Riddle: What's the secret to media literacy? Answer: Self Co*te*tme*t
Read on to see why that's your best defence against the dark arts of marketing
As always. Punchline upfront. In case I lose you half way through:
The fastest route to media literacy is also the simplest way to consume less: be content with who you are and what you already have.
If you are content and can produce your own joy, then I (as a marketer or journalist) cannot access your emotions to trigger lack, jealousy, or a quick fix. So I usually cannot sell you my product. You are untouchable.
Here’s the logic behind this, some examples and some real action points you can take starting today.
Logic
For 10 years, I was behind the curtain of marketing. And I can say with confidence…
Marketing goes like this:
Someone makes a product or service that solves “a problem”.
Then need to identify the people who “have this problem” so they buy their product.
They hire someone like me to research these people, their feelings, motivators, etc. Specifically I ask: “what keeps them up at night” regarding this “problem”?.
I position their product as the solution to this problem.
Money is exchanged
Problem solved
Whether I’ve sold swim suits, or workforce management software, the plan is the same.
Figure out what’s keeping your audience “up at night”.
Then tell them that the product (or service) will help them sleep.
Feelings
You’ll notice that Step Two of the genius marketing plan doesn’t actually care WHAT the product is, or what it DOES, or how well it does it. Just that it will help them sleep at night.
And the FEELING of sleeping better is all it really takes. Even if that feeling is temporary.
The FEELINGS triggered then satiated are more important than any substance or longevity in the product or experience.
Marketers will tell you that they are in the business of selling feelings. Two examples below:
ONE: The onion chopper.
Do you need to chop onions that fast? Did seeing this instantly remind you of the feeling of chopping onions? Are the two minutes you saved chopping the onion worth the cleaning, storing and keeping stock of several new pieces in your kitchen?
May be, and probably no. But we’ve all been tempted by someone telling us of the lightening fast salads they’ve experienced as soon as they purchased. So we chase that feeling. The possibility of lightening fast onion chops.
The future time saved speeds up your purchase of the tool added to your graveyard of well intentioned kitchen utensils.
TWO: Business to business software
Marketers and sales people will be the first to tell you that selling software to a senior executive will be a touchy subject.
Software sales goes way beyond the effectiveness of the product. The buyer is making instant decisions about:
how much their team with THANK THEM,
how impressed their bosses will be,
how this will play out in their “legacy” at the company,
AS WELL AS how good the product actually is.
All these things coexist. But even in a purchase decision that should be “purely logical”, feelings are blurry.
And if they’re blurry, they’re leveraged.
In both examples
The marketer’s job is to figure out where you lack calm and share with you the media and marketing to communicate to you that their product is the fastest way to this thing. (it isn’t).
You are vulnerable to a marketer if your own personal jar is not overflowing with self-assurance and calm.
The same goes for consuming media as a whole.
Winning your attention or your imagination is much easier if you haven’t already filled your mental jar with your own goals, ideas, thoughts, heroes. etc. If you do not fill it, I can sell you on a filling. (Not me personally, I usually work for charities now).
So the quickest way to clever consumption is:
Recognise where people are leveraging your feeling of void to sell you something
Believe that no product or service will actually fill that void
Then begin to look for other more meaningful endeavours
Filling your own jar of calm is definitely the fastest way to stop me - the marketer - from taking your attention, money, imagination.
Your ability to recognise this dream selling is the “media literacy” that underpins your existence. You will have to train your ability to tear apart the purchases that provide an improvement in your quality of life vs. the purchases you’ve made to fill a temporary void that will give you a fleeting feeling of status, or self worth, or love, or entertainment or numbness or or or….
Things you can do today
Practice this awareness as you read messages around you: from “SALE” to “I saved $346, last month, here’s how.”
FILL YOUR OWN JAR
Use something that you brought and didn’t use
Spend time with people who bring you joy
Wrestle with your own conscious to enjoy your own company in silence. Yes. Really. That’s part of media literacy.
HAVE A WRITTEN DOWN plan for:
your time, (hour by hour)
your money, (penny by penny)
your attention, (real life interactions, watching video, podcast, scroll, book - all of it).
You can start by curating your mind - I made you a substack
By the time the marketer comes to you, you should be like this guy:
The secret is that The Marketers’ jar was empty all along!
I get asked “how do I teach my kid this?”
Answer: “You have to model self contentedness and lack of consumption long enough so they get they’re the same thing.”
