Congratulations, it’s an opinion leader! : The Young India

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Thapas Joseph Thomas

When the book ‘The Da Vinci Code’ released, every Tom, Dick, Harry, Rose, Guinevere, Kate could decipher the numerological mysticism of the book. What many youngsters didn’t realize was that Dan Brown is more a marketer than an author, a numerologist or a genius.

Yes, youth are a strange lot. Any adolescent, on receiving an external ‘inspiration’, becomes an opinion leader. They may be inept at math and logic, but they easily follow and understand a book that is against an important constitution of the west-the Bible. Then they form their own theories and build their own protests. Such opinion leaders are characterized by rebellion and cult behavior which is encouraged by the media. The media proclaims itself as ‘comrades’ and mouth-pieces of the youth. And they call this encouragement of sorts, ‘Marketing’.

And so, I believe, the IIM graduates are no different from the fish-mongers trying to hide the age of the Pomfret. Marketing is not a dirty job. It is an art so influential and effective that all the other arts have to be ‘marketed’.

But if the marketers and the media want you to buy and be influenced, why do they encourage ‘rebellion’ and such pseudo movements? Well, this is innovation. When you wear a Metallica T-shirt to church or pierce your navel (disregarding the various medical hazards of the same), you feel a sense of cult and ‘unbelonging’. And all of a sudden, you are this leader of a ‘new movement’. And teens find you ultra cool. There you are in your own Zion; you turn around and shout “Faith” and such gibberish to your peers. And voila, you are a poet and an artist.

You say that the established artists do not appreciate your poetry or doodles because they’re too naïve to understand such a ‘transcendent’ existence. Your life becomes a movie and you fall in love, get into fights, start boozing and cause your parents grief. But your parents have to grieve, right? It’s a part of finding yourself and your new religion!

While you’re doing all this, a bunch of people are secretly sniggering. Some of them are editors, some advertisers and the big guys; marketers. They are happy because you’re doing exactly what they want, buying what they want you to buy and saying what they want you to say. You are blissfully unaware of the fact that the ‘inspiration’ you got at the beginning, was just another marketing gimmick. Congratulations, you’ve become an opinion leader. In the process, you have created a sub-culture aka a market.

This is the story of most neo-cultures, cults and rock groups. So the next time you’re looking at that Metallica T-shirt, be wise. Your favorite band with all the long hair, heavy metal, pierced eyebrows, Satanism and much more could just be a victim of marketing.

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The Young India

Congratulations, it’s an opinion leader!

on January 17, 2008

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