Here’s a halfway decent article on PeaceJournalism called The Economics of Conspiracy Theory. It takes a very broad look at the industry of crafting and selling conspiracy theories as products. There’s nothing too mind-blowing in it, but I’d be interested in putting together a collection of similar articles and research. I know this is going to cheese off a lot of purists, but I want to look more at conspiracy theory as a genre of infotainment, and as a business. Evidently I’m not the only one noticing that there is a whole hell of a lot of activity going on in these formerly outlandish areas.
Here’s one thing I never heard about before from this article:
Numerous products were adversely affected by conspiratorial smear campaigns. In his book “Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where it Comes From“, Daniel Pipes describes how the sales of Tropical Fantasy plummeted by 70% following widely circulated rumors about the sterilizing substances it allegedly contained - put there by the KKK. Other brands suffered a similar fate: Kool and Uptown cigarettes, Troop Sport clothing, Church’s Fried Chicken, and Snapple soft drinks.
I wonder if any campaigns like this have actually been launched intentionally by marketers to discredit competitors. I know companies will engage in “scientific” studies to prove that their product or an additive is more healthy than a competitors. But that seems to fall just short of accusing a competitor of collaborating with the KKK to kill black people. Might be a neat trick though. I wonder if there’s a way to use conspiracy theory in marketing not just to bash your enemies but to build your own brand. Ben Mack seems to be trying something at least vaguely similar to this…
Anyway, if anybody knows of other good articles on the business side of the conspiracy publishing/media industry, please post them here so I can continue to grow my evil empire.
[article found via Corpus Mmothra]
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21 Comments
From my experience, it is abosolutely possible to use conspiracy theories to do any of business. I also call it as 3D Business Campaign. However the pre-requisit of this kind of campaign is that the dempartment of the marketing manager has to be spiritual enough to do it. I would say that 80& of marketing manger in this material world don’t know how to do 3D Business Campaign
would you mind giving us some examples of a 3d business campaign?
it seems someone is using conspiracy mechanics to suggest the gwb is piloting hurricanes and sending the ss to corral poor blacks after the storm. i find it implausable, but i don`t believe in spirits either.
Let’s take Katrina as an example. I think the “orbital weather control lasers/masers” story reeks of either pure disinformation or idiot entertainment… Now, the US Gov’t did recently legalize weather control, and the military has a number of documents, like this one, it’s clear they’re actively getting their fingers into things. So, the spin control does two things to discredit anyone who reports on the recent Senate weather control bill: associates the reporter with tin-foil-hat-wearing nutjobs who talk about orbital lasers steering a hurricane, or actively puts out a story about orbital lasers etc.
But I think that disinformation is totally different category from marketing a conspiracy story, and that’s different from spreading a “conspiracy theory” about Proctor and Gamble’s logo being “666″. Disinfo’s books, like Abuse Your Illusions, might appeal to a conspiracy theorist, but nothing in them is tinfoil-hat fodder; Russ Kick’s twenty pages on 9/11 (cleverly de-interneted by Disinfo) don’t mention pods, or controlled demolition, and niether does Jeff Wells’s–I don’t know, are we going to qualify that as “marketing conspiracy theory?” Another e.g., the Dalai Lama and even the Pope benefit from the New Age publishing business/marketshare, but are they “New Age?” What about their books? Personally, I vote no to one and yes to the other, but in any case we should define terms better.
That reminds me, the whole Alternate Reality Gaming thing comes pretty close to all this…
Might be a bit before your time but when I was a teen there was a huge rumor circulating about the Proctor & Gamble moon man logo as a secret acknowledgement that the sale of ivory soap was being used to fund the church of satan. Seveal high-profile televangelists had to be repeatedly threatened with lawsuits in order to stop them from repeating this charge on their shows, it damaged the brand quite badly in the Bible Belt for a couple of years.
To whoever left the “3D Campaigner” comment, you’re going to have to explain that better. And it better not be some corny sales pitch for your company either!
Hmm, I’m wondering if the P&G phenom is like anti-PR–after all, coverage and word of mouth caused sales to buckle but shored up the brand, in this case showing that while “anti” PR might strengthen a sigil’s recognition, the rumor can prevent and damage the original intent.
“3D Campaign” sounds a lot like “6 Sigma” or “TQM” to me.
One of Fell’s articles.
whatver helps stop somebody drink Tropical Fantasy, lol, more power to them….
KKK or not, those things are liquid death…. after smoking a nickel of weed it always used to be the shit to go cop a Tropical Fantasy and some UTZ chips… damn, used to be able to stretch 10 dollars into two blunts, a forty, and snacks… lol.
good to avoid tropical fantasy. and quarter water…….
I wouldn’t put it above advertisers to use CT scares against competitors.
One example: In the late ’80s, TROOP jackets and clothing were popular among young blacks, until a rumor started about the KKK being involved in the money behind the clothing line. Today, TROOP is long gone, seen as a flash in the pan. It went as quickly as it came thanks to bad press.
You hear it all the time: Carls Jr is KKK funded (7-Up too), or– my all-time favorite– Marlboro is anti-semitic because if your turn the pack upside down and read the Marlboro logo it supposedly says “horrible jew”…
Ever see the movie “Used Cars” with Kurt Russell? That, to me, is what advertsiing has become: a dirty tricks game. If Karl Rove ever needs work after the Bush regime is done, he can work for Mad Ave. and make a killing!
funny, because the logo is actually an all seeing eye pyramid… dont veen have to turn it upside down to see the conspiracy
actually, isn’t the all-seeing eye pyramid on the camles? They all must be anti-semetic. I do see the “jew” in the upside-down Marlboro typography though.
Tom Robbins had an awesome CT about the word “choice” in the original package design for Camel cigarettes, in his book “Still Life For Woodpecker”.
I recall reading an interview in the LA WEEKLY years ago, with the guy who designed Joe Camel. He admitted (after all these years of steady denials from the Camel people) that they asked him to make Joe appealing to youngsters. No surprise there– so why are people reluctant to entertain the notion that OTHER companies resort to the same chicanery and deception?
Answer: they’re afraid of being seen as kooks, even if they are right all along.
Fuck Daniel Pipes
Thank you, Rev max, for saying that (any relation to Rev Bem?). Here is an introduction to DP’s war-mongering - and the specifically psychopathic style of lying:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/1602327.php
Note: “the Palestinians are a miserable people…and they deserve to be.”
Here’s a good one on “Sam” Vaknin:
http://www.worksonline.org/read.asp?idnum=658
Note esp.: “Moreover, torture is erroneously perceived by liberals as a kind of punishment. Suspects - innocent until proven guilty - indeed should not be subject to penalty. But torture is merely an interrogation technique.”
These are really dark, twisted people.
Hey, Tim, when are you going to start thinking with a hammer?
What?
nietzsche’s book “twilight of the idols” was subtitled “or how to make philosophy with a hammer.” i guess you’re not enough of an iconoclast for this dude.
man, nietzsche was old news in high school . . . .
man, nietzsche was old news in high school . . . .
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I didn’t discover my man until college intro to philosophy when I was 17
i could quote entire chapters from memory and became well-nigh insufferable for a year or so there
then i discovered the joys of fornication and cunnilingus and lost interest in Nietzsche again, LOL
Worth reading Tim, Thus Spoke Zarathustra is classic
Its a modern myth the guy wrote himself, sounds corny but if yer in a certain mood its earth-shattering
i heard part of it on audio book once.
” ‘The alchemists insisted that one should heat the retort many times before making the final distillation. This is an emblem of true thought: one must pass one’s thinking through the furnace many times, to be sure. One should think with a hammer, rather than with a brain, as one shapes our thought from dross matter.’ As though imitating the hammer blows of Vulcan, he tapped his stick on top of the balustrade. ‘Iron, you see. Cast iron. Yet it looks like stone. That is the true Philosopher’s Stone, which never appears to be what it is.” [emphasis added]
- Mark Hedsel, Zelator
It has to do with discerning the difference between the Foreign Installation and your own mind (”The predators give us their mind, which becomes our mind.” - C. Castaneda).
It also has to do with fusing the fractured self back into 1 (see “Alchemy for Dummies” in Jan 05 archive at my blog).
I wasn’t even thinking of Neitzsche. Gotta go - Smallville on soon.
Sorry, forgot to put the link in; there, that should do it.
weird, jan 5 is my birthday!