A product feels cool when distinctive or attractive qualities create excitement or admiration—or when a relevant social group validates its appeal. Coolness is not a single objective feature: good looks, novelty, usefulness, ease of use and exclusivity can all contribute, but no one attribute guarantees it.
Coolness is both personal and social
In one sense, a product is cool because it impresses or excites an individual. In another, it is cool because other people recognize and affirm its appeal. Those responses can overlap, but they are not identical: someone can recognize a product as cool without personally liking it.
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A 2026 study by Pol, Yin and Tellis found both personal and social interpretations among the U.S., German and Chinese consumers it studied. Its authors also found that people often described coolness through particular product qualities rather than offering a clear abstract definition.
What qualities can make a product seem cool?
Consumers commonly point to a combination of visual, practical and symbolic attributes. These are possible ingredients, not a formula: whether they make a product cool depends on the person and context.
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- Design and visual appeal: A distinctive or attractive appearance can make a product stand out.
- Novelty and creativity: New or unusual ideas can attract attention, especially when they feel compelling rather than different for difference’s sake.
- Usefulness and ease of use: Practical value and usability can contribute alongside style; a product need not trade function for appearance.
- Aspirational image and exclusivity: A product may carry meaning about identity or status, particularly when a social group values it.
Why novelty alone is not enough
Research by Im, Bhat and Lee connects perceived novelty with coolness, and coolness with hedonic value—the pleasure or enjoyment associated with a product. The same study links meaningfulness with utilitarian value and product attitude. In practical terms, difference can help a product feel exciting, while a meaningful benefit can support a positive evaluation by a separate route. A new feature is not automatically valuable, and the study does not establish that coolness alone drives sales.
| What the product offers | How it may shape evaluation |
|---|---|
| Novelty that feels appealing | May contribute to perceived coolness and enjoyment. |
| A meaningful practical benefit | May support utilitarian value and a more favorable product attitude. |
When breaking convention can feel cool
Unconventionality is not the same as coolness. In six experiments, Warren and Campbell found that autonomy—departing from expectations—could increase perceived coolness when the departure seemed appropriate. Their findings point to a few important conditions:
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- The norm being challenged is seen as unnecessary or illegitimate, rather than worth preserving.
- The departure is bounded, not extreme or constant.
- The audience sees the norm as overly repressive.
A product that departs from convention for an understandable reason may therefore seem distinctive; arbitrary oddness or relentless rule-breaking is not guaranteed to have the same effect. The researchers also found that perceived coolness is distinct from liking, so recognition and personal preference should not be treated as interchangeable.
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Coolness depends partly on the group whose judgment matters. In the 2026 study, Chinese consumers in the sample relied more on social interpretations and exclusivity than U.S. and German consumers did. That is a finding about those study groups, not a rule that applies to every person or market in those countries. The broader lesson is that local norms and status signals can change which product qualities carry social weight.
Is there a checklist for measuring coolness?
No universal checklist or score is established by these studies. For technological products and interfaces specifically, a 2013 study proposed originality, attractiveness and subcultural appeal as a compact set of dimensions. That framework is limited to technology contexts; it should not be treated as a validated test for every kind of consumer product.
One useful way to assess a product is to ask what its appeal actually rests on: personal excitement, group approval, an attractive design, a meaningful benefit, an appropriate break from convention, or some combination. The answer can help explain why a product resonates with one audience and not another, without turning coolness into a guaranteed recipe.
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What the cross-cultural study measured
Pol, Yin and Tellis report Cohen’s kappa = .82 for two trained coders’ manual coding of responses. Kappa measures the degree of agreement between coders beyond chance; it is a reliability statistic for the coding process, not a rating of how cool the products were.
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Sources
- Im, Subin, Subodh Bhat and Yikuan Lee, “Consumer perceptions of product creativity, coolness, value and attitude,” Journal of Business Research, 68(1), 2015, pp. 166–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2014.03.014
- Pol, Gratiana, Eden Yin and Gerard J. Tellis, “What Makes a Product Cool? Consumers’ Perceptions of Product Coolness Across Three Cultures,” Journal of International Marketing, 34(2), 2026. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069031X261440313
- Warren, Caleb and Margaret C. Campbell, “What Makes Things Cool? How Autonomy Influences Perceived Coolness,” Journal of Consumer Research, 41(2), 2014, pp. 543–563. https://doi.org/10.1086/676680
- “Capturing ‘cool’: Measures for assessing coolness of technological products,” International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2013.
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