence in the products can be spread abroad. Had Aston Martin not gained public awareness and been adopted by the British film producers of James Bond, would its international market have opened so wide?
Another interesting point raised by the cool list is what actually constitutes a ‘British brand’. There is the need to distinguish between those companies whose Headquarters are based somewhere in the UK whilst their products are manufactured elsewhere, and those ‘made in Britain’ companies who actually employ their workforce here. Dyson for example, would fall into the former category as it makes its eponymous vacuum cleaners in Malaysia. Dyson is a well-known brand, partially thanks to its founder James Dyson’s outspoken support for increasing ‘made in Britain’ manufacturing.
It would be fantasy to assume the cool list should be made up of entirely ‘made in Britain’ products, which would lead to things like Henry Hoovers being included (which, it must be said, are cool in their own way). Nonetheless, if Dyson were to put his money where his mouth is and return to domestic production and if authentic UK companies worked to make the British public more aware of their existence, a new byword for cool would emerge: British.