Marketing Environment

There was a course I went through and found insightful, "Building an Unstoppable Brand," created by the former Chief Marketing Officer of Zumba, Jeffrey Perlman. In it, he claims that one of the big secrets branding experts utilize is that they seek to create a neural network within your brain. When you run into a certain problem, they want to train your brain to recognize them as the solution. When you think about (blank)... or run into the issue of (blank)... they want you to - on an intrinsic level - automatically associate the solution with (them). Through repetition, they seek to create a literal physical circuit within the wiring of your mind, and stamp their logo onto it. Think of those advertisements that you see playing non-stop on TV or YouTube, and the ones you've heard endlessly on the radio/your favorite streaming service. Hasn't everyone and their mother already been exposed to this 500 times? We get the message.....

That's what they want! Endless repetition is deepening the grooves within your brain, their real estate inside your neural circuitry. When you think of laundry detergent you automatically think of Tide Pods and Gain Flings. When your brain goes to think about the subject of insurance it is automatically going to have images and thoughts tied to Statefarm, Progressive and Geico pop up. They are developing schemas within your system of memory. Anytime you experience a specific emotional need, you now know how to navigate your way to solace. How many random little commercials and brand mottos do you have stored in your brain? It's hard to escape. Through repetitive advertising and intelligent marketing, they seek to lodge a seed within your mind. Afterwards, they are going to do their best to water and extricate $ from it. This can be positively oriented around servicing the needs of people who genuinely align with and could use a businesses' product/service, or it could be malevolently abused for profit.

Usually toxic marketing goes along the lines of this. Convince the person into the belief that they have a problem.... a certain lack (or blatantly point to a problem they legitimately already have or will soon be running into.) Really activate some emotions, make them feel insecure, get them to think of their dreams. This is the seed. If marketers have touched upon some sort of need or weakness of yours well enough, then you will become fixated on this over time. You will automatically begin to generate thoughts of discomfort (watering it) now that you are hyper-aware of a dissonance within your life.

Modern advertising is heavily advanced in its ability to directly target very specific people. If you’ve never been behind the scenes of something like Facebook ads, let me tell you, it’s creepy. They know exactly how you spend your time on social media, and through all of that, discern what kind of person you are. You can narrow your targeting down to a T, aiming at very specific niche individuals because of all the information that is stored. I’m talking age, gender, income bracket, job title, relationship status, education level, interests, hobbies, your location, locations you’ve been to previously, entertainment preferences, shopping habits, purchase behaviors, traveling habits, political orientation, religious beliefs, number of children, etc. In 2024 they actually have limited some of these options, finally; But still, the problem is far from gone.

Marketers can study human psychology and then take advantage of and abuse this knowledge. Good marketers use psychology to capture attention and direct it towards good products. Toxic marketers use psychology to speak directly to your insecurities and get $. Girls who are googling "why are my lips so small and ugly" will be shown endless advertisements for lip augmentation surgeries. These ads will then follow them onto Instagram and continuously pop up displaying someone who looks “perfect” thanks to the scalpel, reminding them of their perceived flaw, and its solution. Men lonely and facing failures in their pursuit of women will be directly targeted advertisements promising them the skills of Don Juan, guaranteeing a harem of gorgeous model girlfriends that are begging to be with them. One weird trick to bypass women’s innate psychology, you will never be hurt or lonely again (talking directly to a broken heart), just embody manipulative tactics that will never lead to a real happy relationship. Have you been brainstorming new ways to make money? Here come the sleazy agency courses that will "teach you to make millions." Wouldn’t it be nice to provide more for your family and see the world? Of course, first they will walk you through their long winded funnel, pulling out emotions from your life long desire for financial abundance, and then influencing those feelings to a credit card form. What unresolved emotions do you have lingering around? Ahhh there they are. Let’s act like we will be the resolve to those old tapes, emphasized by the repeated brainwash of all the qualifications I have to be worthy of your apprenticeship. Out of shape and unhealthy? Here come the advertisements of ripped dudes with spiky hair and no shirts on, trying to sell you weird testosterone pills and hidden herbs from a remote village in the deepest parts of the Venezuelan jungle (doctors are actively hunting them down to keep this private).

Companies would never admit this, but I don't know, it seems like if you discuss certain topics around your cell phone, it picks up the content of your conversation and directs you targeted ads. I have quite a few anecdotal experiences from myself and others. Just recently in December of 2024 I was given advertisements for saxophone lessons after visiting my friend who plays the saxophone. Now I don't have some deep craving to learn brass acoustics, but its clear, the problem of insecurity based targeting is given powerful intel by ears that are listening even within the safety of our own homes. Once they figure you out, all it takes is convincing an individual that the way out of their emotional pickle (one you're not even necessarily aware you’re in) lies in the traversing down of a particular path which has been engineered to benefit someone in some way. They will regularly check in (through whatever medium of connection is relevant, Instagram feed, YouTube ads, Facebook etc.) and pop up to remind you that you could solve this pain at any moment. Slowly you may break your resistance, having all rational objections cleverly defused, and develop the perception that this thing/service could perhaps be the solution to the constant stream of empty feelings you regularly experience. It would be an act of self love giving yourself the gift they are propositioning towards you, as though they were some bridge through which the divine performed miracles, at least today, and is attempting to provide for you a custom tailored deliverance. Facial surgery to make myself look like a Snapchat filter, how could I have not seen that this was what I needed! Now that I think about it, it's been clear the whole time, I was born with the wrong face. Oh my god as I look at all these photos of myself I look soooo ugly and weird... No need to fret, valiant surgeons are there for you, ready to help; selflessly awaiting your call. Only wanting for you to feel better in your own skin, there is an entire team ready to support you on this vulnerable and brave journey to confidence. Now you are under the scalpel and going through a procedure that you will probably regret in less than 24 hours 5 years(put it on my credit card).

Intelligent prods from the outside begin to generate a response inside of you, oftentimes designed to create discomfort. Slowly this mental suffering will build steam, you begin to see yourself as needing some external thing to solve your inner dilemma. Marketers hypnotize you into fixating your attention on something, subtly influence your mind to generate enormous amounts of thought and emotion around it, and then place themselves in a position to profit. To the rescue, here they come, on the way to heroically remove the debilitating desirous longing for some sort of feeling (whose origin they may have orchestrated) from your being. Next thing you know you're pulling out your wallet, submitting to their ploys, and letting the vampire in through the front door. You have added some sort of enormous monthly finance for something that doesn't bring you any genuinely real return, monetarily or emotionally. It's all empty. Afterwards, we are unknowingly back at square one, looking for the next product to fill the hungry ghost within. Instead of cultivating your inner landscape, learning to love and accept yourself and the situation you are in as it is (as confusing or painful as that may be), and utilizing the plethora of resources available for you to navigate your way to an ideal state, you now have an entire team of qualified professionals en route to come and 'remove' all the weeds for you (leaving roots intact).

At times there are genuinely well intentioned products/services that would benefit us enormously. These can accelerate our capacity for development in a certain area by 10-100 fold.
I'm not looking to craft a paranoid, "they're after me perspective."
However, it is crucial that we take a moment to reflect on what it is that we are drawn towards, and why.