Propaganda rears its ugly head everywhere. While propaganda is typically used for the gain of various political powers and lobbying organizations, propaganda shares an uncomfortable brotherhood with marketing as well. Marketing in its purest form is about influencing a buy decision, likewise so is propaganda.
It is important to note that marketing is not exactly propaganda, since propaganda is a much more unethically motivated enterprise versus marketing is a much more innocuous enterprise based on just selling goods and services rather than cultural change or what is known as “brain hijacking”.
Brain hijacking is literally creating fanaticism in people. And you see this every day with people of all kinds of views, from rather mainstream to even extremely strange beliefs such as the ability to feed off of solar light from the sun (seriously).
So these 3 types of propaganda can actually be used in marketing, but as I said before propaganda often incorporates lies which differentiates itself from traditional marketing. Regardless, it is important to look out for these things to better defend yourself from buying into a viewpoint that might not really be your viewpoint (an example of brain hijacking and belief seeding).
Alright, let us dive into some of these different methods that people’s’ brains get hijacked and how you can avoid it by understanding what is happening!
1 – Transfer
This is where people relate one thing to another. It is used to gain respect. Symbolism is very important when using transfer. For example, many Republicans espouse their adoration of Reagan or even compare themselves as similar to Reagan to gain the cult following that Reagan had with his supporters.
2 – Testimonial
Typically innocuous, but in political situations it is often used in a similar manner of the Transfer. Only instead of someone trying to make that claim of comparing themselves with someone, they have someone that already represents that ideal give them praise in some fashion or form to win more people over to them. This is not always unethical, but in the political sense it is for sure propaganda.
3 – The Glittering Generalities
This is striking right at the heart of it. Here the poltical agency wishing to perform the mental hijacking will speak in vast generalities. Sweeping black and white blanke tstatements are common here and virtuous, provcaitve words are also common to hit someone emotionally to help change their way of thinking.
After all, we never make decisions based off logic but rather purchase everything (including our political values) with emotion. This is way great orators can inspire people to do highly malevolent things that in any other scenario that would be abhorred to have ever done.
Now there is a lot more than just these 3 propaganda strategies. There is an entire litany and school of thought related to this kind of stuff. I want to stress again that marketing and propaganda might have a brotherhood but they are not exactly the same despite using similar mechanisms says my buddy Justin who owns www.lawncareofcumming.com.
And propaganda pieces are not always unethical such as the Transfer or the Testimonial strategy, these can be born out with the highest standards of ethics though often are not.