Background: Brand coolness is a research area that has been established in prior research. Brand coolness has been defined as a subjective, dynamic, socially constructed, and positive trait brands have. Cool brands can be recognized by the attributes extraordinary, aesthetically appealing, energetic, high status, original, authentic, rebellious, subcultural, iconic, and popular. The formation of cool brands and its consequences has been encouraged to be further investigated in prior research. This study incorporates consequences following brand coolness into the value-attitude-behavior model to see the degree of association with increased willingness-to-pay. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of brand coolness and its impact on the willingness-to-pay through consumers’ values, attitudes and behavior. Methodology: This study uses a quantitative research approach, conducting an online questionnaire with 202 respondents. The data from the questionnaire is then analysed through descriptive statistics, correlation- and bivariate regression analyses.   Findings: The main findings of this study is that all of the five measured brand coolness concepts within values, attitudes and behavior have a significant association with increased willingness-to-pay. The study strengthens prior findings in the research area of brand coolness and adds new knowledge regarding the possible order of prioritization when aiming to increase willingness-to-pay. Managerial implications: The results of the study enables to present an order of prioritization for companies to use when aiming to increase the willingness-to-pay through developed brand coolness. In order to maximize the increase of willingness to make a financial sacrifice for the brand the focus should mainly be on increasing brand love and brand attitude, followed by word-of-mouth, status and self-brand connection.

Introduction: Gen-Z are emerging as new consumers in the market, with more demands on brands than previous generations. Despite studies have showcased that brands can be perceived as cool by Gen-Z consumers, there is so far no research investigating what drives a brand to be perceived as cool by Gen-Z consumers. Furthermore, there is no research so far which has explored Gen-Z men in relation to fashion apparel consumption. This research hence seeks to gain a better understanding of Gen-Z men and their perception of cool fashion apparel brands.  Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore what factors drive fashion apparel brands to be perceived as cool by Gen-Z men, and how these factors drive fashion apparel brands to be perceived as cool by Gen-Z men. Method: This study uses a qualitative methodology, consisting of 11 semi-structured interviews on Gen-Z men. An abductive thematic analysis complimented with a theoretical model was used to analyse the interviews, the theoretical model was adapted as a result of the findings.  Conclusions: The conclusions are that 7 different factors drive fashion apparel brands to be perceived as cool by the Gen-Z men in this study. It was found that the factors drive a fashion brand to be cool due to inheriting specific themes, in total 23 different themes were found across the 7 factors, hence the themes are how the seven factors drive a fashion apparel brand to be perceived as cool by the Gen-Z men in this study.