Is Everything a Cult?

In this week’s Power Lounge, host Amy Vaughan welcomes Dr. Mara Einstein, an internationally recognized authority on deceptive marketing and author of Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults. A former TV and advertising executive turned academic and media ethicist, Dr. Einstein pulls back the curtain on the dark psychology behind consumer manipulation. Together, she and Amy dive into the question: When does persuasion cross the line into indoctrination? Listeners are invited to examine the uncomfortable parallels between cult behavior and brand loyalty—and to confront just how easily marketing can tap into our fears, anxieties, and identities.

Drawing from her research and insights featured in the Emmy-winning Netflix documentary Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy, Dr. Einstein explains how modern marketing operates within what she calls the “anxiety economy.” From endless doom-scrolling to influencer-driven consumerism, she reveals how technology and advertising combine to keep us hooked, anxious, and buying. The conversation unpacks the continuum between brand fandom and fanaticism, using examples from Apple to Weight Watchers to show how manipulation thrives when emotional needs meet persuasive design.

But this isn’t a hopeless picture—Dr. Einstein also offers guidance for marketers and consumers alike. She challenges professionals to embrace ethics without sacrificing creativity and encourages all of us to become more conscious of how we engage with brands. By replacing reflexive scrolling with mindful consumption and by choosing community over cultish loyalty, listeners can reclaim agency in an economy built on influence. This episode is a must-hear for anyone who wants to understand—and resist—the subtle ways marketing shapes our thoughts, habits, and values.

Chapters:
00:00 – Intro & Welcome

00:50 – Meet Dr. Mara Einstein

02:10 – Why Talk About Cults and Marketing?

03:30 – How the Book “Hoodwinked” Began

05:10 – The Cult–Marketing Continuum

06:45 – From Attention Economy to Anxiety Economy

08:50 – How Anxiety Fuels Overconsumption

10:25 – “Buy Now” and Viewer Reactions

12:30 – Black Friday and the “Economic Blackout”

14:10 – Conscious Consumption in a Digital World

16:00 – The Line Between Persuasion and Manipulation

17:30 – The Genius and Ethics of Duolingo’s Campaigns

18:45 – When Brand Community Becomes Brand Cult

20:15 – Weight Watchers: A Case Study in Cult Tactics

27:00 – The Role of Social Media in Modern Tribalism

31:30 – Identity and the Brands We Choose

37:00 – Ethical Marketing and Real Community

41:10 – The Danger of Making It Hard to Leave

44:30 – How AI and Bots Change the Deception Game

50:00 – Building Awareness and Resilience

53:00 – Closing Thoughts & Where to Find Dr. Einstein

Quotes:

“We don’t live in an attention economy — we live in an anxiety economy. The entire system is built to keep us just uncomfortable enough that buying something feels like relief.” - Mara Einstein

“It’s funny — we call it doom scrolling, and yet we treat it like self-care. The truth is, it’s winding us up, not calming us down.” - Amy Vaughan

Key Takeaways:

• Anxiety, not attention, drives modern marketing.
• Persuasion turns toxic when it exploits fear.
• Brand loyalty can slide into cult behavior.
• Algorithms feed anxiety for engagement.
• We shop to soothe stress, not need.
• Ethical marketing connects, not controls.
• AI blurs truth and manipulation.
• Brands now shape personal identity.
• Awareness breaks the consumer cycle.
• Conscious choices beat compulsive clicks.

Connect with Dr. Ma

Support the show

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:10):
Hello everyone and welcome to our weekly power
lounge.
This is your place to hearauthentic conversations with
those who have power to share.
My name is Amy Vaughn and I amthe owner and chief empowerment
officer of Together Digital, adiverse and collaborative
community of women who choose toshare their knowledge, power,
and connections.
You can join the movement atTogetherIndigital.com.

(00:31):
And today's conversation mightjust fundamentally change how
you view your relationships withbrands.
We are joined today by MaraEinstein, an internationally
recognized expert on thedeceptive marketing and
psychology of consumermanipulation, with eight books
under her belt, including thelatest Hoodwinked, How Marketers

(00:52):
Use the Same Tactics as Cults.
Mara has become one of the mostimportant voices in marketing
ethics today.
You might recognize Dr.
Einstein from Emmy uh Emmywinning Netflix documentary, Buy
Now, The Shopping Conspiracy.
If not, definitely check it out,where she reveals the secret and

(01:13):
hidden tactics brands use todrive overconsumption.
As a former TV and advertisingexecutive, returned professional
and author, or turned professorand author, she brings a unique
insider or outsider perspectivethat is both deeply informative
and refreshingly critical.
Today she is here to answerprovocative questions.
Is every the provocativequestion is everything a cult?

(01:36):
And can Amy say anything right?
That's the other question.
So glad it's Friday, friends.
So everyone, please buckle up,get ready to examine the
uncomfortable parallels betweencult psychology and brand
loyalty and learn how torecognize and resist
manipulative marketing in ourworld, our work, and our lives.
Welcome, Dr.

(01:57):
Einstein.
I am so excited to have you hereand to have this very incredible
conversation.

SPEAKER_00 (02:04):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm looking forward to this.
This this is um, I think it'sreally important for women.
I think it's really importantfor women in these spaces
because uh I talk to so manydifferent groups of um people
and haven't really talked thatmuch to marketers um and people
working in digital spaces.
So I'm really looking forward tothis.

SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
Oh, yeah, I'm excited to bring it to this crew
because there's that duality,right?
Of what we do.
We solve problems withcreativity, we help sell, we
help meet needs, but there islike a line, and I think this is
something like deep down I'vealways kind of wondered about
it.
It's such a provocative topic.
Um, and I love disruption, and Ijust think this is such a great
time to be putting some of thesethings to bear.

(02:46):
So thank you so much for all thework that you're doing in this.

SPEAKER_00 (02:49):
Um, pleasure.
Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 (02:51):
Oh, your pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 (02:52):
No, I mean it's interesting.
What the what I thought of whenjust in this introduction, I
think um this talks to some ofthe things that we're going to
get to, is when I interviewedmarketers for the book, I didn't
obviously tell them what thetitle of the book was because I
didn't want to sway what theirconverts what how they were
going to respond to thequestions.
Um, and then when I said it'scalled Hudwinked, how marketers

(03:15):
use the same tactics as cults.

SPEAKER_02 (03:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (03:17):
And the response was, yeah, that's what we do.
Or they owned it.
Yeah.
They owned it.
Or the response was, yeah,that's what we do.

SPEAKER_01 (03:28):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (03:28):
So so there's people on both sides of the equation
when it comes to that.

SPEAKER_01 (03:32):
No, absolutely.
So yeah, the title had winked.
Great title.
Um, I think it's just it cutsright through, right?
You're not dancing around it.
I'm kind of curious, uh, whatwas it like when you finally
realized that marketing hadcrossed that from persuasion to
something more cult-like?
Like when did you make that kindof connection?

SPEAKER_00 (03:50):
Well, it's interesting when I was writing
the book, um, or actually beforeI came to the idea for the book,
it was during the COVIDpandemic.
And I was at home and watching alot of documentaries, and I
happened to be watching The Vow,which is the documentary about
the Nexium cult and KeithRaineri and Lula Rich, which is

(04:10):
the documentary about Lula Roe,which is the multi-level
marketing company.
And I was watching them back toback and I went, oh my God,
they're the same thing.
And so I I was sort of like,wow.
Um, but what was interesting tome is as I started researching
multi-level marketing, and youknow, at the time, like you

(04:31):
couldn't throw a brick withoutsomebody talking about
multi-level marketing, but itwasn't something I had looked
into.
And then I spent three yearsresearching multi-level
marketing and meeting a lot ofanti-MLMers, interviewing
marketing folks in MLMs, andwhat I came to find was I was
not the first person to figurethis out.
And in fact, Keith Rainier hadstarted in uh in multi-level

(04:54):
marketing.
And so what I did was uh, youknow, I've been looking at brand
communities and brand cults formore than a decade, and I
thought, is there a broader wayfor us to think about this?
Because it's not just thatmulti-level marketing is cults,
we're also talking about brandcults.
So there's got to be somethingmore that can be teased out of

(05:14):
this.
And so that's why in the book Icreated this thing called the
cult plus marketing continuum,and it starts with brand cults,
and then it goes to influencerswho I call cult light, and then
influencers to conspiracytheorists or extremists, and
then it goes to multi-levelmarketing.
And so as you go along thecontinuum, what happens is that

(05:37):
you increase the extremism interms of the relationship
between the marketer and uh culttactics, and you increase the
anxiety both for those whoparticipate and those who are
are the salespeople on the otherside.

SPEAKER_01 (05:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, that's an amazing set ofobservations.
And I think a lot of our folkswho are listening either after
this and recording or live withus right now.
So, hi, live listening folks.
Thanks for being here.
You're feeling that.
Like you showed up today tolisten because you get a sense,
even just probably looking atthe title and the summary of
this topic today, um, like whatit is we're all kind of in for.

(06:15):
So, live listeners, I want tomake sure you know that you have
the opportunity to ask umquestions in the chat.
So if you have a question forMara, please make sure that you
drop it into the chat and wewill get it asked.
Um, you've been on both sides ofit.
You've been um a TV executive, aadvertising executive, and now
very much like the critic, youknow, the opposite side of that

(06:36):
coin.
What insider knowledge troublesyou the most about how brands
manipulate customers?
Like, let's get to like thenitty-gritty of this.
Like, what are you seeing that'slike red flag, red flag, red
flag?

SPEAKER_00 (06:45):
Yeah.
Well, that goes to where I endedup on the last question, which
is this idea of anxiety.
Um, one of the things I argue inthe book is that economists will
tell us that we're in anattention economy.
And I say it's not.
We're living in an anxietyeconomy because the way the
technology is created, and byand large, here we're talking
about digital technology becausethat's where people are getting

(07:08):
most of their content from.
It's created in such a way as tojust get us so ginned up all the
time that that anxietyultimately needs to be released.
And it's it happens in two ways.
It happens because of thetechnology itself, right?
Because as you're scrolling,there is no defined stopping
place.
So you have to have the presenceof mind to say to yourself,

(07:31):
okay, I need to stop doing this.
But what the statistics willtell us is that the minute you
pick up your phone, you'rethrowing 23 minutes of your life
away.
So think about that every timeyou pick up your phone.

SPEAKER_02 (07:43):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (07:43):
The other part of it is that the influencers are
incentivized to create contentthat is going to increase
engagement.
And what we know increasesengagement is anger-inducing
content.

SPEAKER_01 (07:57):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (07:58):
And the technology separates us in terms of silos.
So you don't engage with peoplethat you disagree with.
So all of this is created tomake us more and more anxious.
Now, bring it back to kind ofbrass tacks marketing when I
started, which was about ahundred years ago, is that there

(08:19):
is no advertising that doesn'twant to make you anxious to
begin with.
I wouldn't say none, a lot,because an ad has to tell you
that there's something wrongwith you in order for you to be
able to want to go out and buytheir product.
And we know that the mostsuccessful form of advertising
is problem solution.
I have a ring around the collar,I'm gonna go buy whisk and get

(08:42):
rid of my ring around thecollar.
It's it's as simple as that,right?
And it works, it's it's the sameway now, but it's it's
intertwined with the technologyand the content in such a way
that the problem is alwaysanxiety, and then the solution
becomes you you constantly needto find a way to release that

(09:04):
anxiety, which can either bemore doom scrolling, which you
will do because it doesn't havea natural endpoint, or you will
buy a product.

SPEAKER_02 (09:13):
Yep.

SPEAKER_00 (09:13):
And remember that all of the content that exists
online exists to selladvertising.
Yeah, all of this is to sell tous.

SPEAKER_01 (09:22):
Yeah, I think it's such a good frame of mind to go
into it.
I think it's like thatself-awareness of it's so funny.
We get anxious and then we geton our phones to somehow think
that that's going to alleviate.
We even call it doom scrolling,and then we just sit there and
scroll and scroll and scroll andscroll.
And I think over the last fewyears, you know, as much as I am
a creator of content and still amarketer for my businesses, like

(09:43):
I really try to spend less time.
Like if I want to default to myphone as a way to escape, I'm
like, no, I need to put itaside.
It's not the way you escape.
You're right.
It's it's there are certainmechanisms in place that if we
are not in a good placeourselves that we can't
consciously recognize.
And I think like you started toget to this, and we'll probably
get to it more here soon, butlike that danger of the echo
chamber and the algorithms kindof knowing what you would need

(10:06):
to see or want to see.
And so that confirmation bias,the comparison trap, there's
just it's so many calls.
Um let's talk a little bit tooabout that Netflix documentary
by now.
Um, was there any particularreaction that surprised you the
most from the viewers that, youknow, people that you've talked
to, maybe that have watched itafter they saw how this whole
kind of shopping cycleconspiracy really works?

SPEAKER_00 (10:29):
Yeah.
Well, uh, one of the greatthings that happened about it,
I've been teaching for 26 years,and I had former students from
around the world from as faraway as Singapore contact me and
say, Oh my god, my professor wasin the documentary.
So I had that part of it wasreally, was really wonderful.

(10:49):
Um a lot of what the a lot ofwhat the reaction was was a
pausing and realizing how muchstuff people buy.
And there were a lot of peopleprobably saw after the
documentary came out, peopledoing hauls of just clothes,

(11:09):
bags of clothes, bags of stuffthat they took out of their
houses and that they were, youknow, taking to the local
Goodwill or wherever it was, thelocal thrift store, in order to
be able to sell it.
And so people began to realize,you know, how much that starts
to weigh down on you, not onlyin terms of all of the stuff

(11:33):
that you have around you, buthow it starts to weigh on your
credit card.
And so that combination, um, andand uh Marin, I think is her
name, was was the one who uhworked for uh Amazon, and she
talked about exactly how Amazonworked their UX to get you to

(11:55):
buy more and more and more andmore.
And it's yeah, and it's not justyeah, and not just you know, and
not just them.
Obviously, you know, Sheen andTimu and and all of them do that
kind of stuff.
And it's really interesting thatthat you mentioned this because
remember, this came out justbefore Black Friday last year.

SPEAKER_02 (12:15):
Perfect time.

SPEAKER_00 (12:16):
Right.
And so uh, you know, I I keepsuggesting to people that now is
a really good time for them tolook at the documentary again.
I don't get anything from it.
Uh I got nothing from this.
I, you know, you watch itbecause you want to watch it,
but it's a good reminder forpeople, and especially as we're
heading into the economicblackout, the the mass blackout,

(12:36):
if that's really gonna happen.
And I'll be curious to see howeffective it is.
But I on the one hand, I thinkit will be in the sense that um
people have gotten used toboycotting, right?
They got used to boycottingTarget, they got used to
boycotting Tesla, they got usedto the, you know, so so they've
gotten some habits built interms of that.

(12:59):
But also, you know, people areout of jobs.
Right.
The the government shutdown'sstill going on, people are
worried about their healthinsurance going up.
And so all of things, thosethings can contribute to it.
But in relationship to our lastquest, the last question, I I
just did a TikTok about it, andI said to people, think in terms

(13:19):
of analog over that period oftime.
Because one of the things youwant to do is make sure that
you're not engaging withadvertising, because it will
trip you up.
You will start to say, Oh, Ineed that thing.
And they put all the the stuffon it for Christmas, and you you
start to equate that withfamily, and it gets all those
layers of emotion attached toit.

(13:40):
But I said if you have astreaming service that doesn't
have advertising on it, that'sgonna be your new best friend
for for that week or a book or aCD.
My daughter just got me um aturntable.
Uh huh.
I'm gonna be listening torecords.

SPEAKER_01 (13:58):
That's fantastic.
Yeah, no, it's so pervasive.
Like it's it is everywhere, butI think you can make conscious
choices, like you said, in thewhere and where and how you
spend your time, even me saying,like just deciding to put down
my phone instead of doomscrolling as a form of way to
unwind.
Like, that's not unwinding,that's winding me up.
And I think another thing I'velearned over the years is like
understanding hedonicadaptation, which I think we

(14:19):
talked about on the podcast inthe past, which is essentially
um, you know, material thingswill only get us so far.
It is a quick hit of dopamine,which you know does not last
within the body like serotonin.
Whereas like a nice walk on abeautiful day, a conversation
with a friend, you know,something more meaningful, more
deep, that actually lasts withinthe body.
Whereas head on adaptation, themore we get, the more we want.

(14:43):
And it just shows, right?
Yeah, there's been studies andresearch on it for decades.
And I think that sometimes weforget that these are just
inherent um byproducts of beinghuman and they're easy traps to
fall within.
But I think being aware of themum and being mindful of them,
it's not just about like it'syes, you're gonna save money,
but also you're probably goingto be happier and still somehow

(15:05):
spending less money.

SPEAKER_00 (15:06):
And also if you're if if you do have concerns about
making money, it also means youdon't have to make as much
money.
Exactly.
Right.
So it all bec it all becomes,you know, this cycle of I don't
need to make as much money.
I could be doing something whereI could spend more time with my
family and my friends.
That is the thing that is goingto feed my mind, my body, my

(15:27):
spirit, right?
Um, and and not buying somethingfrom, you know, look in your
closet and see how many thingsyou have in your closet that
still have a tag on them thatyou never wore.
Yeah.
You know, I think we've all gothrough a period of time when
when that happens.
And and look, we're human, andand what I like to say to people
is it's not a terrible thing tobuy.

(15:48):
Right.
It's a terrible thing to buy toomuch or to buy things you don't
really need.

SPEAKER_01 (15:53):
Right.
And to waste 100%.
Um, so here's the rub, right?
So a lot of us listening, myselfincluded, work in marketing.
And you know, some of those whoare listening have struggled
with ethical boundaries and whatare those like?
What do those need to be?
How do we how do you distinguishbetween effective marketing and
and what's kind of seen asmanipulation?

SPEAKER_00 (16:14):
Well, what I always like to say to people is like, I
don't dislike marketing.
Like if somebody does someamazing marketing campaign, I'm
like the first one to say, goodon you.
That's that's like really smart.
So something like um, the firstthing that popped up to me was
Duolingo.
Duolingo, first their stuffonline was really great, then

(16:36):
they started doing AI, not sogreat, but where where they were
before that was they did this umjust this promotional event
where they got a bunch of, Ithink maybe 10 tickets for
people to dress up in theiriconic character that's this
bright green color, right?

(16:57):
And go to a Charlie XEX umconcert.
And she was doing Brad at thetime, which was this bright
green color, which is exactlythe same color as them.
Now, no matter how much theypaid for those tickets, and they
probably paid a lot of money forthem, they were in the mosh pit
right in front of her.
She called them out, there werepictures taken, and and so

(17:17):
everybody was posting onlineabout Duolingo and all of this
kind of stuff.
It was a brilliant marketingcampaign.
That kind of promotion youcan't, you you can't pay for,
right?
So those kinds of things thattap into you know what is
culturally pop, you know,popular, connect your brand to
something that is already goingon and people are already

(17:38):
engaged with.
I mean, that was that was justkind of brilliant stuff.
The thing, you know, if we'regonna talk about brand cults,
and the thing to stay away fromwith that is there was a time in
the early 2000s when we talkedabout brand community, and that
was things that brands did tobring people together around the

(18:01):
brand.
And those that was fine.
It's when you jump from thebrand community to the brand
cult.
And we started talking aboutbrand cults like five years
later.
It wasn't that much later thatwe started talking about brand
cults, and particularly if youstart to bring in a charismatic
cult leader.
So if you have a Tesla with anElon Musk, that's when you're

(18:24):
getting into dangerous cultterritory.
And that's something you want toavoid.

SPEAKER_01 (18:29):
Right, right.
Yeah.
That makes a lot of sense.
Um, there was something I wasgonna say, and then it left my
brain because you know, it'sjust Friday, and that's the way
it's been lately.
So maybe I'll come back to it ifI remember.
I didn't even jot it downbecause I was so like just
listening and like, ah, butyeah, um, you know, brands using
cult tactics.
Oh, I remember what mine was.

(18:50):
I was going to mention Patagoniabecause I think that's another
really good.
Yeah.
Because they have values as abrand, and then they don't they
use those to actually just livethe brand versus force you to
like what to consume.
So, like the one of their BlackFriday things was go outside.
Yeah.
They sell outdoor stuff and theyclose their store.
So they're not saying go outsideand then come to see us at Black

(19:12):
Friday.
They were like, no, we're givingall of our employees a day off
and we're gonna spend the dayoutside.
You should too.
To me, that's more living thebrand and like living in your
values than than being a cult.
On the flip side of go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 (19:25):
The the other example I would give for that is
Lush Cosmetics.
Yeah.
And they right after FrancisHagen, who was the Facebook
whistleblower, talked about howbad Instagram was, on their
webpage, they put up besomewhere else because they knew
that's who their target audiencewas.
And three years later, theystill they're still not there.
They have uh something up thatsays what the zuck and all kinds

(19:48):
of right, and then all kinds ofum information and statistics
about how bad uh social media isfor particularly for young
girls, teen girls.

SPEAKER_01 (19:57):
Yeah, Leg is been a brand I've been a fan of for
probably 15 years, and it's likeI love that they're they're
still going strong and despitesocial media not having it.
I think that's a great example.
Yeah.
On the flip side, um, could youwalk us through maybe a specific
brand that exemplifies this inand maybe break down a little
bit of their playbook?

SPEAKER_00 (20:15):
Oh, somebody that does that's a that's a brand
cult.
Um I had one.
I I mean the one that you canalways talk about is Apple.
I mean, they sort of exemplifyall of this.
But you know, if you're talking,you're talking about brands.
If I talk about it more broadly,one of the things the first kind

(20:35):
of step in the in the brandrecruitment process is to find
uh vulnerable people.
Um oh, you know what?
Let me let me use a weight lossexample.
This may be one that that wouldbe good.
Um, because the next book I'mworking on is is um working
title is The Cult of Thin.
Um and so I'm taking this andapplying it to the the diet and

(20:56):
fitness and weight lossindustry.
So um so the first step in theprocess is to find a vulnerable
target.
Who could possibly be morevulnerable than people that are
unhappy with their body?
Now, of course, this has beenthis dislike of what we look
like in our bodies has beencreated by the people who did
this, right?

(21:17):
And that's also something thatmarketers do unethically, right?
You create the problem so youcan provide the solution.
There's the there's the problemwith that.
Um, and then you recruit peoplewith deception, right?
So, so diets, diets thestatistic is 94 to 98 percent of
diets fail.

(21:37):
And it's depending on on whosestatistics you use, as much as
160 billion dollar a year annualbusiness.

SPEAKER_02 (21:45):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (21:45):
So you are coming, you are telling people that you
come in and you will pay usmoney and then you will lose the
weight.
But what we won't tell you isthat even if you lose the
weight, you know, you're notgonna keep it off.
Right.
So so they've lured them in withdeception.
Then of course you upsell.
So if you're something likeWeight Watchers, right, you you
bring people in, you have themcome to the meetings, and then

(22:06):
the next thing you do is you'reselling them the bars, right?
You're selling them WeightWatchers food.
And it used to be that WeightWatchers was owned by Heinz, and
so Heinz owned Weight Watchersfood, so then they would want
you to buy the food, right?
So that's this constant upsell,upsell, upsell.
And then the next step in theprocess is love bombing.
So as part of Weight Watchers,you're going to weekly meetings,
and what are you doing?

(22:28):
You are having other people tellyou how well you are doing, how
wonderful you are, just keep itup.
Even if you didn't lose weightthis week, you'll be able to
lose weight next week.
And then then the tough lovepart of it is to extract
information from people so youmake sure that you keep them in.
So, what else happens in thoserooms?
In those rooms, you're tellingpeople your deepest, darkest

(22:51):
secrets about the issues thatyou are having in losing weight.
And so that then gets usedagainst you because then you go
to see the leader every week,and the leader says, Oh, I
remember, Mara, you talked aboutthe fact that you know you are
an emotional eater, and everytime you get into a fight with
your friend, you know, this iswhat happens.
So, you know, if you just stuckwith the program, you'd be okay,

(23:13):
right?
So those tactics, this isstraight out cult tactics, one
for one for one for one.
Um, sensory deprivation andmeditation, that doesn't happen
so much except that they'retelling you exactly what you can
eat and what you can't eat.

SPEAKER_02 (23:26):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
Um, renouncing those who question, oh, you know, this
doesn't happen so much onsomething that's more mainstream
like Weight Watchers, but couldhappen on something like
CrossFit, um, where they tellpeople you should work out until
you throw up, right?
Some of your family might say,you know, that's probably not
really good for you.
But you know, if you've gotteninto the cult of CrossFit, you

(23:47):
know, you're gonna say, no, no,no, you don't understand, you
don't understand.
Um, and then the last part of itis or the second last part is to
um introduce the core beliefs,right?
So if you become a core memberof Weight Watchers, you become a
lifetime member because youfinally, you finally made it.
And then the last part is makingit really hard to leave.
So Apple is really good withthat one too, right?

(24:08):
So once you you bought intoApple, yeah, try to leave you
try to leave that cult.
But um, but Weight Watchers 2 islike, no, you should stay, you
should stay, you know.
And for me, I mean, I I thefirst time I went on Weight
Watchers, I was 13 years old.
Oh, uh yeah, yeah.
And so um I was doing it upuntil my early 50s, and I was

(24:32):
going through menopause, and Ihad been working the program,
you know, as I had done for 40years.

SPEAKER_02 (24:38):
Wow.

SPEAKER_00 (24:39):
And I said, you know, this, you know, I went to
the the leader and I said,What's what's the deal?
And she said, Oh, you know, Itold her I was going through
menopause.
She said, This won't work foryou.
I was really she she said thequiet part out loud, this won't
work for you.
And what's really interesting isthat Weight Watchers has now
come out with um a planspecifically for people for

(25:02):
women going through menopause.
Yeah, surprise surprise,surprise, surprise, surprise,
surprise.
So um, so that's a preview forthe next book.
But anyway, but it it it's justsuch a perfect.
And if you want to talk aboutcult leaders, because that's
also obviously an aspect ofthis.
If you've been on any kind ofdiet, you don't need an external
cult leader, you have aninternal cult leader.

(25:24):
You know how many points you'reallowed to.

SPEAKER_01 (25:26):
Oh my gosh, you're right.
Yikes, the points.
Yikes, yikes, whoa.

SPEAKER_00 (25:39):
And it's not just not just Weight Watchers,
they're just uh yeah, just justlike a really key example of how
all this stuff works, yeah, forsure.

SPEAKER_01 (25:47):
Not to pick on them for those who it's worked for,
but you're so right.
Like there's there's all thosecontrol mechanisms that are in
place because even as you'retalking, like you see the
parallels and like you know,Scientology is another really
well-known of cult.

SPEAKER_00 (25:59):
Yeah, Scientology, they follow you after you leave.
And the other thing is too, andwhether you're talking about a
cult or you're talking about,you know, multi-level marketing
companies are really um key tothat, and they're exactly the
same thing as as we discussedearlier, is part of that, the
key part of it is making itreally hard to leave.

SPEAKER_02 (26:17):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (26:17):
And a lot of that has to do with the amount of
shame that the person facesbecause remember, you've told
everybody else in your life, no,this is really good for me, and
this is a place I should be.
Right.
And I I will be successful atthis.
And then when you finallyrealize no, I'm I'm not, yeah,
and I can't, and you'veextricated yourself from

(26:39):
everybody in your life, yeah,then you have to go back to
them.
Yeah, and that's really hard.
It's also why people go fromcult to cult to cult or MLM to
MLM to MLM because they think,oh, it it's not, it's it's not
the MLM, it's that MLM.

SPEAKER_02 (26:56):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (26:57):
But if I try the other MLM, then I'll be
successful.
Same thing with weight loss.
Oh, it was just it w it wasjust, you know, that it was just
Jenny Craig who went out of theworld.
That's so true, right?
It's you know, I try one more,and then I'll then it'll work
for me.

SPEAKER_01 (27:12):
Hopping from one to the next versus reliance and so
true.
All right.
Um, you know, I so yeah, I mean,like Weight Watchers and a lot
of those started long before thepresence of social media, but
now social media is here, itdefinitely has amplified brand
tribalism.
How has digital marketingaccelerated those kind of

(27:33):
cult-like dynamics that we'reseeing?
You alluded to some of thembefore.

SPEAKER_00 (27:36):
Yeah, yeah.
So um I've been studying theintersection of religion and
marketing for 30 years.
And so I've seen all these sortof transitions.
So my first book specificallytalking about this topic was
called Brands of Faith,Marketing, Religion, and
Commercial Age.
And it the way that I startedthe book was talking about Mel

(28:01):
Gibson's um crucifixion ofChrist or whatever the name of
that book was, the movie was.
And one of the things that theydid back then was like Mel
Gibson would create a um uh aphone call that he would then
send out to all these pastors.

(28:22):
So the pastors got a phone callfor Mel Mel Gibson, and like
they they did those kinds ofmarketing things.
And what's often often done donein terms of books and um and
movies is that they would buyout full theaters and then bring
the congregation to go see it.
This is also why a lot ofChristian books end up on the
top of the New York Timesbestseller list, is that you

(28:44):
know, they have the person comespeak at the congregation, they
buy all the books for them andall of that kind of stuff.
We move some of that into thedigital space, and all of it
gets amplified because again, wetalked about this earlier.
You end up in silos with peoplewho agree with you, and so they
amplify the information.
So we get put, you know, it usedto be if you were part of a

(29:06):
cult, you had to go to acompound somewhere.
So we think about Jim Jones andGuyana, right?
They were as isolated as theycould possibly be, or the branch
Davidians down in Waco, Texas,or Rajneesh up in Oregon.
They were separated, and thenthere was a the you had to do
that because you had to makesure that they weren't going to

(29:28):
be in association with peoplewho would tell them that there
was something wrong with thecult.
Now that's no longer truebecause in the digital space,
what happens is we already getseparated into the groups of
people who will agree with us.
And what happens when somebodycomes into the group who
disagrees with the group?
Everybody pounces on them andsays, No, you're wrong, right?

(29:49):
And so that person doesn't comeback again.
So we don't have thisinteraction uh with other people
who don't agree with us in thoseonline spaces, and this happens
whether we're talking about.
You know, it certainly happensin terms of politics.
Oh, uh but yeah, but it could itcan happen in in lots of other
spaces too.
But we are being separated.
So it's almost one of the thingsI do with my students, or I did

(30:12):
when I taught like an intro tomedia studies, I had them create
a fake Gmail account because Ididn't want them to get flooded,
and then to create a fakeaccount on what was then
Twitter, but be set completelyopposite from the person you
are.
So start following someone whois, if you're liberal, follow

(30:35):
someone who's reallyconservative.
Start and and if you'recomfortable, engage with it.
But you know, if you're notfilled, because sometimes people
don't.
But they began to see what thefeed would look like.
And they also began to say, youknow what, I still don't agree
with them, but I understand whythey think the way that they do,
given the the kinds ofinformation and content that was

(30:57):
being sent to them.
And now with AI, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (31:01):
Like I information, I don't even want to think about
it.
I understand that.
I understand that.
I think that's why that's thebeauty of like questioning
everything and then just gettingus back to a place where we can
be curious and we can haveconversations and not
necessarily have to agree, butunderstand that there's
different points of view.

(31:22):
And of course, there'sboundaries and safety that need
to all be considered and respectfor humans in general that need
to all be there.
But yeah, 100% kind of taking inwhat's happening on the other
side.
I have some friends who arevery, very good at that.
That if you saw them and knewthem to know what they sometimes
will listen to because they'relike, I just need to know what
other people that don't likeanything like me are saying,

(31:43):
right.
You know, stuff that'll be flatout racist and they're black.
It's like, how can you lie?
I don't know, they're strongerthan me.
Um, you know, but if you can,but if it it's a good, it's a
good exercise to do once in awhile, you know.

SPEAKER_00 (31:56):
There's a book called The Wrong Way Home, and
it's written by uh apsychiatrist, psychiatry
professor, um, about cults.
And one and he wrote it in the90s, and it was right after Waco
had happened.
And he talks at the end about,you know, um see about the

(32:16):
seeing people face to face andwalking in another person's
shoes.
And we do that so rarely now.
And it's not again, it's notnecessarily to agree with them,
but to understand why they thinkthe way that they do, because
that's the only way that youstart to have community.
And that's what these socialspaces, remember, we're supposed

(32:37):
to be about, that we're supposedto be about creating community,
and that's not what happened.
And you want to talk aboutanother really good advertising
campaign was Zoran Mom Donny'scampaign in New York.
That was brilliant, and thereason why it was so smart,
besides I mean, just looking,dissertations will be written on

(32:57):
what this campaign did.
But the fact that he had gaysfor mom donny and Jews for mom
Donnie and hot girls for momDonnie, and there was, you know,
there was niche after nicheafter niche after niche, but
they were all in support of him.
So what he did, what themarketing dep group did is play

(33:20):
on the fact that we are soseparated.
Yeah, but in fact, we can cometogether behind somebody who is
willing to make all of our livesbetter.

SPEAKER_01 (33:30):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (33:31):
Mind-blowing.
So good.

SPEAKER_01 (33:34):
So very good, 100%.
Yeah, definitely look it up ifyou haven't um heard or seen
anything about it.
I think at the end of the day,it's just we keep forgetting
that understanding is theantidote to fear.
And that, you know, if we aren'twilling to slow down and and try
to have some understanding, um,again, not making excuses, but
just holding space to understandone another, um, we have a whole

(33:54):
lot less to fear than what werealize.
And again, all those mechanismsare in place to give us the
confirmation bias, to make usfeel better, to inflate our
sense of self and worth andvalue.
And that really leads to my nextquestion.
You know, there's so much aboutthere's those a big role that
identity plays in making usvulnerable in brand
manipulation, especially online.

(34:16):
Um how would you kind of startto dive into that and help our
listeners start to understandand even recognize how that can
be, you know, a bit a bit of apitfall for us?

SPEAKER_00 (34:26):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, the reason for that isthat these larger social and
cultural institutions just don'thave the same impact on us that
they used to, right?
So if you belong to a faith, youknow, what church you went to or
what synagogue or what mosqueyou went to was a defining
factor of who you are.
But, you know, early in, youknow, by the 1970s, people were

(34:50):
starting to change religions.
And that's happened because, inin large part, um, the
Immigration Act of 1965, 1965allowed more um Asians into the
United States.
So we had this influx ofreligions that people had never
heard of before.
And so people startedexperimenting in a way that way

(35:11):
they never had before.
And you had all these thesecults, and you had the Beatles
hanging out with the Maharishi,right?
And and so so people startedthinking of religion as much
more fluid than it had beenbefore.
Same thing true with your jobs.
People, you know, would work forIBM for 30 years.
I know people at MTV networksthat are still there after 40

(35:33):
years, but you know, you look atmy students' generation, and
they don't expect to stay in ajob for more than a couple of
years.
So it doesn't have that samekind of play on them.
So when you begin to see thosethings not becoming personal
identifiers in the way that theyused to be, the corporations and
brands came in to fill thatvoid.

(35:54):
And what happens with that, andthis goes back to talking about
something like Patagonia or Lushand so on, is that consumers are
looking for brands to havevalues embedded in them.
Yeah.
Because if I'm going to take ona brand as part of my identity,
then I have to know that theybelieve in the same things that
I believe in.

(36:16):
And so that's why brands becomeso much more important to people
than they used to.
Now, some is fleeting.
Like, you know, a month ago wewere talking about la boo-boos,
and I'm like not hearinganything.
I'm not seeing anything aboutlaboo-boos anymore.
It's how we're talking that'sdifferent.

unknown (36:34):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (36:35):
But we are talking about things like Apple, and we
are talking things about, youknow, the car you drive, um, you
know, particularly if you livein Los Angeles or something, the
car you drive becomes veryimportant about saying who you
are.
And you know, and so thosethings start to have more
importance to people than theyused to.
Now, this is not across theboard.
Nobody will ever know what brandof toothpaste I use unless they

(36:58):
come over to my house.

SPEAKER_02 (36:59):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (36:59):
Um, but if I pull out um uh uh Tom Ford lipstick,
yeah, you know, somebody knowsthat I paid way too much money
to put color on my lips.
Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 (37:12):
Girl's got a healthy makeup budget.
Oh, a hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
I can see that for sure.

SPEAKER_00 (37:18):
Yeah, I and that, you know, and then then we get
talking about the lipstickeffect, right?
So yes, right, because thatwe're gonna see a lot of that
now, which is this, you know,when people start feeling like
they don't have any money tospend and they can't treat
themselves to anything, they dogo out and spend um money on
things like lipsticks so theycan feel better about
themselves.

SPEAKER_01 (37:38):
It is so true, right?
Charles Revlon, one of thequotes I always will remember is
women don't buy lipstick, theybuy hope.

SPEAKER_00 (37:45):
And David my favorite David Ogilvy is you
know, the consumer isn't stupid,she's your wife.
Yeah, I love that one.
That was a yeah, and that'sobviously from a different time
period, but you get the you getthe idea.

SPEAKER_01 (37:57):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Classic stuff there.
Um, all right.
So for marketers who want to bemore ethical and yet effective,
what maybe what are somepractices they really should
avoid?
We've called a couple out, but Iwant to make sure we're really
driving it home for those folksthat want to kind of be more
aware of this and do better.

SPEAKER_00 (38:14):
That it's fine to create brand community, but be
careful that you're not pivotinginto a brand cult.
And the key thing that gets youinto um a brand cult, like you
know, we talk about in and outgroups, so you know, Coke versus
Pepsi, that's that's okay.
Nobody's gonna get hurt ifyou're cult versus Pepsi.

(38:34):
Um, but when you get into theidea of introducing a cult
leader into the use of yourbrand, that's that's when things
start to get a little rocky.
Because it's okay.
Look, you know, some people arereally like being, you know,
Harley Davidson writers, right?
Yeah.
That that's been a brand cultfor a long time.
That's been one of the the OGsin in the cult brand cult area.

(38:58):
But I don't think anybody thinksthat there's a leader, it's that
the people like this brand andyou know, you know, Harley do or
die.
And there's there's nothingthat's not gonna hurt anybody.
When you get into um, and peoplemay have seen this, the
documentary on HBO Max uh BrandyHellville, which was about
Brandy Melville, and BrandyMelville, and I hadn't known

(39:22):
about that brand at all becausemy daughter's Gen Z, so they'd
be popular, I think, a littlebit before her.
And even if you go to theirwebsite now, uh it's it's
horrifying.
The the bodies of these younggirls look like they came out of
a concentration camp.
I mean, there's no other way todescribe it.

(39:43):
Um, not only that, that they cuttheir heads off and only show
their body, which is also verydehumanizing and you know, works
in all kinds of ways to makewomen less than what they're
supposed to be.
And so that idea that a verythin anorexic body type is

(40:03):
appropriate for, again, a veryvulnerable target audience of
young girls, right, plays intothat whole cult aspect.
And then on the documentary,they talk about the fact that
the man who runs the company hasto see a picture of all the
people who are going to be onthe floor of the store so he can

(40:24):
decide whether or not whatthey're wearing is appropriate.
So again, you know, tellingpeople what to wear, what to
eat, who to sleep with, right?
All that kind of stuff, all ofthat is cult activity stuff.

SPEAKER_01 (40:34):
Well, and the other to be avoided.
100%.
And the one that stuck with metoo was you making it hard to
leave.
Yes, you know, making it hard toleave, like as a brand, as a
company, as a community,whatever that is, like, are you
allowing people to say, My timehere's done, I'm going to move
on?
Like, yeah, trying to not dothat, like that's to me, that's
also very scary.

SPEAKER_00 (40:53):
So I I mean, like a good positive one is is Nutella.
People love Nutella, right?
And World Nutella Day wasactually created by fans, it
wasn't created by the company.
And so, you know, you have thatorganic, yeah, you know, love of
a brand.
That's that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 (41:11):
Yeah, yeah.
I agree.
I got to work on Pringles wayback in the day before API on
social.
And it was one of the most funcommunities and social brands I
ever got to work on becausepeople just loved a good Pringle
and it was global.
And see different flavors indifferent countries, and people
were always so creative withlike the cans and how they use
them after.
And it was just it was reallydelightful.

(41:32):
Um, because it was just easy andfun and friendly and open and
just really kind of foreveryone.
It didn't feel exclusive orexcluding as well.

SPEAKER_00 (41:42):
And I think there's something yeah, I think there's
also something about umproviding opportunities for
people to engage with eachother, but not doing it in a way
that's so self-serving to thebrand.
You know, if you're you're youknow, maybe you're doing so, I
don't know, I'm making this upoff the top of my head.
So maybe you're doing somethinglike, you know, get together
with three of your friends andcome up with your favorite logo

(42:05):
creation or something, versus,you know, create the back of
your cell phone case, and if youpost it, then uh, you know,
maybe we'll give you something,you know, a$50 gift card.
So I'm like, no, like find a wayto make this really useful to
your consumer.

SPEAKER_01 (42:20):
Exactly.
Give them a read.
And like you even said, like theHarley example's a good one.
Um, you're they they they theybuild community off of their
love of bikes and writing, youknow?
That's really kind of what it'sabout.
It's about the enjoyment of thethe togetherness and the
connection, the community.
It's not just the productitself.
Right.
So that makes a lot of sense.
All right.

(42:40):
So you've written a couplebooks, eight total on this
topic.
It sounds like you've gotanother one in the works.
How has the sophistication ofdeceptive marketing evolved
since you started doing thiswork?

SPEAKER_00 (42:51):
Um, I think a lot of it has to do with what we've
talked about.
The digital space really changedeverything.
And um, I think what's happeningnow that's kind of more
distressing than anything elseis the introduction of AI and
bots and people not knowing whenthey are not engaging with human

(43:15):
beings, and that becomes a wasteof their time.
This is also what I think isgonna happen in terms of gonna
ultimately may ultimately be thedownfall of social media, which
is when people begin to realizethat they're not engaging with
other people, because that's thelove of the space, right?
Is fine, you know, I I've met alot of people, some of whom that
have actually met offlineultimately and become friends

(43:38):
with.
But you know, when you start torealize, oh, you know, this
person who is, you know,fomenting hate on this space,
oh, that's actually a bot.
Like, why do I need to beengaging with that anymore?
Um, I think that's what's beenreally horrible in terms of the
deception.
I think that, you know,something like the hashtag

(44:01):
TikTok made me buy it.

SPEAKER_02 (44:02):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (44:03):
And I spent some time in the book talking about
this.
And it used to be that we usedto talk about effective
frequency being three times, andnow we talk about effective
frequency being like seven tothirtees.
And so, you know, because ourmedia space is so fragmented
that we, you know, we mayactually have engaged with

(44:23):
something in multiple spaces andnot even realized it.
And it happens to be that theTikTok person is the last person
that you got to.
And so, you know, that's part ofthe issue.
The other part of the issue isthe collapse of the marketing
funnel.
You know, it used to be thatthere was time and space within
the marketing funnel for you totake the time to think about

(44:43):
whether or not what you werebuying, and this goes back to
the beginning of ourconversation about buy now,
right?
Is to take that time and take abreath and say, you know what?
Maybe I don't have a 50, 150bucks to spare on uh to spend on
a pair of jeans, right?
And and you would have had thetime because you would have
actually had to go to the storeand spend that time and do it.

(45:04):
But the technology is created,you know, the whole idea, Daniel
Kenneman's idea of thinking fastand slow, is that thinking slow
is taking the time, really beingconsiderate about what you do.
And thinking fast isn'tthinking, it's about you know
reacting with our emotions.
And that's what the technologyis designed to do is to override

(45:28):
our critical thinking.
And if you want to talk about itin terms of other ways in
marketing now, is is the theincreased use of sensory
marketing, and particularly um,you know, olfactory senses,
which are the most powerful, andso it it overrides our critical
thinking when we go in a storeand we smell something and it
smells like Christmas and makesus want to buy something.

SPEAKER_01 (45:51):
Popcorn or yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 (45:53):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (45:54):
Cinnabon, Cinnabon, like every month, popcorn,
right?
That's so hard, that's somassable.
Oh, a hundred percent.
It's so true.
It's so true.
This has been so awesome andamazing.
And I, you know, I think thiswhole conversation, it's like
it's like it's a balance, right?
It's a balance of understandingour roles in the world and the
things that we do for ourcustomers, our clients, and the

(46:16):
people that we work for.
And you know, it is it's alljust a balance.
And I love that you're breakingthis lens to it, because I think
they're all critical questionswe need to be asking about
ourselves in the bigger pictureof what's happening to, you
know, like hyper-individualhyper-individualism, hyper
capitalism, like the space thatwe're literally in right now as
a society within the UnitedStates specifically.

(46:37):
Um, so yeah, we could go on andon, but we're coming close to
time.
So I'm gonna take a minute andlet our live listening audience
know that you again have someopportunities to ask some
questions.
They're all in existentialcrisis right now, though.
I can feel it.
If they're with me, um jump intothe live chat, make sure you
have your question there ifyou'd like.
Um, Mara, if they would like toreach out to you, connect with

(46:57):
you, where's the best place tofind you and your work?

SPEAKER_00 (47:00):
Um, my website is drmeraeinstein.com.
It's D-R Mara Einstein,M-A-R-A-E-I-N-S-T-E-I-N.
Um, I'm on TikTok as my primaryum social, but I'm also on um
Instagram, YouTube, and threads.
Most of the stuff on Instagramand YouTube is is um repurposed
from from TikTok.

(47:22):
I also have a stuff sub stack,which I never talk about.
Um only because I I do anewsletter, I do a newsletter
once once a month.
I don't bombard people.
That's great.
And what I do is I take the bestof what I've talked about um in
my social media spaces and turnit into written content for
people.

SPEAKER_01 (47:39):
Okay, fantastic.
That's good.
I'm not sure if you're gonnahave some new followers here
soon.
Um, and then I'm gonna go aheadand switch to our fun little
quick hit power round questions.
Um questions from the audience,we'll get to those right before
we sign off.
All right, what is the mostcult-like brand you see right
now?
Can you name one other than theones we've named already?

SPEAKER_00 (47:57):
Um the most cult like um, because I was because
you're gonna talk about theworst.
Is this the worst question?
If you're gonna talk about whatI think of as the most cult-like
that thing going on right now iscrypto.
And I that's probably not onethat people think about very

(48:18):
often.
Um, and particularly when you'retalking about multi-level
marketing, you know, for women'sproducts tend to be like hair
care and weight loss and youknow, supplements and that, but
for men it's it's uh financialinstruments and and in
particular crypto.
And um, you know, it's thepeople at the top that make the
money and the people at thebottom that don't.
And if you read anything about,you know, Trump's coin right now

(48:41):
is is you know, handful ofpeople made money and everybody
else lost a bucket ton.
So I would say crypto.

SPEAKER_01 (48:47):
Yeah, crypto's a good one.
I would say also I feel likegambling is falling into that
because the gambling is becomingmore pervasive and present and
more of a common type thing thatI'm seeing throughout,
especially with sports bettingand everything as well.

SPEAKER_00 (48:58):
Yeah.
A couple of my students wrotewrote papers about the the the
betting apps, and they they wereum scholar athletes, and they're
really not happy about it.
They're really not happy aboutit.

SPEAKER_01 (49:10):
And I hope more athletes start to speak up about
it because maybe that mightchange the mindset mindset and
shift the paradigm.

SPEAKER_02 (49:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (49:17):
Whoo, we're almost there.
All right, cool.
All right.
One marketing tactic that youwish was illegal, if you could
just make that call.
What would it be?

SPEAKER_00 (49:25):
I'm gonna I'm gonna pivot that slightly and say what
I would love to see is theelimination of section 230.
Section 230 is the part of thecommunications code that says
that online platforms are notresponsible for the content that
appears on the platform.

SPEAKER_02 (49:43):
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (49:44):
And so, you know, Facebook always says we're we
are not um, we we are notcreating content, we are not
editorializing.
And I say the second you have analgorithm on your website, you
are editorializing because youare deciding what people see and
don't see.
So you are responsible for whatappears on your con on your
platform.

SPEAKER_01 (50:04):
Fantastic answer.
I love it.
That was a good pivot.
All right, finish the sentence.
You know, you're in a brandcall, in a brand call, not
you're a brand call.
You're in a brand call when youcannot leave.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (50:16):
Right?
If it becomes impossible for youto say to yourself, I can't buy
this product, I you know, I wantto w walk away from this group,
but you know, if I walk away, Ilose too much stuff, then yeah,
that's the key.
You can't walk away.

SPEAKER_01 (50:30):
Yeah, that's a good one.
All right.
This is the last one that I'vegot.
I think it's just a really goodquestion to end on for the rest
of us as we're listening, as a,you know, we're all consumers,
right?
What is the best mental defenseagainst manipulative marketing?

SPEAKER_00 (50:46):
I think the best, you know, we've talked a couple
of times about um vulnerabilityand being vulnerable.
And you want to do uh a gutcheck about how you're feeling
about yourself before you pickup your phone.
Because the thing is is that,you know, when we when I was
growing up, at the end of theday and you were tired, you

(51:07):
turned on your TV set.
And if you turned on your TVset, you know, you might see
commercials, but it was based oncertain assumptions about who
might be watching at thatparticular time.
It wasn't about people grabbingall your data and looking at
what you've clicked on, how muchtime you've spent on it, all
that kind of stuff.
And so, you know, at the end ofthe day, when you're really
tired is probably the last timethat you want to do it.

(51:29):
I would just say to just be moreintentional.
And I I think the statistic nowis we pick up our phone 150
times a day.
Find yeah, find find times inthe day where you can be away
from your phone, stick it inanother room.
Yeah, don't plug it in by yourbed.
Yeah, right.
All of all those simple, youknow, you really don't.
I mean, unless you know thatthere's an emergency that's

(51:50):
going to be happening in yourfamily, you don't need your
phone by your bed.
You really don't.

SPEAKER_01 (51:54):
No, exactly.
I've um I literally have a watchbecause I am losing my phone all
the time.
I forget it everywhere, I leaveit behind, I lose it, I misplace
it, and I hope it alwayscontinues.
But then I'm like, I need to buymy phone.
That's like the only feature Iuse on my watch all the time is
find my phone.

SPEAKER_00 (52:10):
But because I can't tell people not to use the phone
because it's like what when wasthe last time you made a phone
call on your phone?
Yeah.
You know, you can get rid ofapps, you know, but you can like
if you need to call an Uber or aLyft or whatever it is, you
know, then you then you need tohave the phone.
Right.
Or people send you calendarupdates, and so you need that.

SPEAKER_01 (52:30):
So absolutely.
Well, uh, this has been amazing.
Thank you so much, Dr.
Mara, for challenging all of usto think more critically about
the intersection of cultpsychology and customer culture
and consumer culture.
Customer culture too, why not?
Sure.
Right.
But your your insights arereminding us that you know, as
digital professionals, we bothhave the power and
responsibility to shapemarketing that um respects

(52:53):
rather than manipulates.
And so to all of our togetherdigital community members of
today's conversation made youquestion your own brand
relationships and marketingpractices.
That was exactly the point.
So thank you for sticking withus through it.
Um, it's the first step to doingmore ethical marketing and by
creating that awareness.
So definitely check out herbook, Hoodwinked, catch her on
Netflix, the buy now shoppingconspiracy.

(53:17):
You can dive more into thesetopics.
If you found today's PowerLounge very helpful and it needs
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We'd love for you to share itwith someone who needs to hear
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And remember the recordings arealways on YouTube and our
podcast wherever you happen tostream and listen.
Um, we hope to see you all nextweek, everyone.
Until then, keep asking, keepgiving, and keep growing.

(53:37):
We hope to see you soon.
Bye bye, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 (53:40):
Bye now.
Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 (53:51):
Produced by Heartcast Media.