Most people don’t do a lot of thinking, especially about current events. It’s true. Zogby did a survey of Obama voters, and a vast majority of them had no idea that the Dems were in charge of Congress. Because so few people do their own thinking, many people simply defer to the news media, and believe whatever pablum they are spoon-fed. This becomes something of a problem, simply because (unlike the consipracy theorists would have us believe) there is no monolithic organization dictating policy. Instead, we have a bunch of groups and individuals out there, whipping up the muddled asses…um, huddled masses, for their own, shortsighted aims. The result is that the media, trying to whip people up into a frenzy (to insure the election of Obama) latch onto the economy, and do such a good job scaring everybody, that we end up with an economy that is in worse shape than it would be otherwise. (Hard to believe, but true.)

So how do you market to sheeple?

Well, you can start with, by doing one of two things – going with the flow, or bucking the trends. For instance, Big Oil has seen the light – all their ads talk about the wonderful things they’re doing with alternative energy development. This is largely a survival tactic. GE is pushing “green” like there’s no tomorrow, but that’s not for surviving – they’ll thrive, since they have a huge part of the market for green lightbulbs and other (more expensive) replacments for current technology.

Go against the flow, and you have a tougher road to hoe, but (paradoxically) it’s easier to get noticed, simply because you stand out from the herd when you’re not singing from the same songbook that everyone else does.

Which one you choose depends on your own special circumstances and needs. Either way you go, it pays to keep your eyes and ears open, spending at least part of your time trend-spotting. Do that, and you’re likely to see market shifts before it becomes an emergency to change strategies or tatics. Fail to spot a trend, and you’ll end up wasting heads-up time, and potentially putting your enterprise in jeopardy.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 13th, 2008 at 9:16 pm and is filed under marketing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.