Keeping the constituent Dumb, Barefoot and Pregnant with...The Best They Know or....Submersing and fixing the customer, voter, constituent or viewer with "branding".
I recently came across this phrase, "The best they know". It’s a marketing concept for the selling of products to people who "know of nothing better". The basic idea is to try and fix them in a kind of willing state of ignorance where they trade the wise consumer practice of due diligence, investigation and comparative shopping for the warm and fuzzy feeling of belonging to a happy, secure community of "better mom’s just like me!" or, if you will, "slightly slutty girls who know how to party!", or "smart, productive women who care".
The successful marketeer, politician or con man not only brands the marks (target customer, voter, etc.), like cattle, they also get them to buy and wear clothing and other paraphernalia emblazoned with the brand logo, come to "round-ups" and other social events where they can exalt in "pride of membership" with people just like themselves who "know of nothing better".
So this is BRANDING 101. The advanced course also deals with the question of just what isn’t a part of this wide-spread practice.
But let me first put some examples of branding and of the branded that you might not have suspect as such: 1. "I’m true to my school, University of Smart Asses (US of A) !." 2. "I hold an Ivy League Brand!" 3. "My brand is Cordon Blue & swims in a delightfully rich, brisk and tangy butter sauce!". 4. "Hey, my brand is yellow corn tortillas...you know!" 5. "My brand is love for all the the world!". 6. "My brand is straight intimidation". 7. "TAO is not-brand, it is this to which I open myself" 8. "Jesus is God!" 9. "I’m a Republican and always will be...and when Jeb takes the White House everyone will be saying, The Bush Brand is back!" 10. "I’m an Obama brand-man from the LBC and my girl’s an Obama-brand woman!" 11. "I never suspected that the Madoff brand was phony!" 12. "My brand is the skull and cross-bones!" 12. "I worship death. My brand is Al Queda!"!
So branding is deeply involved with packages of values. FOX, CNN and many other companies sell their brands in much the same way that Hitler sold the Nazi "package of values". In fact, the Nazi’s and the Madison Avenue of the mid 20th century are often seen as the forerunners of today's leading branders. After the US had invaded Irac, one of the first things the Bush administration did was dispatch a leading advertising executive for the purpose of re-branding the people into a more pro-American warm, fuzzy mind-set. I remember the late Peter Jennings announcing this on the news with a kind of "and now we have sent in the big guns" air-of-approval. And all of this is easy to understand when you consider that for the branding community—it is ...The Best They Know.
But back to what is not all about branding. Well, people who put things together such as home builders or the guy trying to assemble a ceiling fan he received as a Christmas present are not involved in branding. They’re trying to figure the thing out as they stare at plans that were stamped out by a designer somewhere.
Same thing with the burger chef—he’s crafting a burger according to his set of general directions. He’s not trying to brand your mind with the impression that his burger is the only type of burger you should ever need to get involved with. The role of parents with their children is a little bit about branding and a little bit about not-branding. They spend a lot of time telling their kids "no, no, no" and a lot of time telling them, "do this, this is correct, and you don’t need to ask me why!"
One more digression. I sometimes hear the TV political pundits use this phrase; "..and the values voters..". Of course they’re talking about the so-called "family values voters" who seem to think they are the only people with "values".
Right now, at the moment I write this, there are two groups of people performing "values voting" in two similar but very different ways. One group are those people just now lighting up a hit of crystal meth in a glass pipe. The other group is in the gym working out. And both groups value their experience in a way similar to those "praising Jesus". The methheads are going for a value experience in a fast but very unhealthy way. The athletes are going for a somewhat similar value experience but in a slower, healthier way. Those manifesting "the spirit" through praise of Jesus are involved in generating a "value experience" as well but there may or may not be a "rush" involved. And it may or may not make them stronger, later.
The relationship between values and branding is very intimate. It is little understood because the subject of values is not really taught in and of itself. It’s referenced in Anthropology, Psychology, Marketing and fundamentalist religion but buried in the list of academic studies. It’s actually a part of Philosophy in a subsection called metaphysics where the whole concept of values is properly introduced. The current educational system is more interested in closer-to-the-surface subjects like Marketing. It’s "the best they know".
Anyway, let me be among the first to tag anyone who wonders into this backwater with the Happy New Year brand!
WEJ from Current SA (a couple of my personal brands)