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The Emergence of Community?
I have been doing some research related to an “emerging field” called engagement marketing, for purposes which I will need to leave opaque for the time being. Basically, from what I can tell, the term engagement or participatory marketing seems to be most associated with a company called SMLXL which supposedly specializes in it. The basic premise seems to be that companies need to start thinking about their consumer base and/or audiences as communities, which they can’t simply just buy and sell or outright control, but need to actively develop and even - gasp! - promote.
While it’s nice to see these thoughts start to sink into the business realm a bit, you always have to wonder just how sincere they are about such things. Whether its not going to simply be the old song and dance dressed up in a new more egalitarian squishy-feely wrapper.
Reading a sample excerpt from their book, I am going to have to wager that SMLXL for the time being is going to be handing out more of the latter. I have to severly question the intention with which materials such as this are written:
From the Zapatistas of Mexico, to the running street battles of Seattle, to the massive increase of bookclubs across the UK, online and off-line communities are forming and becoming increasingly visible and effective. The emergence and the notion of the community as a counterforce in business is not new in many ways, but it has evolved recently into something far more potent. All through its history mankind has of course lived in communities. First the caveman had his family and tribe, then gradually emerged the nation-states and with industrialisation mankind found several different communities. Up to the end of the 20th century, communities were dormant as a force to consider in business. Yes, there were isolated incidences of consumer reaction to an oil spill or child slavery labour etc., but for the most part, individual consumers did not instinctively group together to form a power of the masses. Not until the Connected Age, where we have authorities on social contagion, social network theory, the tipping point theory. The list is endless – the point is they are right.
Are we really to just sit back and accept that the communities for ordinary people were “dormant” until the end of the 20th century? Maybe the idea of community was mostly just ignored by businesses, but us regular people have ALWAYS been “instinctively grouping together.” It’s called human nature - man, the social animal, tribes - we should all know the drill. This isn’t a news flash direct from God sitting aboard a UFO in outer space. This is common sense, every-day stuff we all already know.
But see, the problem here is that these companies are saying they want to talk to us as individuals - as humans. But they don’t actually. Not at all. They don’t care about who you are as an individual. They instead care about you as an individual consumer and that is the extent of it.
In other words, these companies are chasing a holy grail of being able to “speak authentically” to real people while ignoring the fact that they aren’t actually speaking to people or as people, but to consumers as corporations. You can see it all over their rotten language: infiltration marketing, for example:
Infiltration marketing is a marketing strategy in which marketers strive to understand and infiltrate consumer culture at a local, grassroots level, by identifying and engaging thought leaders and trend setters within the consumers’ community (e.g., the local DJ, popular local musical groups, or the captain of the local sports team rather than nationally famous celebrities) and targeting their communications directly to them. These thought leaders are key influencers within their social groups and engaging them early helps to quickly facilitate a strong emotional connection between consumers and the brand. Infiltration marketing also often utilizes high-impact, exciting brand sampling events at local venues. It was pioneered by Pepsi in 1995 with Josta, the first energy drink launched by a major US company.
[See also an older article on this I’ve written]
I’ve also written elsewhere about how it seems like the ultimate end-game for overlord-types is to become so influential and ubiquitous that they become invisible. If I had to put on my “prophecy hat,” that’s where I would say all of this stuff is going. Maybe we could even imagine a little sci-fi parable where corporations stop having “employees” and become persistent self-replicating information-gathering/advertising hologrammatic modules which appear to us just as ordinary people who for some reason really know a whole lot about certain topics related to particular companies. Think about it a little more: you already have friends like that - don’t you? People who are so happily brain-washed by their job that they spend an enormous percentage of their social life doing free advertising amongst their friends. Do you think these things are accidental? Do you think this is where they plan on stopping? Corporations already have the same rights as individuals. Why is that? Where will that one day lead us - to a world where every person is a corporation, regulated by the rules of the Free Market, instead of the anachronistic identity restrictions of the modernist state?
November 29th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
It seems that advertising agencies consider collective bargaining, boycotting, and consciousness raising campaigns to be less “potent” than cliques and ad memes. They’re probably right. Sigh.
November 29th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Man, that book excerpt gives me the shivers. It’s like the instruction manual for the Archonic co-option of the “underground,” esp. the references to the Zapatistas (who would likely shoot the author of this text dead if he approached ‘em w/this drivel) and the Seattle WTO riots.
On a semi-related topic, I was flipping through Adbusters for the first time in a long while the other day, and it seems to have been totally co-opted by the Archons. Talk about becoming the Empire by fighting it…..
November 29th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
in the business of marketing it is critical to identify and target “niches” so that the advertising dollar is effectively spent. the community within each niche is the marketplace for targeted products and services.
adbusters is a classic example of this. draw in malcontents, poli-sci types and silver-spoon socialists and sell them a glossy pamphlet……….if you are angry at starbucks and pretty girls in cocktail dresses, then this month`s issue is just for you.
November 30th, 2006 at 12:57 am
What a compelling post. It made me think how people willingly dehumanize themself and turn into walking billboards for products. Products are already a huge part of the brainwashed’s self-image. I am speaking of people that where tshirts with corporate logos splashed across the chest or shorts with store names written across the ass.
A wise man once said, “The more advertising I see, the less I want to buy.”
What I find interesting to contemplate and perhaps do something about is the to consider what makes those of us who “get it” not be brainwashed and how can we unbrainwash anyone who so desires it? Further, are there more people becoming brainwashed and the situation is getting worse? I am sure I do not know.
Is the situation desperate, as usual? Or are things really getting worse and so much so that direct action is called for?
November 30th, 2006 at 2:50 am
Well, I don’t think people who allow themselves to be conduits for advertising are doing it in such a way that they find it dehumanizing. Instead, I think they believe they are tapping into something bigger than themselves: a cultural story, a feeling which is recognizable and can be easily communicated with others. That can be a very powerful thing
November 30th, 2006 at 3:33 am
I wish I could share your optimism (I am a very optimistic person by nature) - that people allow themselves to be conduits for advertising in order to become part of something larger than the individual - but I don’t.
It seems much more likely that people are duped into believing what the advertisements are selling - enhanced identity, individuality, satisfaction and the rest. It is the easy way out and ultimately a sham on their very soul to advertise one’s personality and make it larger by being identified with The Gap or Nike or Hummers.
The truth is probably a little bit of both but both ideas are rooted in something despicable and false and thus serves to make the human condition worse and adding to the general mess of the world without enhancing it in any way. That is unacceptable to me.
I suppose gang tatoos are analogous to a Nike logo as both tell a cultural story and represent something that is powerful and easily communicated but if that gang was a murdering bunch of rapists and thieves it wouldn’t speak well of the person’s soul to wear such tatoos out in the open under most circumstances.
The story of consumerism is our cultural story and I agree with the idea that being identified with your cultural story can evoke powerful feelings but those feelings are linked to something that is so patently false it makes my soul cringe to consider it.
Call me an elitist or a reductionist or whatever but I will never defile my body with a corporate logo (unless the circumstances are right, after all everyone has their price) except in the most unusual of circumstance.
November 30th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
I dont think it’s a matter of optimisim. I think its the same force that drives people to want to identify with any other type of group of story, whether it be a religion, ethnicity, age group, subculture or anything else. For that reason, I don’t think advertising is patently evil because all it really does is try to standardize and predict an essential component of human nature.
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006/03/19/are-marketers-evil-people/
But the advertisements DO sell that. In fact, that is all they sell. The actual products are incidental and are ultimately all more or less interchangeable
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006...11/19/product-placement-in-real-life/
Well, what exactly is so false about it? That we need corporations in order to access these feelings? Because that is what I find to be false about it.
Is that soul-crushing though? Because part of me wonders if it’s really practical for ALL people everywhere to struggle to be totally self-aware, liberated, etc. I’m not saying they shouldn’t or that they aren’t capable of it. But I am drawing on personal observations that most people simply don’t care. Why should they go through the trouble of accessing all these rich emotions inside of themselves when they could simply press the tab in their cage which will reward them with a food pellet (ie, pay money for a product that will enable them to access these emotional states more quickly)
So, do you just not wear clothes? Or do you rip the logos off of everything? And if you did, what’s the difference?
PS. Not trying to pick on you here, I am just grappling with a lot of these questions myself right now.
November 30th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Really nice to see this article you’ve written. I truly apprieciate intellegent analysis of the econo-state! I did not know the technical names of these marketing strategies however. And of course without all the hoopla, this has been happening since they sold ripped blue jeans back to us in the, well..was it the late 60’s or early 70’s? I can’t remember, I was there! I think…I was also in Seattle for the WTO protests.