March 16th, 2006

I spoke once before about fear being the motivating factor in marketynge. I know that at least one person thought I was paranoid. (Gawd, the irony.)

And I suppose I should clarify something here: I don't think marketeers sit in poorly-lit dank basements letting beady flashing eyes go out of focus as they envision the next Evil Campaign to Instill Fear in the People. No, I don't think they are intentionally so evil, and few (if any) are that smart. What I instead mean is that marketynge gravitates towards what successfully sells. Plain and simple. If the essence of what Marketeer A does moves the product, then Marketeer A gets more jobs moving more product ... and though Marketeer A may have opinions about why he/she is successful, chances are good that the real reason is all about the essence of the Marketeer, and little or nothing to do with what he/she actually does. Marketeer B may be orders of magnitude harder working and dozens of IQ points smarter, but if Marketeer B's very soul and essence is not fear-based "chase the Jones', buy or die" then Marketeer B will probably end up asking if you want fries with that.

Over the years, successful marketeers are the ones that have been fumbling towards fear-based advertising: "You will die if you don't have THIS." Oh, it's not that obvious, but one can't help but notice the discomfort instilled in oneself by advertising on the sides of busses, on radio, in Internet banner ads, on TV, and in print. That's it, you know: Whether we realise it or not, we get uncomfortable when we see advertising. Even the ads that make us laugh only do so because of an innate discomfort lurking beneath the surface. Marketeers may not think they are doing this, but they are making us all slightly agoraphobic and xenophobic because everywhere we go we find evidence we are Just Not Good Enough because of a lack of X.

Now, I know this is not exactly a new idea: There is a well-known phenomenon that a commercial, print ad or banner of some kind (electronic or otherwise) must first "create the need" and then provide the perfectly-shaped plug to fill in the hole the advertisement just dug.

But what I have noticed is that the attempt to assuage fear is an addiction. It's the perfect addiction, in fact, for the attempt to alleviate fear creates a larger headspace for fear, and never satisfies the seeker. And so the tracks for consumerism are laid: We wander the face of the Earth seeking safety, and buying crap seems to be the way to temporarily make us feel better ... except we feel worse afterwards, and we must now seek bigger (and probably costlier) ways to avoid the new and bigger fear. We are addicted. And I have come to realise in the last few months that I am just as addicted as the next consumer.

I read over what I had just written above, and realised that this can't possibly be original. It strikes a chord with me, but I realise I have just described behaviour inherent in nearly all of North American culture. So I took a look around on the Internet and found a few things that go into this with a slightly different bent:

OK, so Michael Moore has a decidedly American take on it, Barry Glassner also talks about it in terms of violence and destruction at home and abroad from American soil, but Marilyn Manson seems to have hit on the same idea that I did—just about five years earlier. (Should I be concerned that I think, at least about this, along the same lines as Marilyn Manson? Someone come slap me if I start wearing black lipstick please.) Is this a difference between Canada and America though? We Canadians seldom take up a war cry against anyone (except ourselves, and even then it is a war of polite words) and yet we are inundated with appeals to our fears. We respond exactly the same way that Americans do in one respect: We go out and buy crap. But we don't call for the death of the residents of other countries.

Manipulating someone's fear is an aggression. A kind of violence. An empowerment of oneself that may spell small temporary gains for the one, but great losses for the manipulated many. Stoking the coals of fear shows a lack of compassion and and a dearth of empathy. It is a momentary personal rush that steers the ship of culture closer to the rocks of war.

Fear is the true addictive substance for which rampant consumerism attempts to compensate. And the holes punched in our defenses against fear by the advertising were always there, just exposed by the marketeers in their efforts to assuage their own fears.

And like any drug, fear in its pure form is deadly.

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