Mara Einstein begins her Introduction of Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults with a description of the shopping chaos one is likely to encounter at Trader Joe’s when the store opens at 8:00 on a Saturday morning. Driven into a frenzy by TikTok influencers, consumers are manipulated by techniques such as “scarcity marketing, the practice of regularly limiting the supply of products to gin up consumers’ fear of missing out” (p. xv). Einstein goes on to describe how other companies, such as Lululemon, Tesla, and even Apple, use similar tactics to build not just brand loyalty, but brand fanaticism. In other words, Einstein is out to demonstrate that these brands are more than simple preferences. She posits that marketers are creating something akin to “brand religions,” things from which their followers derive community and meaning. These brands are often headed by charismatic figures such as Elon Musk with Tesla or Gwyneth Paltrow with Goop, and they can lead to obsessions on the part of some followers. To put it starkly, some of the techniques of persuasion used by marketers mirror those of cults to foster emotional loyalty, anxiety-driven purchases, and lifelong consumer devotion.
Hoodwinked is the book that Mara Einstein says she has always wanted to write (p xiii). A former marketing executive, Einstein left the corporate world to become an academic. She is a tenured professor and former chair in the department of media studies at Queen’s College (CUNY). Einstein holds a Ph.D. in Media Ecology from New York University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She is presently the inaugural chair of the research and academic group of The Impact Guild, which aims to empower people to use media and technology for social good and healthy democracies. She is also a distant relative of that other Einstein you are thinking of.
The book is an interesting and stimulating read, and her thesis about the cult-like aspects of how modern branding and marketing proceed is well-taken. Of course, it is only in the more extreme cases—such as what one may encounter in multilevel marketing companies, for example—that one sees anything like the harm wrought by the destructive cults with which ICSA Today readers are familiar. Still, there are other ways that this manipulation harms consumers, and Einstein does a good job of explaining them. Furthermore, the book is relevant in today’s algorithm-driven, influencer-saturated world. If people are to avoid being scammed on social media, it is helpful to understand what the marketers are doing and how they are doing it.
In the introduction, Einstein says,
Cults (and marketers) are sneaky. After all, no one raises their hand to join a cult…The process of indoctrination is slow and methodical, which is why it feels like it has come out of the blue. But if you…‘suddenly realize’ that you have a freezer full of Trader Joe’s sweet potato gnocchi or a drawer crammed with more Fenty foundation and mascara than you can use in a lifetime or that you have been sucked into selling Herbalife, spent too much time at CrossFit, bought into worthless Bitcoin, or paid untold sums of money to get your kid into ‘the right college,’ then you’ve been indoctrinated into a marketing cult. (p. xix)
Einstein goes on in the first chapter of the book to give a good overview of what cults are and how they work, touching on several points, such as the recruitment process, the indoctrination, and the charismatic leader, which will be familiar to people reading this review. This reviewer was impressed with the level of understanding that the author demonstrates about cults. She has clearly done her homework. She points out that not every cult ends in the same way that Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, or the Branch Davidians did. Most people’s experience in their cultic groups is less dramatic and does not end in a deadly conflagration, but that is far from saying it is harmless. Einstein concludes the chapter by saying that “the method for indoctrination is very specific. It is slow and it is purposeful. It plays on people’s emotions. And rest assured, it will lighten your wallet” (p. 11).
In the next chapter, “Cult-y Brands and Branded Cults,” Einstein talks about multilevel marketing companies (MLMs), which she says are “legally sanctioned pyramid schemes: organizations that generate profits by continually recruiting people who are obliged to pay to be a part of the organization” (p.14). She discusses known MLMs, such as LuLaRoe, and even talks about NXIVM as being both a cult and an MLM. Throughout the chapter, she is compassionate toward the people who get sucked up into these organizations, insisting that they are not stupid. She says that’s
one of the prevailing misconceptions about cults—that the people enmeshed in them are ignorant and easily swayed. Really, that couldn’t be further from the truth. High-pressure groups target smart, beautiful, and accomplished people because they help attract others to the fold. Think John Travolta and Scientology or Madonna and Kabbala. NXIVM did the same, recruiting Allison Mack, an actress known for a decade-long stint on Smallville, and India Oxenberg, daughter of Catherine Oxenberg, star of the 1980s primetime soap Dynasty and second cousin to King Charles. (p. 13-14)
Einstein goes on to explore brand communities. She quotes strategic branding professional Laurence Vincent, who explains, “We use brands to validate our lives. A lot of our consumption activities are becoming more sacred because we attach meaning to them” (p.16). Einstein explains: “Brand communities, unlike traditional communities, are not located in physical space. The social relationships that form occur in connection to a brand” (p. 17). She gives numerous examples, such as Nutella, Apple, and certain brands of cars. She goes on to quote Douglas Atkin (2004), a “strategic marketer and the creator of the cult brand concept” (p. 17-18), who said,
[T]he same dynamics are at play behind the attraction to brands and cults. They may vary in degree of strength (although not always), but not in type….When research subjects recounted their reasons for joining and committing, they described profound urges to belong, make meaning, feel secure, have order within chaos, and create identity…The sacred and profane are being bound by the essential desires of human nature, which seeks satisfaction wherever it can. (p. 18)
Einstein continues by explaining the brand/religion nexus, where she asserts that
religion and marketing do similar sociological and personal work for us….In her book No Logo, Naomi Klein’s key insight from investigating the manufacturing of major brands around the world is that marketers are not producing a product so much as they are producing meaning. They do this through branding, which is a combination of a logo, a tagline, and a mythology, or story. (p. 20)
Einstein also refers to Jim Twitchell (2005) and his book Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld, who “suggests that religion and marketing are virtually one and the same thing….[W]e are looking for redemption, and it doesn’t much matter where it comes from, though increasingly it comes from the marketplace.” (p. 22)
In the next chapter, Einstein examines “The College Cult.” She examines the parallels between the “slow steady indoctrination process” used on prospective enrollees being sold on the college of their choice and the way that cults recruit members. She points out that
[w]ith complex, high-tech tools and hard-sell tactics, colleges (and consultants) play on parents’ concerns about getting their kid ‘into the best school,’ knowing full well that parents are making these decisions within a limited time frame and with little access to unbiased information. Marketers are also acutely aware that under this scenario people are more likely to pay for a higher-priced product believing that the expensive price tag means it is inherently better. (p. 29)
However, the fact is that there is a decline in the number of people in the cohort that is about to graduate from high school and who are currently applying for college. The issue is one of simple demographics. The Millennials were a large demographic group—much like their parents, the Baby Boomers—but they are now aging out of their undergraduate years, and that leaves most universities, outside of the Ivies and other elite schools like MIT or Stanford, scrambling to get butts in seats. Einstein observes that “schools must strike a delicate balancing act between getting students who can pay top dollar versus increasing the student population in order to increase overall tuition. This means schools need to sell, sell, sell” (p. 37).
The next couple of chapters on MLMs are more like what I would have anticipated. The chapter on the college cult was unexpected, but fascinating. It makes sense, though, when you consider that, as Einstein observes, “Colleges aren’t marketing education. Just like MLMs, they are marketing the American dream” (p. 41). After a thorough examination of MLMs, Einstein turns her attention to influencers. As an aging Baby Boomer, the whole thing was an education to me. This reviewer does not use TikTok, as I am wary of giving away my personal information to the Chinese Communist Party. I really do not watch YouTube much, either. However, there is a whole world out there of influencers as cult brands that Einstein explores, bringing to life such characters as MrBeast and coaching gurus like Tim Ferriss.
Later in the book, Einstein entitles a chapter “Algorithms and ‘Anger’ Fuel Influencer Extremism.” At this point, it is no longer so easy to dismiss these influencer brands as sub-threshold cults when you consider how extremism can lead to violence. She examines how influencers promote conspiracy theories, and she dissects how the QAnon cult operates. She goes on to look at how religious influencers operate in the online space and talks about “conspirituality”—an amalgam of religion and conspiracy theories. It is enough to make your head spin. She discusses how social media are constantly pushing us “into more extreme content and an endless wave of anxiety” (p. 188), leading ultimately to what former Google ethicist Tristan Harris calls “the race to the bottom of the brainstem” (p. 188). At the close of this chapter, Einstein reminds us, “We must never forget that whenever we are online, we are part of a marketing research project, we are immersed in a shopping model, and we are being programmed—all for capital gain” (p. 189).
Einstein’s final chapter, “Climbing Out of the Rabbit Hole,” is a thoughtful reflection on where we have arrived with the current marriage of marketing with social media and online influencers. She explains that “almost anyone who is continually exposed to disinformation can be in danger of sliding into the conspiracy swamp. Continual repetition without competing perspectives replicates the grooming process of a real-world cult” (p. 193). She concludes,
Just like getting someone out of a cult is a process, so too will be rethinking—revisioning—the world we find ourselves in. What I have discovered in writing this book is that cult tactics are not only fundamental to brands and influencers, they are foundational to the technology that disseminates them. (p. 199)In conclusion, this reviewer found Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults to be an engaging and thoughtful examination of a range of issues that are of interest not only to those of us who study cults, but to people who interact with social media and who are targeted by marketers. In other words, the topics explored in this book are relevant to practically everyone in our society.
