The culture of 'cool'

I was reading someones blog entry about Nike Swoosh tatoos on Nike employees.

I know it's true because I've seen the pictures. It was a big story in the media when I was a university student in Canada. In 2003 I visited Nike's campus (that's what the firm calls it) in Beaverton, Oregon, for a story I was doing for Transworld and the head of the shoe-freak phenomnenon SB division gave me a fantastic tour of every nook and cranny on that campus. And I even met one of those notorious Nike employees with a Swoosh tatoo. "No way" I thought. "Is that real?"

Walking away, my contact read my mind (and smirk), and said, "By the way, that swoosh was real."

Anyone that has grown up in a society obsessesd with popular culture , namely North America or Britain, has a deeply personal relatinship with the phenomenon. It could be conscious or subconscious, but it exists.

It's somewhat of a joke for people from other parts of the world, but most "dialled in" North Americans can tell you how much Tom and Katie Holme's baby weighed when she was born, what city Tom Green is from and how much Toy Story II made at the box office.

That's just it. The concept of being "dialled in". It'ss a term used all the time in the media and only those who are dialled in actually know what it means. It's a secred that started on the playground. The secret of personal consumerism and culture of identifying with a brand.

But the question is simple: how far can marketing and branding go before it becomes psychotically egoistic?

Tattoo artists being brought into offices by corporate hq? C'mon Nike.