Joel Benge: Today’s guest nerd is Dr. Mara Einstein, marketing expert, media professor and author of Hoodwinked, how Marketers use the same tactics as cults. She spent years studying how belief, branding, and big business got all tangled up, and what happens when marketing tries to sell us meaning?

We’re talking marketing cults and the stupid things that marketers do basically. But before she was calling out the industry, she worked in it from Madison Avenue to MTV, so she knows the game from inside out, and now she’s here to help us see how easily we all get. Well, a little hoodwinked. Dr. Einstein, thank you for joining.

Mara Einstein: Oh, so happy to be here. Looking forward to this conversation.

Joel Benge: I’ve, I’ve had a chance to, to preview the, uh, the, the book. I’m so excited about the new podcast coming out. Um, just, just all, just, I’m just so excited to see you getting the attention everywhere, and thank you for coming on here. 

Mara Einstein: Oh, that’s nice. 

Joel Benge: I always like to start with the nerd origin story, so, so draw the curtain back a little [00:01:00] bit and give us the, uh, um, the path to where, how you got here now.

Mara Einstein: Oh, that’s so, that’s so funny. This is the second time in a week someone’s called me a nerd. And I guess that’s, that’s not a way that I normally think about myself, but I guess I really am. Which is, which is kind of funny. Um, so, you know, I guess I started my career as an actress and, um. So I really thought I, I was going to do that.

I, I was an undergraduate in theater and then, um, it was 1980s and Hollywood and everybody was going, uh, to get an MBA. So I was like, okay, why don’t I do that? So, um, so I got my MBA and I worked in entertainment for a while, and then I just realized, and I guess this is where, where the nerd kicked in, um. I was in my twenties, maybe thirties, and I went, I can’t do this for the next 30 years.

I’ll go outta my mind. I need to do something that’s gonna be more stimulating. And so I got my PhD while I was working at [00:02:00] NBC. And um, I originally was, I was always hoping to do something with media and religion, but I also realized at that point, because I was in my late thirties, um, and by that point I was ready to have, have my daughter and, and all of that like. If I focused on religion, it was gonna take me a long time to get through the literature review, as they say in nerdville. And so I had done work in policy when I was getting my MBA, and so my actual first, uh, my dissertation was, uh, policy wonk stuff, nerd. Right. Um, and so that was the basis of my first book and the work from that was actually used by the FCC in revising the ownership rules. So I guess, I guess that’s the nerd story.

Joel Benge: Wow. wonk got, got, got super deep. Yeah. I had a, a, a similar experience theater student and then, uh, I discovered IT and I was like, 

Mara Einstein: ah. 

Joel Benge: [00:03:00] just, gonna do, I’m just gonna do the nerd stuff. So yeah, it, I, I, I, it’s, it’s surprising how many, um. Recovering theater people I know and I’m in, in different areas.

Um, how did you, how did you get into the advertising aspect then? 

Mara Einstein: Hmm. 

Joel Benge: and, started to collect? So you’re looking at policy, your understanding, you know, what is it, maybe levers of control,

um, and then, and then some time in, uh, in the media.

Mara Einstein: Well, I actually, because I went to business school to run Hollywood as it were, um, you know, we were required to take classes in finance and after two classes in finance, I went, yeah, that ain’t for me. Um, I was more interested in the psychology. And that’s really what marketing is, is is the psychology of persuasion.

How do you get to move people in a particular direction? And it was, while actually I was working at NBC, that I began to see [00:04:00] more and more research about how unhappy people were, um, and how dissatisfied they were with their lives. And I also knew that what my job was to was to get them to watch more television.

And that didn’t feel great. And so that’s when I decided to go back to school and, and get my, my degree. But in terms of, of understanding it as far as what. What marketing is, how does it work, all of that sort of thing. That didn’t happen until I really started, this was probably my second book, Brands of Faith, when I began to look at marketing in relationship to religion and I was starting to look at how do people take on a new faith? And people, you know, take a faith on and off now the same in a way that they never did before.

Right? Um. We used to talk about religion as being ascribed for something [00:05:00] that you, um. You are given. You know, if you were born Jewish, you’re Jewish. That’s it. Goodbye. You know, same thing. Baptist. You were Baptist, you were never gonna change. But what happened with the change in the media landscape is that you could try out religions. And as the technology changed, the different kinds of religions and the way that you could practice those faiths were very different. So what we saw, for instance, in the time of radio. Is that people could listen to sermons and they might find out about another faith that way, but they wouldn’t actually have to walk into a different church. Right. And if you have to walk into another space, you are proclaiming. That you are perhaps walking away from the faith that you used to belong to. But what happens with television and then the internet is you have this ability to be able to pick and choose what it is that you want to believe in. And as I started looking into how people were [00:06:00] choosing their belief systems, I began to think, okay, how does that parallel how marketers get us to take on brands as part of who we are?

Joel Benge: Wow. Yeah, it, it’s, it’s funny to me because. Military brat moved around a lot and grew up in, in, you know, in a, in a church. And, uh, you know, then when you, when you have your first little bit of freedom and you have the ability to sample and, and look around, um, and that was just kind of, you know, when I was coming of age that was kind of up in the nineties, the internet was available and we were starting to see this movement towards, um, uh.

Customization. And I think, I think it really was kind of like the web, the web two, which is like your, your web experience is not the same experience as, as other people. It’s not getting customized to you. Um, do you think, I’m just sort of drawing the line a little bit further. Do you think we’re now getting back into bubbles, back into isolation?

Is that where, [00:07:00] um, a lot of interest in cults have, have 

Mara Einstein: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the, you know, people, people, what people often ask me, particularly marketing people, is. is. there a way to use these sort of cult tactics in a positive way? And I always say the positive thing that cults really are offering is community. The problem is, is, is where are we finding community and are we expecting these online spaces to create these communities for us? So is it a situation where. I’m getting online. I’m in a social media space. I’m starting to engage with people who I want to have an interesting conversation with, but then I’m separated from anybody else who doesn’t agree with me. And so that kind of isolation, that kind of polarization, one, isn’t very healthy.

And two, I don’t really think is real community. ’cause think about your physical [00:08:00] community. If I don’t get along with my next door neighbor, I still gotta live next to him. So I have to find a way to get over whatever issues I might have. So I might say to him, you know what? That branch is hanging over the fence.

Could you really do something about it? Um, and if he doesn’t, you know, maybe I take it to the next step, but, but I have to find a way to do it in a way I can still live next door to him. And that’s something that we don’t experience in online spaces ’cause it’s too easy to pretend that we’re. Somebody else, and it’s hard.

Oftentimes it’s hard to, to figure out whether or not we’re really dealing with a person or are we dealing with a bot.

Joel Benge: Yeah. When we’re, when we’re self-selecting our, our environment and our community and we can sanitize it, um, that, that sets us up for a lot of challenges. Uh, I want to. Run the tape back just a little bit ’cause we jumped straight into to cults. ’cause this is what I’m, what I’m interested in.

Um, can, can you, uh, for the folks listening, what are the hallmarks of a cult?

Or what do you consider to [00:09:00] be, um, the, the, you know, the red flags of a cult? And then I want to talk kind of about your continuum from the cult through the brands, um, and the, and the marketing, the cult marketing. But let’s just, let’s just lay some definitions out.

Mara Einstein: Sure. So when we talk about cults, there’s certain steps, and I base my understanding of this on the work of 

Lorne Dawson, who wrote a book called Comprehending Cults, and I build in it from other people whose work I’ve read. But he talks about one of the first things that cults do is they look for vulnerable people. And so. Oftentimes, the example I like to give is college campuses are a prime target ground to find people to be part of cults because you’re in a new space. You don’t have people that you know, you’re looking for community. You’re looking for a place to fit in, and so somebody comes up to you and says. Hi, come take a free meditation class. And you’re like, [00:10:00] okay, cool. Yeah, that sounds great. Um, and the next thing you know, you get pulled further and further in the, the next step in the process is to lure with deception. So this is why I got into this from my perspective, in terms of the work that I do, which is my work is all about teaching people how to find deceptive marketing and then protect themselves from it.

And I do that by teaching them. About what I know about my many year, from my many years of working in marketing. And so the deception can be that, you know, come have a free, uh, meditation class or come have a free dinner, or whatever it is, and you think that that’s all it is. The, uh, I’m just gonna learn how to meditate. Well then if the tactics start getting harder and harder, so then it becomes upselling. Okay, you’ve taken, uh. Meditation class, come take a yoga class, but make sure you show up every week. Okay? You’ve taken that yoga class. Okay, well, if you really wanna get good and you really wanna belong to this group, then you’ve gotta plunk some money down and take [00:11:00] the. Two month class, right? And starts building and building and building. And then that’s love bombing surrounding people with so much attention that they don’t wanna leave. And as you start to do these things as you upsell, so people make more of a commitment in terms of time and money as they’re surrounded with love bombing, as they’re feeling more of the community, then it becomes more harder and harder to leave.

And one of the ways that groups do this is by separating. You away from anyone who would tell you that what’s going on in this group is not good for you, right? So they separate you. And traditionally this has happened by putting people on a compound, either places like Waco or Oregon. Rash with Rashish or wherever was Guyana.

Right with Jonestown, but they don’t have to do that in physical spaces anymore because just like what we were talking about, the digital space does that for us. It separates us into groups who will only tell us what we want to hear. And then they make it difficult [00:12:00] for us to leave. Um, and they finally tell us what exactly they’re all about. Two other key things or three other key things to include. Most cults will, but not all. Most will include a charismatic and narcissistic group leader. Um, sure you could think of plenty. We could drop in right here.

Um. The creation of in and out groups, right? So you’re part of this group, so you’re not part of this other group.

So that’s a way to define the group. And finally, an all-encompassing worldview that answers all of life’s problems. So no matter what, you would respond back to it. They could say, oh yes, but, but Q Anon or MAGA,

MAGA iss a great example. What does MAGA mean? Make America Great Again. It doesn’t really mean anything. It means what, whatever somebody wants to put into it thinks that it means, [00:13:00] but it, in and of itself, it doesn’t mean anything. ’cause Make America Great Again. For whom? For when, at what time, period. And so what it, it’s so open as to allow people to put. Whatever they believe into that statement. And so whenever somebody says, oh, but women are being hurt, or immigrants are being hurt, or children are being hurt, oh, but MAGA, we’re making America great again. That always becomes the response.

Joel Benge: Yeah. As, uh, I have a mental model of marketing messaging and, and at the top is kind of your singular Big Idea. And I have a, I have a, another card deck. I’m working on the Periodic Table of Bad Big Ideas, which are the, the cliches. The lazy, the lazy ones. Yeah. And it, it, it almost reminds me of the, of 

putting the onus on the, the audience to bring their own meaning to it. You, you, you’re just [00:14:00] directionally appropriate enough and you say, you know, I work with a lot of security companies, Secure What Matters.

Well. What matters? Well, it doesn’t matter. Whatever matters to you. And that can allow people to kind of step in and, and project their own, 

Mara Einstein: Right. 

Joel Benge: onto it.

Um, so thank you for that, for that definition. I think, I think a lot of us now are, are, are thinking through, you know, media we’ve consumed or, or documentaries and, and things. How did you start to make the connection then? To some of these cult-like brands, and you have some various, um, uh, levels of, of brand and 

Mara Einstein: Right, right, right. 

Joel Benge: us through that from the, oh, this is kind of cool. Maybe I wanna buy some leggings to now I’m, now I have a, a big exercise bike in my shed that, uh, you know, I’m paying a subscription on and like, we know the companies we’re talking about. But, uh, 

Mara Einstein: Mm-hmm. 

Joel Benge: talk about the different, uh, levels that, that you lay out in the [00:15:00] book.

Mara Einstein: Sure. Well, the way that I got to this is that I was stuck at home during COVID, like a lot of us were. And I was watching a lot of documentaries on TV and I was watching The Vow, which is the documentary about NXIVM, and the, uh, LuLaRich, which is the docuseries about LuLaRoe. And so I was watching them like back to back over the course of a couple of weeks and, and I was like, ah. Oh my God, they’re the same thing. A multi-level marketing company, i.e., a legalized pyramid scheme is the same thing as a cult. And I was like, like brain exploded. Um, and well, and then as I started researching multi-level marketing, I discovered I was not the first person to figure this out, but, um. As I began to dig in it into it more and more, and I began to say, yes, in fact, these two things are the same. And I did ask multi-level marketers and I asked [00:16:00] cult experts, if you had to do create a Venn diagram of an MLM and a cult, what would it be? And they all said, it’s a circle. It is absolutely a circle.

They’re exactly the same thing. So then I began to think, okay, can we begin to think of this bigger, broader? I, I mean, I’ve been studying brand cults. Since the early two thousands. And so if we can think about MLMs as sort of the end of the spectrum, is there another side of the spectrum and what engulfs all of this? And so as I began to pull it out and began to think about it, I created this thing called the cult marketing Continuum. And the left side of the continuum is brand cults. And so that can be things that a lot of people can think of, even think of, of Apple or Harley Davidson or Oprah and those, those brands and brand cults have been around for a long time. But what we’ve seen, particularly with the expansion of digital technology is the expansion in the number of things that we consider to be brand [00:17:00] cults. Some of them are fairly innocuous. They’re not gonna hurt you if you’re part of this particular brand cult, but some can get to be fairly dangerous. The next part of this process I call, um, influencers, who I call cult light. ’cause there’s influencers that people, you know, develop followers, right? They have followers who believe in what they have to say, but most of them aren’t necessarily selling you anything that’s going to be dangerous. Where it begins to get dangerous are influencers who become conspiracy theorists. And this is where I begin to talk about cons, spirituality. And we particularly saw this during COVID where. Yoga instructors and people involved in the new age began to talk about your body as a temple and therefore, uh, we should be thinking about what we’re putting into our bodies. And that suddenly rolled into being anti-vaxxers, which is a whole another story. And then the last part of the continuum is multi-level marketing, which is [00:18:00] what I call the canary in the coal mine when it comes to understanding the, the full immersion of marketing. And cult. And as you move from one part of the continuum to the other, I’m not suggesting that you necessarily move from one to the other to the other, but what you can do is begin to see the patterns that exist from one to the next, to the next to the next. What also happens is it becomes more extreme as you move from brand cults to multi-level marketing. You also have, um. Increase in anxiety. And so one of the key things that I argue in Hoodwinked is it’s not that we live in an attention economy. It’s not enough that somebody gets us to have our phone in front of us all the time. It’s that we are so anxious that we have have it in front of us, and then we need to do something to relieve the stress because we have it in front of us all the time. And so that’s either to continue to doom scroll, which keeps us connected, which keeps us seeing more advertising and don’t ever [00:19:00] forget, this is all in the service of advertising or we release it by shopping.

Joel Benge: Yeah, there’s a, the, the, the FOMO is definitely real and the, the dopamine, dopamine hits. I, I’ve got a 15-year-old, hmm. uh. Have been very good about keeping his, his algorithm pretty clean and monitoring his YouTube and where he is going. And, uh, he’s a little, he’s even sometimes said, you know what? I kind of feel like sometimes the feed is, is I, he’s very self-aware and when he’s, when he notices something, I’m like, well, it’s probably a little bit late.

You probably need to do some self-reflection. And I, and I think that’s kind of the, the power of, of what you’re doing and the education that you’re providing is one, you’re helping people recognize those patterns, inoculate themselves against it somewhat. Um, but I’m. Sure. You also get a lot of marketers, a lot of people coming to you and saying, how do we wield these powers for good, 

Mara Einstein: Yeah. Yeah, [00:20:00] yeah. 

Joel Benge: is that, is that possible? I mean, I, I talk a lot I about psychology and leveraging the caveman brain to get people’s attention. Um, not to, not to take advantage of, but, uh, that’s our jobs as marketers is, hey, you gotta get the eyes on first. Um, but where, where? Does a, a well-meaning marketer or even just a, a, a business owner who wants to learn how to be a good marketer, how do they prevent themselves from, uh, from creating 

Mara Einstein: From, from going, going 

Joel Benge: over their SaaS platform?

Yeah.

Mara Einstein: going down the cult rabbit hole as it were. Um, I, you know, there’s, I have a couple of thoughts about that. I’ve been thinking recently. ’cause I, I posted something on TikTok about how marketers have lost the plot. And what I mean by that is. Particularly with the recent situation where E.L.F. Cosmetics and, um, American [00:21:00] Eagle have done things from a marketing perspective that really ticked off their consumers. And what they did is they said, we are going to create this content and we know it’s gonna piss people off. And that’s really okay because ultimately it’s gonna get eyeballs on our brand and that’s fine. And, and it’ll lead to more sales and all of this kind of stuff. Okay, great. Whatever. That’s missing the point. And what, and this is what I mean by them losing the plot, which is getting eyeballs on your content works for influencers. And that’s part of the incentive system for influencers. They make money by getting more people to engage with their content. And, and the more views it gets, the more engagement it gets, the more money they can make from the platforms. The same is not true for advertisers because what you’re doing is you’re creating content that is rage bait, that’s getting people mad. That’s getting people mad at your [00:22:00] brand.

Joel Benge: Yeah.

Mara Einstein: Like, who would ever do that? I, I, I, I mean, it just blows my mind utterly. As, as you know, I’ve been called an old time marketer, and I wear that tag with pride. Um, because when it comes to the fundamentals of marketing, you still have to do the basics. Who am I talking to? What are their wants and needs? How can I best deliver on those wants and needs? And how do I com communicate a message that allows them to learn about my product and therefore like gets them to engage with it and hopefully like it, and then tell their friends about it.

That’s the goal. That’s what it always was. That’s what it always will be. And I find this really also really interesting when it comes to ai and this maybe you’ll nerd out on this a bit more than, than I will. Is AI is a product without a want or need associated with it. Nobody’s looking to use AI. It is a product [00:23:00] that’s looking for a reason to exist. And so another conversation.

But anyway, so, but, um, but in terms of, of cult, cult and cult tactics in terms of targeting the vulnerable. Advertising and marketing has done that since the beginning of time. Right. Um, no advertising will tell you you are perfect just the way you are, because if I tell you you’re perfect just the way you are, you will never buy my product.

You will never, ever, ever, ever try it. So, so there’s a little bit of that that’s already going on. The difference is, is you don’t need to be deceptive with your consumer. In order to get them to engage, what you need to do is find out what their wants and needs are and super serve that consumer. That’s your job. Now, part of super serving them may be to create a community, and certainly that’s something that people are looking for [00:24:00] now in a way that they haven’t before, and brands can be good at this. Before there were brand cults, there were brand communities. It’s just that the digital space, you know, sort of as the digital spaces want to do, you know, gins, everything up on steroids, and all of a sudden it was like, no, you, you know, you can’t just be a community.

You have to be a cult, but you can be a community. You can create community. For the people who engage with your products, the key issue is to not make it so important that they think that your brand is the be all and all to everything in their life. ’cause it’s not. Um, and to make sure that, that the structure stays flat, right?

That there doesn’t end up being a leader, um, who, who people fundamentally look up to, who they think is gonna answer all of life’s problems. That’s when you start to get into problems.

Joel Benge: I feel like it’s the, the, the turning up of the temperature. Like back back to E.L.F. and American Eagle. Um, some of [00:25:00] the, the reading that I did on that was the agencies behind that was not a 

Mara Einstein: Agency. It was the same agent. It was the

same agency Yeah. 

Joel Benge: it was a PR firm,

pr PR primarily that was trying to step into creative work.

And I think the, like as you said, the, the plot and the goals are completely different between PR is get, get people looking and talking to me. And brand is about building long lasting trust and brand equity.

Um, and so, so that’s. I hope we see people coming back to it. I hope, I hope,

um, we touch the stove a little bit in the, in the industry and people are pulling back, but there’s a lot of consolidation, um, of these larger companies.

And so you do have the, uh, you know, well, I, we’re a PR firm. We’ve purchased a little marketing company, but we’re gonna run them like a PR company. Um.

Mara Einstein: I think, you know, I, it reminds me of when I used to work in advertising and, and we would be creating an ad [00:26:00] and we’d produce the same thing we’ve been saying over and over and over again. We’re like, oh gosh, do we have to say this again? And it’s like, you’re gonna get that what we will always said, you are gonna get tired of it before your consumer gets tired of it. And I think That’s one of the things that’s really missing in the marketing world right now is to realize that you can keep saying the same thing over and over again. There is no need to recreate the wheel every time you post something onto social media.

And social media isn’t the only space you need to be and people are getting tired of it. There’s this new idea of Post Zero and and I think that’s really gonna come into play more now as. TikTok starts to become whatever it’s going to be, which is people. May not be on TikTok. And TikTok had initially this feeling of being a little dirty, a little grungy.

You could just like get on and post something and it would be great, but it’s become more [00:27:00] professionalized and it’s starting to feel a bit more like YouTube and people are feeling like, you know what? If I can’t compete at that level, I don’t want to. And so they’re deciding not not to do that and finding community in other places.

Joel Benge: Yeah, TikTok started very intimately and it was, it was trading videos between friends and then obviously platforms do what platforms are gonna do. And it became, you know, a a, a media channel. Um, which is, which is interesting because now that we’re seeing the fracturing of a lot of these digital channels, you know, people of.

Mass Exodus from, from uh, Twitter slash X people are going over to BlueSky. It’s becoming a little bit of an echo chamber. I’m on Mastodon, you know, 

Mara Einstein: Mm-hmm. 

Joel Benge: I’m a nerd. So I like the little, the Fediverse we’re, we’re fracturing the Internet’s refracturing, I think. Um. Finding community is gonna be even harder, especially as people start to say, all right, well [00:28:00] do it on my platform.

Do you have to do it on my website? You know, we’re getting back into these walled gardens. Um, are you concerned about the. About more brands becoming cult-like or more opportunities for people to fall into these cults that are kind of in the, in the, the shadows. We don’t the Dark Web. As a cybersecurity guy, I tell people, I said The Dark Net is not what you need to be worried about.

It’s Discord, it’s um, it’s forums and they’re all in the clear.

Mara Einstein: Yeah. Yeah. Um, a couple of, couple of thoughts about cults. Um, like I said, when we’re talking about brand cults, if people are aware that they’re engaging with a brand, uh, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that is detrimental to them. The other part of it is that there’s a advertising agency called Strawberry Frog, and they talk about movements versus cults. And their [00:29:00] whole idea is that you can allow people to engage in ways that they wouldn’t be able to do on their own, but are able to do so through a brand. And so one of the examples when I was talking to, to someone from there, from, for my podcast was they were talking about this new, um, credit union. It was a female led credit union, and obviously that’s something that needs a community in order to be able to work. And so they were creating the brand around the community.

So there are places where you can do this. Can you do this for everything? No. But you’re, you know, who wants to create a brand cult around toothpaste? I mean, there’s no, there’s no point in doing that.

Joel Benge: Well, you know, I, I’m on that Quip subscription and I can’t quit Right. ’cause, and, and that sounds like it’s more, instead of a movement, it sounds more, or instead of a, a cult movement sounds more like a fandom. can, I can belong to many of them. Neither one of them is, is totally [00:30:00] exclusive. And, and I feel free to say, all right, I’m, I’m over here with this group.

And, and then when I’m looking for, you know, my jeans or whatever, I’m, I’m over here in this group,

um, which. As I think about my experience in cybersecurity, we had the kind of the, the platformization and then the opening up where well use the tool that works for you. We just need a way for them all to work together as a, as a common purpose.

Um, which gets kind of circular back to that, you know, what matters. Is it still important for brands to take a stand?

At a higher level as opposed to we’re fixing your problem, but maybe the way we’re fixing it is, is more important. Are we getting to the point where we are gonna have to have, uh, as business owners or marketers, uh, we’re gonna have to take a stand at, at a, at a higher stakes, I might say.

Mara Einstein: [00:31:00] Yeah, boy, you’re really good at tapping into all of my books, aren’t you? Um, so many, many, many years ago, I wrote a book called Compassion Inc. And it’s all about cause marketing, corporate, social responsibility. And more recently I do work in sort of purpose marketing slash purpose washing. And, and even now, people quote me because of that book, because marketers still don’t get this stuff right. Um. At the same point, consumers are looking for brands to be embedded with values because we have turned to brands as ident for identity creation. And so, you know, while we may or may not be connected to the church we grew up in, or we’re. Probably are not gonna have the same job for our entire adult life. We look for other places for PE, things to help, to define us, and one of the examples that I love to give when I talk about this is, is, is I talk about Tesla and I talk [00:32:00] about Tesla not so much because it’s what people want to be connected to anymore. Some people do, but some people don’t. But there was a period a couple of months ago when people started taking the brand off their Tesla, or they started hiding it because they didn’t want people to think that they were connected to that brand. And I think that that’s a really powerful statement to say, you know, the car that we drive, the computer that we use, the earbuds we have, um, on our heads, right, the pocketbooks, we have the Labubus that are hanging off, uh, of our, of our pocketbooks. All of those things are about telling other people about who we are and what we believe in and what we value. And so that’s, that’s the value of a brand and that’s why brands really do still need to be saying who I am, but because remember what a brand is. A brand is the logo [00:33:00] a tagline if it has one, but usually they don’t have one anymore. But it’s the mythology behind the brand. What is the story that people think of when they see that logo, when they see the Nike Swoosh? What is the story that comes to mind? And that’s why that iconography exists. It’s not, so you could just see the logo, it’s so you can see the logo and immediately have an understanding of what that brand is and what they mean. And so for, you know, for a lot of people what that brand means is the best of athleticism, right?

’cause they automatically think of Michael Jordan and, and sneakers and, and all of that. And until recently, Disney was magic. Um. Though now it’s kind of cancellation, I

guess, um, caving. Right? But then, then brand work needs to be done to, to fix that, to, you know, get people to believe that you really are what you say you are.

Joel Benge: So what is the, the type of brand work that that needs to be done for? Tesla is a, is a [00:34:00] phenomenal example because when the Tesla brand, not the the CEO’s brand, but the Tesla’s brand was built on, um, being new. take, taking a stand on climate,

doing things. I mean, they were, they were still a tech brand.

They were cutting corners. I mean, we know they had, uh, um, quality issues, but they were very much in the, you want this car because we’re the ones who are gonna be building the future.

And then we’ve, you know, not to get crazy political, but we’ve had a lot of high profile, um, cult-like leader. Activity 

Mara Einstein: Yeah. Yeah. 

Joel Benge: has damaged the brand to the point, like you said, people de badging their Teslas.

I spent last week in Houston with a client and uh, my friend who’s working there, uh, had his brand new. Now it’s Texas. I was very surprised to see this in, in Texas has brand new red, um, the latest in hardware and everything. And I’m sitting in [00:35:00] this and going, man, this thing is so great. It really is an a, a phenomenal piece of machinery.

You know, I could never drive it. My heart would never be in it, and I’m the type of person when I buy a car, I’m like, who do I want to be for the next four or five years? 

Mara Einstein: Right, right, right, 

Joel Benge: What happens to people when they’re in either a cult or they’re in, um, that cult like relationship with a brand and the script gets flipped on them?

How do people react to that?

Mara Einstein: Um, it, it’s a real specific things that happens, but it happens. It’s a, it’s a slow process to get into a cult. But it’s also a slow process to get out of a cult. And I think that’s also something that people don’t necessarily think about very often, which is, you know, there’s this perception that people who get pulled into a cult are, are somehow less educated.

And, you know, I, I’m too smart. I, I would never get pulled into one of those. And the fact of the matter is, we all, we all could at some point in our lives, get pulled into a cult. And the way that [00:36:00] people get out of a cult is through these continual situations of cognitive dissonance where suddenly engaging with that brand and what that brand stands for doesn’t make sense to you anymore. Um, you know, driving the Tesla House seems pretty cool. Saving me money. I’ve already paid the money. I’m not giving any money to, you know, to, to the dude anymore. I’ve already paid the car off. Right? All this kind of stuff. But then I can also get to a point where, you know, you know, people might start attacking me ’cause I’m driving this car.

Right? And so what happens is, is the, the. This isn’t agreeing with my belief system anymore. And people in this space talk about books on the shelf. So as you pile more and more of that cognitive dissonance, each excuse to yourself as to why you should continue driving this car, or being part of a cult or buying a brand or not leaving an exercise [00:37:00] program that is making you sick, gets to a point where eventually the one last piece of information breaks the shelf and you say, okay, I can’t. I, I, I, I can’t just, I can’t justify this to myself anymore. And then you have to go. And so some of that, um, you know what happens with that though too, is there’s a tremendous amount of shame. Because remember we talked about people joining cults where you’ve broken away from everybody else, anybody who would tell you that what you were doing is wrong.

You’ve separated yourself from them. And so you need to then go back to these people who were your friends and your family and say, you know what? I was wrong. I was wrong. And that’s, that can be very shameful for a lot of people.

Joel Benge: So there’s a lot of weighing between the, the, the pain, uh, and the shame of doing that and the work of, uh, carrying the, the cognitive dissonance and the, the inconsistencies and, and. It just gets to a tipping point. That’s [00:38:00] fascinating.

Mara Einstein: Exactly right.

Joel Benge: One of the exercises I do with my clients is, again, talking about the fundamentals.

Like let’s figure out what your, your first principles messages are so that you, you have something to point to so that you don’t. You don’t start going off the rails or confusing the marketplace. Um, and that’s very hard, I think for smart people because we feel like, uh, well I know it, I can just shoot from the hip.

Mara Einstein: Mm. 

Joel Benge: to do the work to, to understand like, are is, is what I thought I was getting into. Are we still there? Is this, you know, I, I see this especially as, uh, brands go through M and A and they start bolting on, and now what was a very targeted, uh, product or a platform is now, you know, a grab bag of, of uh, um.

Capabilities and the marketplace is like, I don’t even know you anymore. Like 

Mara Einstein: Yeah. Yeah. 

Joel Benge: you’ve gotten, you’ve gotten too big. Um, 

Mara Einstein: But can a brand [00:39:00] talk about itself in one word? I mean, the best brands can,

Joel Benge: yeah.

Mara Einstein: right? Volvo is safety no matter what you do that, you know, it is what you’re talking about in terms of first principles, right? Volvo is safety. Disney has been magic, right? Um. Um, I’m trying to think of,

think of, of something of Nike, uh, athleticism, right?

Whatever it is. But if you can get it down to a single word, then you constantly can go back to that and say, okay, is everything that I’m doing as a marketer relate to that one thing that I am supposed to be to my consumer? And if you’re not delivering on that, then, then you’ve walked away from your first principles.

Joel Benge: Yeah, I’m, I’m glad you brought that up because I would love to take you through my, uh, through one of my card exercises. I warned you this was coming. Um,

Mara Einstein: I’m scared, but okay.

Joel Benge: so, so just as by way, by way of reminder to, uh, um, to you and to the, the, the, the people who might not have seen me do this before. Very [00:40:00] simple, uh, process.

I help people figure out the difference between making ’em like you understand you and trust you. So, heart, head, and gut stealing that from Aristotle. I don’t, I don’t lay any claim to that, although I did come up with the cheeseburger logo. Um, and then what we’ll do is we will balance that by stepping through different levels of messaging.

I’m just gonna give you one prompt from the top to the bottom. Um, going from a high emotion. Low density thought like that one word or that one phrase, uh, down to, we might get into the technical details. That’s not super germane to, to our conversation now. So, um,

Mara Einstein: Okay, but let me say, as long as you showed me a pyramid, what we didn’t talk about is that we went through all of the steps of, um, cult didn’t talk about the fact that the same steps of a cult, if anybody’s listening, who’s a marketer, should have figured out that that’s the marketing funnel.

Joel Benge: that’s the marketing funnel. Absolutely.

Mara Einstein: It is the, it is step by step, the market, the marketing funnel.

Joel Benge: That’s what I, that’s what I tell people who are non marketers. I’m like, you don’t have to know [00:41:00] everything. If you can just flip this this way, get their attention and make ’em like you give them enough information to get the next meeting and build enough credibility to make the sale.

That’s, that’s marketing.

Um, everything else is just a framework. Some consultant is trying to tell you. Cards are available on my website. Okay. Um. So we’ll just the answer from, from your perspective as, you know, your, um, uh, uh, your service and, and what you’re doing, um, just easier that way. So from a Big Idea perspective, what market paradigm have you broken or are you breaking?

I’ll check my 

Mara Einstein: Oh, 

Joel Benge: here.

Mara Einstein: um. I would say I am telling the average consumer how marketing actually works, and it’s what’s really interesting to me is, and what makes it, what makes it hard for me to do what I do is until people start to listen to the [00:42:00] work that I do or read my books or, or hear me speak. It’s the old frog in the, in the pond kind of idea.

We are so immersed in marketing that everybody thinks they know it. Um, it, I had somebody on my podcast who, who is, um, a religion scholar and I said, everybody’s had, or most people have had some kind of interaction with religion. So they all think they know what religion is, but tell us what it is. Well, it’s the same thing with me with marketing.

If I actually say to people, okay, this is what marketers do. They’re looking for, they’re looking for your pain point so they can push on it. They wanna find out how you think and feel so they can create a message to that’s gonna lead you to tie into it. They are looking for, uh, they’re using sensory marketing so they know that you’re olfactory sense is one of the strongest methods that they can use.

To get you to connect their brand to some other time in your life where you thought everything was [00:43:00] wonderful, and that is a way for them to circumvent your brain in order to get you to like their product. And then people are like, no, they’re not doing that. I’m like, oh, yes, they are.

Joel Benge: Yeah. Yeah, just think, just think about, I worked at a coffee shop in, in the mall in the nineties, pre Starbucks, and it was like that, that. Waft of coffee, that that was a new thing that we hadn’t had in a retail space and it was so powerful. Um. I love that part of your book where you talk about the using the senses to circumvent and, and, and go do an end run around our, our new brain and the caveman brain is, uh, is one of my favorite subjects.

Um, so the next level down is the stories. And the way I talk about stories are these are how we connect, um, to the experience of our audience. So it’s not just the, it’s not just Joseph Campbell. Um, but in this one I will ask you about a villain. Put a name on. My auto focus is just not working. There we go.

Put a [00:44:00] name to the industry bad guy that nobody’s talking about.

Mara Einstein: hmm. That no one’s talking about.

Joel Benge: ‘ Cause if you can name it, you can slay it.

Mara Einstein: Wow. The, the industry bad guy. You’re, you’re gonna

cut this so I could give me time to think.

 Um, 

Joel Benge: I’ll make you look smart. Yeah.

Mara Einstein: okay. Thank you. I think there’s so many of them. That’s the problem

 is that going back to this idea of brand cults. Brand cults have become the North Star. For brands. And the reason why is they don’t know if you’re ever gonna see another ad again.

Because we have done everything that we can to avoid engaging with marketing messages. And so brand after brand after brand has come up with ways to hide the message. It’s like, it’s like hiding the egg, right? And so whether it’s, um. [00:45:00] I could name ’em all, but like the first one that comes to mind is Mark Zuckerberg. Right? He tried to, um, this, the creation of Facebook, right? In and of itself, he called it a community. You can’t have a community with 3 billion people in it. That’s not a community. That’s the world,

right? You didn’t call the people that you were engaging with your comrades or your pal. You call them friends.

So suddenly it changed our idea of what a friend was, right? It’s not the person that I get to talk to who sits across from me and shares my every hope and wish and dream, and is with me. When something good or something bad happens in my life, it’s somebody I can engage with through a screen.

So now we’re friends. The share button. It’s not, I’m giving you an ad that somebody sent to me, and so now I’m sharing, um, now I’m passing it on to you. Right? I’m giving you a gift. So he has fundamentally changed our [00:46:00] ideas of what these words are in our vocabulary that we use all the time. And so it started there. And then when it comes to talking about hiding the. Information. Now, partially Mark Zuckerberg, but I will also put this on, um, uh, the, the guy who found Buzzfeed was the one who started doing native advertising and native advertising are the ads that appear in your feed that don’t look like that look like everything else in your feed. They’re ads that are indigenous to the site within which they appear. And so the whole point of Buzzfeed was not to be a news site, it was to be a marketing site.

And if you went on to Hoovers, right, which is the company that. Wall Street uses to find out about companies to invest in, and so on and

so forth. It’s not listed as a news site. It’s listed as an advertising agency,

Joel Benge: [00:47:00] so platform is turned into advertising and that, I think like that may be the villain. It is just, it is. Ad tech Yeah. Yeah. everything.

Mara Einstein: Well, the other part, the other part of it’s too, and one of the other conclusions that I come to in the book is, is the ultimate cult, is the technology itself.

Joel Benge: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, next level down. Now when I talk about a value, it’s not your mission, vision, values. I used to work in the government. I think all that stuff’s bullshit. Um, and, and by the way, Guy Kawasaki agrees with me. We’ve had this Uhhuh, okay. Um, but from a value exchange, a value proposition, what do you think is the biggest need?

That consumers have, that you can, you can satisfy what’s their, the big, the big one?

Mara Einstein: The way that I like to describe it is giving them agency within the consumer marketplace, because I think there’s so many people who feel like they have no power anymore, right? I’m being bombarded all the time with all of [00:48:00] these marketing messages.

I can’t get away from them. TikTok made me buy it. TikTok didn’t make you buy it. I got news for

you. TikTok didn’t make you buy it. And one of the ways that we know that is that, you know, you and I have been around for, for a while, and we used to talk about effective frequency and effective fre effective frequency was three times, right?

People needed to see your message three times. Now it’s seven to 13 times. So by the time you saw it on TikTok, you’ve probably seen it 12, 12 times before. Then

it’s just that it finally kicked in by the time you saw it on TikTok. So you’ve bought into this idea that they sold it to you. That didn’t happen.

What’s also gratifying for me is I’m starting to get messages from people that say, I’m starting to see the patterns. I’m seeing the patterns. You saved me 6,000 bucks.

Wow. Yeah. Give, giving them agency back. I’d almost say that, that that’s, that’s your superpower. Mm. you’re, if you’re, if you’re pushing back against the, um, the ad agencies, doing is you’re returning agencies. To the hands of [00:49:00] the, of the consumer. And so that’s a little exercise I take people through is kinda like, all right, who’s your villain?

Who’s your superpower?

I’ll think, I’m gonna think about that some more. Again though, I mean, I like the ex, I like the exercise and, and there’s certainly enough villains in the place, but I think I would also like to think about it more. To think about, you know, is there ano there, is there a villain that I should be pushing on a little bit more? 

Joel Benge: if you can point it out, call it out. In cybersecurity, I say we’re all copying each other’s homework.

The, all the, all the ads, all the creative looks and sounds and smells the same, like stop copying each other’s homework. And that pissed off some people on LinkedIn a couple years ago.

Mara Einstein: Genius Genius Steals. It’s the name of an agency. 

Joel Benge: From a Mantra perspective, what do you think is a phrase that you find yourself repeating often? And then can you marry that up with a phrase that you hear from consumers or customers often? Like the, the coded language that, that we use, uh, as cultural hallmarks. Um, is there something, did [00:50:00] you hear somebody say and you’re like, they’re just like me.

We can connect on this ’cause they get 

Mara Einstein: Yeah. 

Joel Benge: my quirkiness or whatever. These

Mara Einstein: Um,

Joel Benge: are hard to come up with.

Mara Einstein: yeah. Um hmm. Trying to think. Um, you also have to realize that, that I, I did an entire podcast in the month of September, so I’ve been talking to

Joel Benge: I, I cannot wait for it to launch. And yeah, we’ll definitely, we’ll definitely link to it. We can come back to that. This, this is the card I usually give to people as homework. I say now that you’re, keep your ears open for that phrase that you’re always repeating. ’cause quite often those become your best tagline.

Strap line. They come from your culture. Um, last one. I won’t go into the, the, the, the technical stuff ’cause it’s really, these cards are written more towards, um, uh, technology companies. But from a, from a Proof Point, a third party statistic or trend. That [00:51:00] supports your case. So what are, what are researchers saying about where we are?

Mara Einstein: I, um, I wouldn’t frame it as researchers so much as, because when I’m, excuse me, when I’m thinking researchers, I’m, I’m thinking, um. More quantitative people. But I would say generally, in terms of, um, sociologists and, and, and just looking at society more broadly, what we know right now is that people are. There’s, uh, an epidemic of loneliness right now that is not going to be served by technology. Um, there are more people who are losing their jobs and looking for more ways to make money. People are looking for ways to connect with, um, with other people. Um, I recently read a book called The Wrong Way Home. Which is a book that is about cults that, that I, I didn’t talk about in [00:52:00] my book. Um, it was written by a psychiatrist and a psychiatry professor named

Arthur Deikman, and he was looking at cults right after Waco. Right. So it was terrible tragedy that had happened. And he talks about. Americans are, you know, adults broadly wanting to feel like kids in the backseat. They wanna feel like someone else has taken the wheel. And I think what I would add to that is this idea of infantilization. There are so many things in our culture, in our society that are pushing us not to grow up. I don’t think, you know, people of my generation, we’ve had to because our parents have died and all of that.

And so, uh, my mother’s still alive. Mom, no, no fault there. Um, but, uh, I don’t, I don’t wanna get you there where, into a place before you get there, but, um. But I see it in my students. Um, I, I really see it in my students who are Gen [00:53:00] Z. I mean, they’re in their twenties. When I was in my twenties, I was living, I, I didn’t have a mortgage.

I was living with four other people. So I mean, in a, a small apartment in New York City, but I was living by myself. I was having to pay my rent. Nobody was helping me do it. Right. I don’t see my students doing that. The same age that, that I was doing that. And so there’s this sense of not wanting to grow up, to feel like somebody else is taking the reins and, and it. For some people it may be Jesus is my wingman, but for, for most folks it’s, it’s looking to anybody who will tell them, don’t worry, we will take care of you. Which is the cult mindset, which is what opens you up, up for the cult mindset. But the other thing that he talks about, which is really important, and the thing that I’ve really been focusing on most recently, is this idea of meeting people face to face. We cannot understand what another person is going through unless we talk to them. We don’t have [00:54:00] to agree with them, but let’s have a situation where we can listen to them and find out why they came to the decisions that they came to. And one of the exercises that I used to give my students, and I think I have to find a way to get them to do this again, is I tell them to create a fake Gmail account. And to go onto what was then Twitter, but is now X and start following people you would never follow. Not in a million years, make up a fake bio, but, but you know, start following people. Use a fake Gmail account so you keep yourself safe, but start listening to those conversations. Engage if you feel comfortable enough to do that. Almost to a one. What they all said was, I get it. Now I understand why they are coming to the conclusions that they’re getting coming to. Not that they would do the same thing, but that they understood why they made the [00:55:00] decisions that they did. 

And I think that’s something we don’t do enough of.

Joel Benge: Wow. That’s very powerful. Yeah. And. Taking on, uh, putting in, uh, yourself in other people’s shoes is absolutely not something that a lot of people do, especially smart people,

Mara Einstein: Mm-hmm. 

Joel Benge: think we’ve got the curse of knowledge. We think we know it all.

Um, as we, as we wrap up, and I thank you so much for, for your sharing and, and your time.

I want to, I’m gonna include a link to, um, the books, the podcast. You’ve mentioned a couple other people, uh, in their books. I’ll, I’ll include that. Are there any other references or things that you have found useful? Um, that, that I can include as a sort of a, a homework or resources cheat sheet on the end of the, uh, uh, the episode guide.

Mara Einstein: Mm. One of the things that I’ve been doing actually on my website, so rather than me listing them all for you, is it’s sort of, um, on a monthly basis I’m providing books to read and podcasts to engage with on different [00:56:00] topics based on the areas that I, that I do research in. So, um, multi-level marketing. Purpose washing or purpose marketing, um, cults, um, higher education. Um, those are all areas with that I, uh, I work in. And so I, there’s, if you go to my website, you will find pages where I actually list a whole, um, panoply of books. Books and uh, and documentaries and things that you can engage with on those topics.

Joel Benge: Oh, perfect. I will, I will definitely link into those so that people can find those, uh, your website, um, drmaraeinstein.com/. I’ll include that there. Um, you got this podcast that’s launching. Um, I’m, I’m hoping that I get this episode out before you, you’re too far into your podcast, but abs, but everybody’s, everybody should definitely go and, and listen.

Um, just thank you so much for, for joining and, and sharing with us. 

Mara Einstein: I’m so glad you found me.

Joel Benge: Well, it was tikTok made me conne [00:57:00] contact 

Mara Einstein: you, go. There you go. One last piece of advice, um, if it sounds too good, it probably is.

Joel Benge: That’s right. Yep. The, the Princess Bride. If, if anyone tells you life is in pain, they’re selling something, I mean, you go.

Thank you so much for joining me today. This has been phenomenal. I cannot wait to finish the book and then read all the other ones.

Mara Einstein: Oh, thank you so much.