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Connect the Dots Marketing
The other day I wrote about the “hip” Christian marketing bonanza known as CreationFest, and wanted to use a photo I found from it to illustrate what I think is a technique used to great effect more broadly in marketing. Take this photo:
That photo is innocuously mixed in with many other professionally-taken “lifestyle” shots of young people having fun in the name of Jesus. It’s placement within this sequence initially links the company being advertised to the ethic & aesthetic lifestyles depicted within these shots. Mission one, complete. Associations are created by placing an ad within a specific cultural context.
Mission two then has to do with introducing new meaning to the target audience. Previous generations were marketed to simply by telling them right out what the new meaning is. Younger generations however have built up a “sale resistance” to that technique though, thanks to over-exposure. Young people today want to think that they are smarter than traditional marketing, which in turn means that if marketers are going to reach them, they have to take this cleverness into account. But people today are also caught in this weird mental trap where we want to be innovators, and say that we have discovered something new and cool. But we also want to make sure that we’re not so far off the curve that we stand out.
The photo above to me illustrates how you achieve this: the associations it creates with the other photos show that other people like it too and that it’s “cool” but the fact that the website address is not fully spelled out allows you to go out and discover it for yourself. You see a word you’ve never heard of before, “JesusBranded,” and that creates a new imprint, which you place within the context of the other photos. Then, you complete the website URL mentally in your head, go look it up online, and suddenly you feel as though you yourself discovered it. And then you tell your friends about it, so as to gain prestige for discovering something new, especially if it’s something they themselves might like. You become a “brand evangelist” they call it…
And that, I think, is the crux of modern marketing - at least to the younger generations. You take that basic technique, and then you scatter it across various media. Some print ads, some magazine ads, some news stories, some mentions in blogs, and before you know it all the little slivers of incomplete information, fragmentary ads, come together in your head, and you feel as though you’ve “discovered” it. Your ego is stroked, your curiosity is rewarded, your social status is elevated, and these good feelings are then transferred to whatever the new product is that you’ve discovered. The next logical step would be to buy this product, so as to complete the ritual, reifying your feelings and validating yourself and your experience of the brand.
- Gingrich’s Connecticut Insurgency
- Become The Expert!
- What you crave
- Something something… theology
- Marketing to the Archetypes
- Prev: Tony Blair’s New Age Re-Birth
- Next: A Technocrat’s Response
August 4th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Very thoughtful analysis… it sure does appear appear as if ‘modern’ marketing has tapped into some sorta primal hunter-gather/ foraging thingie that is part of the psycho-spiritual monkey that is man. The prestige/ reward factor & novelty of finding - & sharing - something new - particularly amongs the young - is well-exploited by those who have something to pimp outta their snake-oil cases… be it Jesus, new basketball shoes, or whatever. It makes for a rather cyclic, Ouroboros-ian consumption cycle as well: discover, share, consume, discard… rinse, lather, repeat… I suppose that is part of the psychic danger inherent with the modern ‘consumer’ lifestyle… discovery-consumption becomes a drug of sorts, & gives a pleasurable rush to our brain chemistry (which is basically prone to seek pleasure & avoid pain). It serves an opiate of sorts… & like most drugs, its affect on the young & not-fully-formed brain could have disastrous consequences… a lifetime of debt & shallow, consumption-based living, to start…
August 4th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Brilliant. I’d not thought of it that way, and have, being one of the targeted generation, done exactly what they hoped I would - I found an ad for Dr. Steel on a blog, and jumped along the link ’cause I was curious, and liked the art. I “found” it. I then explored the site, listened to the music, and after telling my friends about my new find, finally bought the CD.
…I’d protest that I still listen to it, but… Now that the novelty of the new find has faded, so has my immense enthusiasm for the music, though it is still good.
And you managed to pin it completely. By letting me think I found it, rather than giving it to me, they made me feel clever and innovative and I bought. Wow, suckered by advertising.
Oddly, I’d point out that this is similar to what Pop Occulture does, as well - gives us tidbits of information that the rest of the world doesn’t have, doesn’t know… Just read your tagline, and you’ll see what I mean. It promises that exact thing.
…It’s an invitation to share in private, “special” knowledge that it is implied no-one else has. That feeling of being special, of superiority is exactly what you’re selling us here.
August 4th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Right, exactly. The part that I’m missing though is having the product to sell you which ritually validates your consumerist discovery. Working on that though!
August 4th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Advertising. And what we’re giving you, paying you with, so to speak, is what most bloggers desire - attention and the esteem of total strangers.
Leaving us without a solid, hard-and-cold product at the end of it all is just extra marketing genius. You’re getting esteem and attention is exchange for time, as well as some measure (small…?) of advetising payout based on hits and clickthroughs. Maybe you’re effectively selling us advertising, I’m not quite sure.
August 4th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
Perhaps I’m being immature, but I noticed something in that photo. Under the words JESUSBRANDED, a man is spelling out the URL. His head partially covers the name Jesus while the word bra is clearly seen. I wonder if that’s was an accident or not. Perhaps it;s nothing, or it was a subconscious slip on the photographers part. Or maybe it could be intended as a subliminal suggestion about sexuality within Christianity made to look innocent.
August 5th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
when i see the words “jesus branded” i can’t help but think of a cross of red hot metal burning into the flanks of supplicant cattle.
August 10th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
[…] Fantastically creepy example of Newt Gingrich being used for a connect the dots marketing campaign. Three separate instances that you’re supposed to gradually connect over time. The first one was a few weeks back when Newt started stumping that the Middle Eastern conflicts should be repackaged as World War 3 to make sure that the public plays how they want them to play… […]