A friend of mine recently announced the restart of her own blog focused on marketing. Since she’s brilliant, an expert in international marketing, and someone whose opinions I greatly respect, I told her I’d love to read her take on the use of marketing techniques to produce political propaganda. I went so far as to compose a rough abstract for one of her posts on the subject, adding my own interpretive spin. My thoughts in this arena are woefully incomplete at best and I might try to do more research for a future post More likely, though, when my friend gets around to publishing her more learned narrative, I’ll just link to it here. In any case, I thought I’d share my abstract:
Marketing as Propaganda: Goebbels and the Dark Side of Marketing
Most marketers see their jobs as providing a positive influence, promoting products and ideas that can benefit others. However, the techniques of marketing can just as easily be used for evil. Joseph Goebbels, Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany, was an early master at marketing for such purposes.
Goebbels pioneered the use of simple, catchy, repetitive slogans, large type, and bright red colors. He practiced an attention-grabbing, fear-based psychology that appealed to raw emotions by focusing on the identification of a common enemy and evoking nostalgia for the past. He prioritized keeping his existing followers happy even at the expense of gaining new followers. He gave opponents derogatory nicknames and continuously repeated them in public settings. He defected the blame for economic woes to a treaty signed by the previous government. He was particularly interested in taking advantage of new media and, with radio still fairly new in 1939, proclaimed it illegal to listen to radio stations that dared to air opposing views.
While the parallels with a current American political figure might appear obvious, it must be stated that Goebbels had a PhD and wrote 14 books. The current political figure couldn’t spell PhD and hasn’t read 14 books. Goebbels also had the final insight that suicide was his best option; the current political figure has not yet reached that conclusion.