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Figure 1 Study 1 The familiarity between the experimental subjects and subjects of the brand

Experimental results show that breaking the conventional product design is cooler than a regular design. This is because this different design than conventional causes people to feel cool, at which point consumers will think that the brand's freedom is moderate. However, experimental data also show that consumers do not always think that something beyond the norm is cool, and that products that fail to design will cause objections to be disgusted by subjects. Therefore, Study 2 will more directly detect when free behavior can increase cool perception.

study 2

study 2 tests how free behavior that violates commanding norms increases consumer cool perception. Commanding norms refer to the rules that people follow. People have different purposes, values ​​and interests, so people also hold different views on whether a certain norm is necessary and conducive to social progress.

In this study, based on an advertisement for a clothing brand created by the researcher, the subjects will answer the researcher's advertising strategy questionnaire about retailers. In order to manipulate freedom and standardize rationality, while controlling brand behavior, the researchers designed a description of the cultural environment for the advertisement. The researchers assumed that violating unreasonable norms would increase the cool perception of subjects, while violating reasonable norms would lead to the opposite conclusions .

Study 2 is 2 (degrees of freedom: high, low) X 2 (normative: reasonable, unreasonable) intergroup experiment. Researchers have created a foreign clothing retailer called Roiku that sells the brand internationally, including a city called Ballai. The researchers divided the subjects into 4 groups, and the 4 groups read different stories:

Story 1: The city of Ballai will hold a festival celebration, and citizens wear blue clothes to mourn the soldiers who once defended the city.

Story 2: The city of Ballai is going to hold a festival celebration, and citizens are asked to wear blue clothes to commemorate a corrupt dictator of the past.

Story3: The city of Ballai is going to hold a festival celebration, and citizens wear white clothes to mourn the soldiers who once defended the city.

Story4: The city of Ballai is going to hold a festival celebration, and citizens are asked to wear white clothes to commemorate a corrupt dictator of the past.

Then, all subjects will know about Roiku’s latest advertising program, which encourages consumers to wear blue clothes at Masakha Festival and see Roiku’s advertisements with the large title saying “Roiku is blue” and the subtitle saying “Masakha Day Collection”.

After displaying the advertising plan, the researchers asked the subjects to rate the advertising plan. The results show that the group of consumers who read Story 4 thinks the ROIKU brand is the coolest. In this group, consumers first read the unreasonable routine of "citizens are asked to wear white clothes to commemorate the dictator", and then saw the ROIKU brand claiming to "adhere to blue design", breaking this unreasonable routine, so they think this brand is simply too cool.In contrast, those who read Story 2, namely, "Citizens are asked to wear blue clothes to pay tribute to the dictator", see that the brand follows this unreasonable routine and feel that the brand is pedantic and outdated. The group with the lowest scores comes from Story 3, which shows that breaking the convention is not always good. If you break the reasonable convention, it sometimes brings anti-value.

Figure 2 Research 2 experimental subjects and statistical results

experimental results show that the score sorting is Story 4; Story 1; Story 2; Story 3. That is to say, consumers' perception of brand cool is to break the unreasonable routine ; to abide by reasonable routine; to abide by unreasonable routine; to abide by unreasonable routine; to abide by unreasonable routine. This experiment proves the researchers' hypothesis before the study that the cool perception caused by exceeding the rules depends on the rationality of the norm. When a specification is unreasonable and a brand violates this regulation, subjects will think that the brand is cooler. Although violations of regulations can increase the sense of freedom, only by violating unreasonable norms can consumers feel that the brand is cool.

study3

Researchers believe that people's judgment of the appropriateness of freedom depends on the extent to which the norms are violated. In the view of researchers, the less the impact of violations of norms on others and social order, the more appropriate freedom is. That is to say, violations of norms must be within a certain range, rather than unscrupulous extreme freedom. Therefore, the researchers assume that an increase in the appropriate degree of freedom can enhance consumers' cool perceptions relative to low degrees of freedom, but extreme freedom does not.

In this study, the subjects would read 3 interviews with popular rock bands, answer questions, and choose four songs to download. Because of fear of being influenced by the subjective attitude of the subjects, the researchers selected three little-known new bands based on the judgment criteria of no more than 5% of the subjects. The final selection results were Nick Campbell of Wages, Andy Herod of Electric Owls and Matt Rumley of HerMarigold.

Each interview includes four questions: (1) How to describe your own band? (2) Where does your inspiration come from when writing songs? (3) Which song do you like to perform the most during live performance? (4) For those who have never heard of your band, which song do you recommend the most? After obtaining the consent of these musicians, the author adapted their answers into materials that control freedom:

Low degree of freedom : We hope that our songs can meet the public taste, and we hope that mainstream people can like our songs to the greatest extent;

Appropriate degree of freedom: We do not expect our records to achieve three platinum, we hope that our songs can reflect our own feelings. In addition, we hope that our songs can reflect everyone's lives and be related to what is happening around you;

High degree of freedom: The songs we write are just to be contrary to the public's taste and reflect uniqueness. We don't expect the public to like it, but their disgust is their problem. In fact, we don’t care how others think of us and our music at all.

All subjects will read three paragraphs of materials in the same order. After reading the materials, the subjects need to score cool perception and freedom, and select four songs to download and save. Finally answer demographic information.

Figure 3 Study 3 Experimental subjects and statistical results

Research data shows that there is a curved relationship between degrees of freedom and perceived freedom. Compared with low-level and extremely free bands, moderate-free bands make the subjects feel cooler. Moreover, song download behavior is also affected by cool perception, indicating that cool perception affects consumer choice.

study4

Each consumer has different judgments on the appropriateness of freedom. For consumers who hold countercultivism, since they doubt social norms and rarely think norms are justified, they are more likely to think that greater degrees of freedom are appropriate. Based on this, the researchers hypothesized that for those who hold a counterculturalist view, they were more likely to think that a higher degree of freedom would lead to a cooler feeling.

To verify this hypothesis, the author did two experiments.Each experiment manipulates the degree of freedom and measures the degree of counterculturalism. Research 4A shows consumers four different fashion brands, which correspond to low, medium, high or extreme freedom. Study 4B is to verify the universality of the conclusions of Study 4A.

Subjects from the University of Carlerona will read four virtual brand descriptions: (1) Baraccio jacket (2) Ero sunglasses (3) Setia shoes and (4) Solle watch. Researchers manipulate freedom by labeling brands four labels: "follow the market trend", "usually follow the trend", "ignoring industry standards", "having a rebellious spirit and controversial". The researchers used a seven-point scale to measure the cool perception of the brand, and asked the subjects to rate the 6 listed brands' personalities in line with the given brands. Finally, the researchers used the Likert-type six-item scale to measure the subjects' countercultural tendencies.

experimental results are consistent with the author's hypothesis. Subjects with a higher degree of anti-culturalism will think that highly free products are cooler.

Figure 4 Study 4A experimental subjects and statistical results

Figure 5 Study 4B experimental subjects and statistical results

Study 5

preference depends on purpose (Van Osselaeret al. 2005), while "cool" seems to be more inclined to bring symbolic meaning, expressing the purpose of identity rather than actual or purpose of use (Leland, 2004). Therefore, it is very likely that consumers choose “cool” brands for the purpose of pursuing symbolic identity (Berger and Heath, 2007). But what kind of image does the "cool" brand create? Since cool brands express freedom in an appropriate way, consumers will show themselves to be a free person through cool brands. Then, when consumers want to convey their image of pursuing freedom to others, they choose cool brands. The purpose of the

study 5 trial was to test whether consumers prefer cool brands when they were free of expression rather than inclusion in the collective. This study hopes to achieve three goals:

(1) provides an in-depth discussion on when consumers choose cool brands;

(2) provides supplements to the previous experiments;

(3) distinguishes cool perception from attraction.

studies when consumers prefer cool brands by manipulating cool brands or classic brands. Depending on the different experimental conditions, subjects were asked to think of a real brand, either they thought were cool/uncool, or they thought were classic/unclassic. The consumers then give some social environment in which they use the brand. Although Western consumers usually want to express free identities (Brewer, 1991; Markus and Schwartz, 2010), there are environments that require them to be integrated into the collective and not so outstanding. The author assumes that, in general, although cool brands are better than uncool brands, this conclusion fails when people want to fit in the collective. The authors hypothesize that subjects’ preference for cool brands will weaken when the environment encourages subjects to obey the collective rather than freedom of expression, and vice versa. All subjects should give a brand of real and high-quality shoes. According to the grouping, the shoes that consumers think of are cool/not cool, classic/not classic.

Study 5 is a mixed design of 2 (attitude: positive, negative) X2 (feature type: cool, classic) X2 (freedom degree: high, low) X2 (environment: work, dinner). The study gave different degrees of freedom of expression to allow subjects to attitude towards the occasion of wearing the shoes. Then conduct a manipulation test, and the consumer answers on its point scale that they want to stand out or integrate into the collective attitude on a given occasion.

Study 5 shows that consumers will prefer cool brands only in occasions where free image is needed. On the contrary, in occasions where integration is encouraged, consumers will not choose cool brands, but may choose uncool brands, especially in those situations where they prefer classic brand . So cool is more than just an alternative statement that expresses like or wanting an object.Although cool brands are often more gravitational than non-cool brands, when consumers want to fit in, they choose brands that aren't that cool.

Research Conclusion

Researchers found through 5 experiments that when consumers perceive an object (can be a person or a brand) as free, they will determine that it/he is cool. Freedom here refers to pursuing their own interests without caring about social norms and expectations of others. When consumers see a brand (or person) surpassing the rules, they will consider it cool. Furthermore, consumers with counterculturalism tendencies perceive cool perceptions brought by relatively high freedom. The researchers further explained that although everyone basically likes cool brands, "cool" and "buy cool products" cannot be equated. In fact, cool brands will become consumers' first choice only when consumers want to be different rather than integrate into the collective.

For merchants, this research is of great practical significance. The market attaches great importance to "cool" brands. A cool product can often bring huge profits to merchants. This article tells merchants how to create a cool product from the perspective of product design.

So, if you want to make a product cool, then please break the unreasonable social conventions and effectively convey them to the public. The effective way to convey to the public is simple, that is, to create a desire group - let users feel that the group they most desire to join has begun to accept this innovation, and they will be more likely to understand breaking the routine as cool.

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