Zombification and Marketing

Some notes from a conversation that started in an unlikely place, but led me to a more pedestrian topic: we were talking about zombies, then took a left turn to marketing, then turned to culture. Not sure if it's useful, but it's stuck in my head and I need to get it out:

The conversation began out in left field: the current popularity of the zombie theme in current entertainment (particularly, the upcoming second season of "The Walking Dead," a television series on the subject). What makes it so popular?

Aside of an engaging story, a genre of fiction becomes popular because it speaks to the underlying concerns of a society: Aside of the gore factor, the action potential, and the clear motivation of the characters that drive the plot of a story that holds our interest for the duration of a film, there is a much deeper and more persistent horror at the underlying concerns.

That is to say that what scares us most, what persists in our minds as an ongoing sense of dread, is the fear of the loss of our individuality in the modern world. We perceive the mass of humanity around us as a horde of mindless zombies, whose sole intent is to eat our brains and turn us into one of them. And that's deeply disturbing, in a way that won't quite sort itself out in the plot of a film.

And here, the conversation turned to marketing, the sense that there are companies that seek to profit by erasing the individuality of consumers, to pull their strings and subvert their intelligent and turn them into a mass of creatures whose sole motivation is consumption. But I don't think that's quite right ...

In some of the films of the genre, there is a focus on the creation story - the explanation of how the zombies came to exist - that generally gets back to a corporation (these being the kings and wizards of the modern age, it's as normal for current entertainment to glorify or demonize them as it was for Shakespeare to write about the ruling class of his time). But this is very seldom the focus of the story, or the element that carries the sense of horror and loathing throughout much of the film. The creation of the zombie is just a device, a back-story, and the horrific element is the mass of zombies themselves.

And this is where the conversation turns to culture: the threat to intelligence and individuality is not the zombie-makers, but the zombies themselves - the way that other people are constantly attempting to drag you down, eat your brains, and make you into one of them. It's base and loathsome behavior, but it seems to be an omnipresent force in contemporary culture that attempts to overwhelm and smother the individual characteristics of a person and make them conform, join the horde, become another zombie like the rest.

You can witness it in any elementary school: where the child who wears the wrong brand of jacket is taunted, teased, bullied, and threatened by his peers until he conforms to the preferences of the majority. You can witness it in the workplace, where sycophants and cronies are on the fast-track to promotion, and the higher-ups give preferential treatment to others who are "like" themselves while anyone who behaves differently, abnormally, and individually, is stuck in a dead-end job until there's a convenient excuse to get rid of them. You can witness it on any street: watch what happens when a person lights a cigarette, and is approached by complete strangers who are upset by the fact that he is behaving differently to themselves, and who use the same tactics as schoolchildren to compel him to conform to the majority beliefs and behaviors.

Switch back to the marketing channel: is this not the exact tactic, and the exact hope, of marketers, especially in the social media? The marketers seek to get a few key people to adopt their brand, in hopes that they will help to spread it to others - in much the same way as the evil corporations and mad scientists of the zombie genre infect a few subjects and turn them loose on the population to spread their disease. The very use of the phrase "viral marketing" is an explicit acknowledgement of this unsavory fact.

That is, if you "infect" the ten most popular kids at any high school by giving them your brand of jacket, your hope is for the infection to spread - first by a few individuals who want to imitate the trend-setters, but ultimately to the point where any kid that doesn't wear your brand is beset by his peers, ridiculed or bullied, until he capitulates and joins the mindless horde. You can wrap it up in whatever euphemisms you prefer, but this is essentially the tactic and practice of social marketing, online or otherwise.

So in the end, it's not just the zombie-makers, but the legion of zombies they have created that makes marketing successful - in getting people to ignore their own tastes and preferences, subvert their intelligence and individuality, and go along with the crowd.

Granted, all of this casts the practice in the negative view - you could as well claim that the practice is "enlightening" a few individuals, who teach others about the features and benefits of your brand, and "convince" them that they would benefit as well, and that instead of making zombies, they are creating enlightened citizens.

Disease and ideas seem to follow the same vectors, and whether a given product is good or bad for the consumers is a matter of some conjecture. The point to this ramble, if I can claim to have made one, is merely to consider the similarities and pause, if only for a moment, to consider the abject horror of it all.