The Marketers Guide To Sheeple Vs People.

One of the things I have learned about people is that they break down into two basic groups.

There are the people commonly referred to as stupid, (let’s call them sheeple because it’s kinder and probably more accurate). And then there are the rest of us.

The sheeple are not so much stupid as they are limited in their thinking or shortsighted. They don’t really see the big picture of well, anything very clearly, and so they tend to be more gullible and willing to buy into all the stuff that’s stuck in front of them, from persuasive political candidates to a can of hairspray making some ludicrous promise of hair enrichment.

These sheeple have a lot in common with each other and behave in relatively predictable ways.

The people who are not limited in their thinking are the ones who take the time to educate themselves a bit and, at the very least, have a glimpse of the bigger picture in their minds.

What I Know About Advertising

Now I have spent pretty much my whole adult life in advertising and marketing and have come to the conclusion that most ‘consumer' advertising is the way it is because it’s primarily aimed at the sheeple, trying to convince them to buy whatever it is that’s being sold, not on the strength of its attributes but on the strength of what the short-sighted see as important to them.

A lot of times this will come down to things like peer pressure, social standing and proving to the world that you have somehow ‘made it’ if you own this product.

The less shortsighted are much harder to convince, simply because they tend not to take things on face value. They will investigate the product or service thoroughly before they make their decision. They don’t trust other peoples’ opinions, and they will only buy if that product or service lives up to or exceeds what they feel is the standard of acceptability they have in their heads.

The less short-sighted are much more interested in a basic understanding of how things work, as opposed to the sheeple, who don’t care anywhere near as much about how things works as they do about how cheap they are and what they will do for them.

This is why, in the street level retail world, you are seeing a rise in the number and profitability of dollar stores. These stores target the sheeple based on price and variety and it works like a charm.

The Facebook Debacle

As digital advertising platforms go, Facebook and Google have become, far and away the largest of these entities.

This committee is trying to figure out if Facebook broke any laws as a result of a data breach which allowed a digital research company to download a ton of user information and by running anti-Democratic Party ads and sponsored links purchased by Russians in order to influence the election in favor of the Republicans.

Zuckerberg would admit that, at best, this pointed out a flaw in the Facebook machinery that allowed the creepy Russians to plant stories that cast the Democratic candidate in a bad light.

But to tell the truth, all this did was point out the almost total ignorance that most politicians have about how social media actually works.

After Zuckerberg took his slap on the wrist, the media went on for days about how sensitive personal information was being leaked to hostile forces to influence the 2016 election because that made for a juicy story.

But the simple fact of the matter is that that job had already been done by the Republican candidate and the massive amount of conventional (TV, radio, Google) coverage he was getting, effectively reaching many more of the shortsighted than any Facebook campaign ever could have.

When I started hearing all this bullshit, I had to chuckle, because, although I don’t get much, I did get that this was “a great deal of sound and fury signifying nothing.”

The sheeple had already made up their minds. All the Russians were doing were trying to make them feel good about that decision.

But by the same token, I really don’t think these sheeple were reached effectively, simply because the nature of Facebook, especially regarding sheeple, and pretty much everybody else, is shaped by the What’s In It For Me principle.

And what’s in Facebook, for most people, has very little to do with news, fake or otherwise, but way more to do with selfies, food, cute baby animals, cute baby humans, genuine idiots doing stupid stuff, family gatherings, the beauty of nature, stuff you see through a microscope, people trying to clean up the oceans, stuff to do with the Royal family and other celebrities, music, people shooting pics of the natural disasters they are living through and a whole bunch of other relatively harmless shit.

I thought about what sort of long-term damage and grief could befall me because I was on Facebook and have been for about a decade and concluded…not much, as I am sure a lot of other people did, since hardly anybody actually left.

I am neither defending nor criticizing Facebook. It is what is, which is a website that is powered by user content and the price you pay is being exposed to ads and sponsored links that you can either read or scroll on by just like you do with anything there.

If you’re a sheeple and you get stopped by some fake news article, you can gobble it up and think you have learned something. Duh. If you are not a sheeple, you can pretty much see what it is from the get-go, and you get to chuckle about it. In any case I would argue, rather strongly that the difference it will make in your life is negligible at best.

So bring on the Russians, Facebook. I don’t give a shit. Because after a year of third-rate fascism in the country next door, I don’t really believe much of anything anymore.

jim out

Jim lives in St Catharines Ontario and is a partner at Bullet Proof Consulting. www.bulletproofconsulting.ca

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