The Sales Job

Note: Last week a friend of ours, Jeff Winston, passed away leaving behind a young wife and a baby daughter. Jeff was the founder of White Art Collective, a group of musicians and artist who collaborated on artistic endeavors. A fund has been set up to help Jeff’s wife and daughter. There is no excuse for not hitting the goal this week, so please kick in a few bucks to the effort.


In the business world, it is rare to encounter anyone who is skeptical about marketing as a general concept. These people do exist, mostly in the accounting department or in the technical support areas of accounting. They have some sense of the real economic benefit of marketing campaigns, so they tend to be a bit more skeptical of the claims, but they have little say in the matter. The boys and girls in the C-suites are all sure marketing is the key to success.

This is why history books are full of bad ad campaigns. Even the dumbest ideas will win over some people, because it is assumed that all attention is good attention, so even a terrible ad can work. It is also why you rarely see marketing people get sacked for terrible ideas. The one notable exception are the white people who run afoul of the morality police. Put one picture of Hitler on your gigantic scoreboard and you will be fired before the game is finished.

A good recent example is the Bud Light controversy. It should have been obvious that hiring a pervert to sell working class beer was a bad idea. The customers for Bud Light are working men who want cheap beer. These are not the sort of people who squeal with excitement over the latest bourgeois decadence. Sure, the friends, colleagues and superiors of the horse-faced woman who cooked up the idea thought it was marvelous, but they would not be caught dead drinking Bud Light.

It took the executives of that beer company weeks to figure out that they had a serious crisis on their hands, primarily because they have been conditioned to think that anything that gets attention is good marketing. It never occurred to them that their customers would not want to be associated with a pervert. Instead, they were caught up in the excitement of having “gone viral.” It was only after the mockery reached the clouds that they fired the people responsible.

The truth of it is, most of what passes for marketing is nonsense. There is little empirical evidence to suggest it boosts sales. If Coca-Cola stopped running television ads, would people stop buying their products? Clearly not as the brand is globally recognized to the point where it is a generic term like Kleenex or Zipper. Coca-Cola could discontinue all advertising for a year and not see a change in sales. In fact, that would be a great marketing idea and it would surely go viral!

The same sort of psychosis grips politics. It is assumed that the formula for success works backward in that you start with having gained power. If you have power, you can do what you want, but you first must get power. That means winning an election, so you have to focus on that project. In order to win the election, you need to get the votes and that means getting the attention of the voters. In order to do that you need to market your candidate to the rubes out in the hinterland.

This is why the Ron DeSantis campaign is now circling the drain. They assumed that they first needed to make him a household name, so they contracted those who claim to know how to do this. Those people then hired lots of “social media influencers” who would talk about Ron DeSantis as if he is their old pal. Never mind that many of them are weirdos and conmen. After all, any attention is good attention and these social misfits have proven to be great at getting attention on Twitter.

Hiring a gold-plated phony like Bill Mitchell sounded like a great idea because he supposedly has half a million followers. It should have taken them five minutes to see that the follower number is fake. His account gets less engagement than many abandoned accounts, but what he does get is usually mockery. Even among the hardest of hardcore Trump fans Bill Mitchell was a ridiculous person when he was pitching himself as super-MAGA man.

The same logic was behind hiring Mexican Bill Mitchell. You can easily imagine the conversation when they made this decision. “He was on Tucker so those mouth breathers will listen to him.” They never stopped to think that it would be rather obvious that his support was purchased. That and his influence with Trump supporters was contingent on his support for Trump and his last name. When he was MAGA, he was the “barrio Nazi” but with DeSantis he is just Pete.

Of course, all of this rested on an assumption that is probably false. That assumption is that Twitter has an impact on public opinion. For those on Twitter every day, it certainly feels like it is the public square. To those not on Twitter every day, the vast majority of people, it is like every other social media platform they ignore. There is a reason that conversations in the real world about Twitter tend to be derisive. Twitter is not reality, but an alternative reality with little impact on reality.

This is probably true of the internet as a whole. Those old enough to have been online before the mouse recognized this reality forty years ago. Going back and forth with strangers on Usenet was a fun diversion from reality. You and everyone else were playing a role in a simulated world. When your internet time was up, you went back to work and forgot about it. Then when you had free time, you would pick up that thread about who is really the Nazi in the debate.

Like marketing in the business world, social media has become an article of faith in politics that is never questioned. Of course, you have to have a social media presence and of course you need to hire social media strategists. Imagine a big company not having a marketing department! It is the same mentality in politics, and it rests on the same assumption which is probably not true. At the minimum, the truth of it is far more limited than everyone assumes.

In the end, reality matters. If you are selling station wagons just when Chrysler introduced the minivan, no amount of marketing is going to change the fact that the minivan was a better family vehicle. If you are selling Ron DeSantis in the age of Trump, no amount of social media influencing is going to change the fact that he is just another conventional politician in an unconventional age. The best marketing is a product that sells itself, whether it is cars or politicians.


If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!


Promotions: Good Svffer is an online retailer partnering with several prolific content creators on the Dissident Right, both designing and producing a variety of merchandise including shirts, posters, and books. If you are looking for a way to let the world know you are one of us without letting the world know you are one one is us, then you should but a shirt with the Lagos Trading Company logo.

The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory, so if you are a griller, take you spice business to one of our guys.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@mi*********************.com.


190 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
SouthPoll
SouthPoll
1 year ago

Off topic but I would like to know who was marketing the cheap station wagons in the 1980s.

Xman
Xman
Reply to  SouthPoll
1 year ago

Chrysler K car wagon, Ford escort

SouthPoll
SouthPoll
Reply to  Xman
1 year ago

Thank you, I am know little about cars of that vintage

Bilejones
Member
1 year ago

I’ve always thought VW had a claim for the first minivan with their Bus.

Hi-ya!
Hi-ya!
Member
1 year ago

Im not sure it follows that because some bad press was good for some businesses that it wouldn’t hurt others. I just dont think companies would spend so much on advertizing and have psychologists on staff at marketing firms if it didnt work. We can say to ourselves “advertising doesn’t work on me” but it must or these companies wouldn’t do it.

I think Guinness spent 20 million on a superbowl ad. I just dont see them spending so much if most people knew it may or may not work. Its subconcious. Like the antiwhite stuff on tv

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Hi-ya!
1 year ago

Corporations are no more expert at rational profit-seeking than governments are at preserving life, liberty, etc.

Neither is remotely “fit for purpose.”

Libertarianism is the mindkiller.

Geo. Orwell
Geo. Orwell
Reply to  Hi-ya!
1 year ago

Perhaps you misunderstand. Spending that kind of money on a Super Bowl ad can be compared to the reason Guinness’s parent conglomerate spends millions on a shiny corporate headquarters which no consumer will ever visit and hundreds of thousands printing glossy, artistic annual reports almost no consumers will ever see. It’s to show you are at the top.

MguelinID
MguelinID
1 year ago

Reminds me when I ran marketing for a big consumer electronics brand. Agency shows me their mockups and ad concepts, blacks and Asians everywhere. Me: “Did you read the brief on who our target market is (white male, 50+, high income)?” Agency: “Yes.” Me: “Then why am I not seeing my target market in these ads?” Agency: “We wanted to help you reach new people and expand your market!” Me: “That’s not what I asked for. Redo the ads with the target market defined in the brief” They did. All along, they didn’t really care to expand the market —… Read more »

Ploppy
Ploppy
Reply to  MguelinID
1 year ago

A good part of the reason I haven’t bought any electronics since 2012 is that all the “tech” advertising is always just a bunch of the kinds of women I swipe left on, along with the obligate 90 lb homosexual black man wearing a salmon-colored suit with an ascot and stupid glasses. The rare times it’s a white male he’s the balding soyjack mouth gape brought to life.

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  MguelinID
1 year ago

“That’s not what I asked for. Redo the ads with the target market defined in the brief” I don’t know when your tenure was, but were you putting your job in danger by giving that order? Your order is a pretty clear signal that you are not on the right side of history. As a programmer, I avoided a lot of the mandatory diversity training, but I got it annually at my last job. Even though my employer was somewhat conservative, and located in a red state, if I would made a good-natured joke in those trainings, there might have… Read more »

Geo. Orwell
Geo. Orwell
Reply to  MguelinID
1 year ago

You said it better than I did, below. I’m in advertising and you speak the truth.

Geo. Orwell
Geo. Orwell
Reply to  MguelinID
1 year ago

“All along, they didn’t really care to expand the market — that was just rationalization. No, instead they cared more about the circle jerk of approval from their peers within their agency and the larger creative world.”

Repeat this to yourself anytime you want to understand why tv commercials all look like they should be aired in Africa.

Dutch Boy
Dutch Boy
1 year ago

What really did in the DeSantis campaign was the average Republican voter’s unshakeable infatuation with Trump. Infatuation: from the Latin “fatuus” (foolish).

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Dutch Boy
1 year ago

Couldn’t have had anything at all to do with the Bush endorsement

Vinnyvette
Vinnyvette
Reply to  Dutch Boy
1 year ago

Fail…
Trump 2024 baby!

Tarl Cabot
Tarl Cabot
Reply to  Dutch Boy
1 year ago

Had DeSantis run his own version of Ramaswamy’s campaign, he would now be poised to take the nomination when they frog march Trump off to prison. That may have even been his original intention when he referred to the Ukraine war as a “territorial dispute”. His donors freaked out, of course, and DeSantis has never recovered from the flip flop.

That is why our side can never trust anyone who isn’t already rich. By itself wealth may not be sufficient to resist corruption, but it is necessary.

Dutch Boy
Dutch Boy
Reply to  Tarl Cabot
1 year ago

Ha – like Mr. Billionaire Trump didn’t fold as soon as he got to Washington.

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  Dutch Boy
1 year ago

As one who was once an “average Republican voter” I can say its not infatuation with Trump, but the realization voting is pointless, so “Trump 2024, Because F.U.”

Dutch Boy
Dutch Boy
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
1 year ago

The “U” must mean America.

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  Dutch Boy
1 year ago

U. is the system and all the parasites living off it.
America is already F’ed, if you haven’t noticed yet.

Gespenst
Gespenst
Reply to  Dutch Boy
1 year ago

I’ve been asking anti-Trumpers since early 2016, “Okay, who you got?” The answers have so far been one sad sack after another.

So, who’ve you got? I need a named human being. “Not Trump” is not specific enough.

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  Gespenst
1 year ago

It’s so funny to watch the normie conservative sites like NRO or HotAir try to whip up enthusiasm for Haley. I wonder if they have nervous flashbacks to their enthusiasm for !Jeb! or McCain.

One of the few reasons for optimism is there seem to enough GOP voters who won’t vote for a globalist to frustrate the plans of the GOP establishment.

Gandydancer
Member
Reply to  Dutch Boy
1 year ago

What did DeSantis for me was his responses just after he announced to questions about the Ukraine fiasco. I forget what he said, exactly, but it was a determined refusal to answer the question. ~”I support our soldiers” or ~”Our military needs to be less woke” or some such stupid irrelevant shit. It reminded me of Trump’s switching from “They all must go!” to endorsing Pence’s touchback amnesty plan within a week or so of his coming down the escalator. He was clearly never going to be — and DeSantils is never going to be — anything better than a… Read more »

Gandydancer
Member
Reply to  cg2
1 year ago

Try again, then. I’m not going to give the WaPo mopey to get behind its paywall. Why are you doing that? I have no idea what “DA” means, but if your point is that DeSantis HAS some crap on his campaign website about Ukraine then I don’t doubt that he does. Who wrote it for him I don’t know. The stuff on Trump’s 2016 campaign website and was written by Jeff Sessions and bore no relation to either what Trump was saying when asked or what he actually did, which was make love to “dreamers” and other stupid shit. DeSantis… Read more »

Gandydancer
Member
Reply to  Gandydancer
1 year ago

* …money.

The software whines that this correction is “too short” unless I add THIS line…

JustMe
JustMe
1 year ago

along the same line:

https://howtosavetheworld.ca/

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
1 year ago

Shazam..that was one of /ourguys/ subversing. “You’re not alone, folks, you have many friends.”

I nominate that one for a Cleo!

(Cleo awards, the Oscars of the ad industry)

B125
B125
1 year ago

I find that commercials pretty much always put me off their products and create a negative association with the brand. In a personal sense it’s positive. Every time I see a McDonald’s, Popeyes, Burger King, or Tim Hortons commercial it reminds me that I am boycotting them. When I get a McDonald’s craving, I remember “yeah, but they featured that mixed race couple” and reach for an apple instead. Some products you need and have limited options, like banking, insurance, smartphones. What can you do. I don’t like their ads either. A bigger question – who are the ads targeted… Read more »

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

Watching Youtube and streaming movies definitely does not reduce ad exposure. That’s the only way I know what’s in ads nowadays.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

“Young people mostly don’t even own TV’s and watch YouTube channels, podcasts, Netflix, etc.”

Doesn’t matter that such as above might limit ad exposure. The product being sold *is* DIE. Netflix produces its own media (as well as buys stuff). If you see their logo on the show icon, you can be sure of getting a healthy dose of DIE. I’ve commented on this before. YouTube is not much different in that it censors most all anti-woke channels.

Geo. Orwell
Geo. Orwell
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

I’ll let you in on a secret. To whom are ads aimed? To the people who pay for them. This isn’t a trivial distinction. Having been in the advertising business for many years, I’m most familiar with the creative side as opposed to the account management side or media buying. I can first assure everyone that art directors and copywriters very seldom discuss sales. In the thread below, Zman mentions that ads matter in terms of awareness. That’s much closer to what creatives ponder. All their ads are supposed to be little stories or vignettes that get your attention. It… Read more »

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
Reply to  Geo. Orwell
1 year ago

Fascinating stuff, really. If you know: has it ever been empirically demonstrated that (a) such a campaign actually harmed a brand, and (b) if that has been illustrated, did it effect behavior? Based on you comment, my guess is it wouldn’t matter but I still have to wonder if a negative effect has been proven and then disregarded.

Geo. Orwell
Geo. Orwell
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

I really couldn’t say, however with respect to my above comment, I have never heard, ever, any conversations in advertising along the lines of “this thing really backfired so let’s do something else” or “the customer really hates X.” I *have* heard “the client hates X.” Remember the horizon for ad people is very shallow. What matters is: will your boss buy it, and then will his boss buy it too? Then the client? You never have to listen to a customer, even though ad agencies spend lots of money on focus groups. Those are like trim tabs on a… Read more »

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Geo. Orwell
1 year ago

Gotcha, the insulation from the customer base probably makes that certain. It makes sense to the degree it can make sense.

Gandydancer
Member
Reply to  Jack Dodson
1 year ago

“…has it ever been empirically demonstrated that (a) such a campaign actually harmed a brand…[?]”

“Ever”?

Off the top of my head: Bud Light. Target.

Etc?

Marko
Marko
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

B125, don’t forget that you think critically. That sets you apart from most people…I’d say 15% at most, of any race, and mostly men, truly think critically about what’s put in front of them. The rest watch product and passively consume the commercials, or ignore them. To normie TV watcher, commercials are just part of the ritual or an excuse to use the bathroom or grab chips. Being a critical bastard has its downsides though. I’ll point something out that is plainly obvious to me…like Super Bowl halftime shows are a satanic display of degeneracy…and I get met with “dude… Read more »

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

If you have to volunteer for your kids sake, get your kid out of there!!

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

It used to be that the mute button was sufficient to screen yourself from offensively inane commercials. No more. Now you either have to turn off the set or leave the room. If they can’t reach you through your ears, they’ll get to you through your eyes. As for the “music” at football games, yes it is horrendous. But what’s more gobsmacking than the diabilical filth they play is the fact that people–white people–sit still for it. If whites had any testicular fortitude left, they would not only boycott the games, they would burn down the stadiums. But that sort… Read more »

Vinnyvette
Vinnyvette
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

1) the ads are actually targeted AT WHITE PEOPLE, in a positive way. White people feel good seeing more “minority” representation. Who feel morally righteous giving their money to a wise man of colour. Who are proud to have that black friend and reminded of how they are not racist by this product.

Uh… you mean the “white college attended women.”

Snooze
Snooze
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

L.L. Bean has a fat black woman falling into the water in one of their ads.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Snooze
1 year ago

I don’t suppose she was devoured by piranhas…

RealityRules
RealityRules
1 year ago

That billboard is an amazing find. The best part was the ad slogan underneath:

“We never drop the ball.”

Given how often marketing and the biz folks use cliches, I bet the firing said something like, “Jenny. You have been awesome, totally like awesome and like amazing and stuff while working for us. Unfortunately, you dropped the ball today and we really needed a touchdown. I’m sorry. We have to cut you from the team and keep our roster small this season.”

Jannie
Jannie
1 year ago

Utah’s marketing campaign based on the “Big Five” (National Parks) was perhaps too successful. Small towns near the parks get flooded with tourists now, hotel prices have risen massively, and even campsites have to be booked six months out in many places.

B125
B125
Reply to  Jannie
1 year ago

We NEED more people to come here! So that we can have more people!

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

Similar to the arguments one hears from politicians “We need more business so we have more jobs! We need more immigrants so the businesses can find workers.”

If the businesses can’t find workers, then why are more businesses needed? Everyone has a job.

Its all about greed and MORE. MORE. MORE.

B125
B125
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
1 year ago

The new line from the Canadian government is that we need more immigrants so that we can build more houses for more immigrants.

Madness and idiocy at once are gripping the whole Western ruling classes.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
1 year ago

Capitalism has consequences.

Gandydancer
Member
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

That White people put up with this shit is not one of them.

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

When people from there come here, here becomes there.

Barnard
Barnard
Reply to  Jannie
1 year ago

That is one of the only benefits of marketing, building awareness of your product or service. In that example it brings benefits to tourism based business owners in the area and causes negative effects for most everyone else.

Dutch Boy
Dutch Boy
Reply to  Jannie
1 year ago

At least the tourists spend money and then leave.

Eloi
Eloi
1 year ago

I think this article misses the social conditioning that ads can produce. For example, a new Iphone. The function of the ads, however, is to whip the masses into a frenzy by encouraging them to think that this new phone is ontologically different from what came before. When I say ads, to be clear, I mean the whole media apparatus that puts the new Thing in front of the average sheeple’s face. This is impactful, and this does affect people.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Eloi
1 year ago

We could spend the next year discussing the social conditioning in ads, and who produces it and why. And who falls for it (women). I am pretty sure whatever product is ostensibly on display comes in a distant second to the social conditioning goal.

anon
anon
Reply to  Eloi
1 year ago

Someone far smarter than I am once posted in here along the lines of – Apple became one of the world’s biggest companies selling toys disguised as holy relics.

I wish I could remember the name of the original poster and give him the credit.

Ryan
Ryan
1 year ago

Let’s predict some questions for the presidential debates:

“For decades, our government has put the safety and prosperity of Israel above all other concerns. However, others believe that although this is very important, the President of the USA has an even greater duty to serve American Jews. Candidates, what is your response?”

Gandydancer
Member
Reply to  Ryan
1 year ago

“You are a loon.”

Jerome P. Tarpley
Jerome P. Tarpley
1 year ago

Let’s not forget “core values.” Every business – I mean all – have them and they are all meaningless. Much of the marketing is based on them.

Vinnyvette
Vinnyvette
Reply to  Jerome P. Tarpley
1 year ago

You could also phrase that as their “core bullshit.”

Moe Gibbs
Moe Gibbs
1 year ago

That whole “Be less white” internal memo leaked from Coca Cola did not kill its market share. I don’t think it even made a dent, unlike the Bud Lite fiasco. Just goes to show who sits higher on the grievance totem pole. In my opinion, advertising in general produces more negative than positive outcomes. I can be neutral and indifferent to 95% of ads, but one that sticks in my craw for being irritating with sappy jingles, or is downright hostile to my demographic (looking at you, Gillette) will only push me away from a company and its products. I… Read more »

B125
B125
Reply to  Moe Gibbs
1 year ago

Seeing more Hispanic looking people in the NFL commercials. An army recruiting ad last night featured mostly Mexican women.

I hate all the commercials though, they are super cringey and beta humor regardless of who is in them.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Moe Gibbs
1 year ago

That’s changing. They haven’t been here long. The average border-jumping Mexican (or whatever) is white enough not to have a strong desire to be “represented.” Their children are real Americans and hate white people, because being American consists of that (and a cheese-flavored sauce).

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
Reply to  Moe Gibbs
1 year ago

The proliferation of mostly black actors in commercials is part of the unpersoning of white people.

J. Burns
J. Burns
1 year ago

“Twitter is not reality, but an alternative reality with little impact on reality.” Z I must disagree with you there; it did impact reality. Twitter (pre-Musk) provided the leftist echo chamber the MSM used to float and refine leftist dogma. If the twitter feedback was that the reporter’s article wasn’t sufficiently progressive, the report apologized and went back and fixed it. The democrat party platform and the leftist dogma that influences almost every American institution was shaped by this iterative process. It was the leftist hive in action. On Twitter all their uninformed ideas were fully accepted. Who would not… Read more »

Filthie
Filthie
Member
1 year ago

As a speaking as a senior sales guy – I think I will disagree with you Z, but the usual weasel words apply: I am a former senior sales guy, I set company sales records that still stand today; I concede I may be biased and admit I may be full a chit. There are very very few similarities between selling politics and selling pop. The products are nothing alike. The only similarity between them is that the guys that own the corporations also own our politicos. The most profitable and successful companies are those that are run by leaders… Read more »

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
1 year ago

Tangential: I was head of a team to look into Additive Manufacturing for our company. The team was all technically oriented, so we quickly figured out it was a niche process with only a limited application to our business: Slow, non-precision, too much thermal processing to hold tight tolerance, questionable material properties. Yet professional journals kept hyping it as “Revolutionary!” Every trade magazine had multiple articles about Additive Manufacturing. Sometimes there were entire special issues about the process. But it was mostly hype. I called it “the world’s slowest revolution”. The hype didn’t change the reality of the technical limitations.… Read more »

The Real Bill
The Real Bill
1 year ago

“The best marketing is a product that sells itself, whether it is cars or politicians.”

Indeed: Excellence sells itself: attracting new fans by the very fact of its excellence, with no need of outside assistance.

And what better example than this blog?

Z-man: Am I correct in assuming that your numbers are steadily growing?

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  The Real Bill
1 year ago

I hope that Gandy Dancer, or as I prefer to think of that creature, Gimpy Poseur, will not become part of that growth.

Gandydancer
Member
Reply to  JerseyJeffersonian
1 year ago

Boo!

Scaredy-cat’s safe space has been invaded and his right to spout bullshit without getting embarrassed has been lost.

So sad for JerseyJeffersonian and his upvoters.

But, luckily you, there’s nothing here to hold my interest. Mostly an infestation of blowhard wanna-be Nazis with a collective IQ adding up to maybe 2 digits. Yecch.

Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson
1 year ago

With the preface that electoral politics, at least on the national level, now are meaningless: any campaign that would hire either Bill Mitchell or Pedro Gonzales richly deserves to get its ass handed to it. Gov. DeSantis strikes me as a relatively intelligent individual, so these two and probably legions like them most likely were hired by Con, Inc., and he just rubberstamped it if he had any input at all. The biggest rap on DeSantis is that he cozied up at all with Con, Inc., at all since he knew it was a nest of vicious even if incompetent… Read more »

Brandon Laskow
Brandon Laskow
1 year ago

My HOA neighbors left an Amazon holiday catalog in the paper recycling. Thumbing through it about 80% of the pics are of black, excuse me, Black people. All looking quite middle class or above, one featured woman is deaf, and there’s one pic of a woman in a wheelchair. WTH are the marketing people behind this thinking?

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Brandon Laskow
1 year ago

The world depicted in corporate advertising is the one the corporations hope to create. It is a fantasy of white subjugation.

Mycale
Mycale
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

It’s a fantasy of white subjugation, for sure, but it’s also one where blacks just step in and inhabit the roles of the white people completely and totally and everything moves on exactly as it was before. It’s all very strange. Like, how many ads show black families camping? Did they ever read SWPL? Camping is one of those “weird white people things” according to blacks. The market for your rugged offroad SUV *disappears* if the demographics reflect your ads. But that’s not how they see it.

Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Reply to  Mycale
1 year ago

“It’s a fantasy of white subjugation, for sure, but it’s also one where blacks just step in and inhabit the roles of the white people completely and totally and everything moves on exactly as it was before.”

The Woke capitalist vision of their imagined utopia is more or less a vibrant, diverse version of “The Stepford Wives.”

“The Stepin Fetchit Wives,” if you will.

ron west
ron west
Reply to  Oswald Spengler
1 year ago

Not only do they step in and inhabit the roles of whites, many many times they also look like white people, only with dark skin. Especially the black women in ads. They do not look like typical black women.

Gespenst
Gespenst
Reply to  Mycale
1 year ago

There’s a PBS series on The Outdoors which features a black guy doing out-in-nature stuff. I thought it was going to be a comedy, but no–they’re seriously trying to convince PBS watching wypipo that blecks like wilderness camping.

Xman
Xman
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

They’re selling virtue-fantasy. All the advertising featuring completely unrealistic portrayals of Negroes and women is probably not intended to be specifically “anti-white,” nor is it intended to expand the Negro customer base. It’s aimed at affluent white people with the disposable income to buy whatever product is being pitched. But in turn, the religion of those affluent white people is anti-racism and gender equality and equality of sexual preference. In other words the advertising is intended to flatter the sense of moral superiority that the affluent white people have for believing in the racial and gender fantasies. If it’s “anti-white”… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Xman
1 year ago

But these ads are for everything, not just big-ticket items for Richie Rich.

Xman
Xman
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
1 year ago

True. But the gist of the Negro-centric sales pitch remains thus: if a customer buys a product, she is morally superior to those benighted Trump rubes, even if it is a mundane product like toothpaste. She may not be rich — yet — but she aspires to be, and if one aspires to be part of the wealthy, important class one must subscribe to the racial, gender and sexual pieties thereof. It took me a while to figure this out. Negroes are only 13% of the population, and the least wealthy cohort at that. Clearly the advertisers are not trying… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Brandon Laskow
1 year ago

Here in my town, the largest local charity sent me their seasonal Thanksgiving fund solicitation letter asking for donations to “feed the poor this holiday”. The single picture of the “poor” (I assume to be fed) was a cute looking Black child. This is a majority Hispanic town with Blacks being perhaps 3% of the population. Hispanics have little love for the Blacks and of course Whites not much either—but better than the Hispanic population.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

I’ve noticed corporate ads on Messkin TV feature plenty of Hutus. Not as many as on mainstream TV, but still quite a few. The Power Structure is trying to cram negro worship down the throats of Messkins, too. I doubt it will work. The pachucos are not afflicted by pathological altruism, a guilty conscience and race-treason.

The Real Bill
The Real Bill
Reply to  Brandon Laskow
1 year ago

I doubt the marketing people are *thinking* at all. They look around, see that pretty much *all* current ads are featuring prosperous successful blacks and smiling well-adjusted inter-racial couples, and proceed to do the same.

The fact of how rare these actually are in real life— or a consideration of how their audience will respond to them— likely never enters their hive minds.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  The Real Bill
1 year ago

Disagree. Not a single photo is chosen randomly. There are numerous confirmations of the head of an ad campaign specifically ordering a mixed-race ‘family’ or a same-sex ‘couple.’ It is not merely accidental when a company spokesman changes from White to black, or when every baby depicted on a diaper package is black, brown, or mystery meat.

And, while I don’t have specific numbers to hand, I believe there is a large and influential cohort of chosen people in advertising – world wide.

B125
B125
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

Agreed, it’s not accidental.

It’s hard for conservatives and grillers to understand. Their mindset is just “meh, throw some people on the screen and there’s your ad people.”

In reality the ads and broader woke agenda is run by manipulative psychopaths and every single aspect is carefully crafted to push an anti-white male agenda.

mikeski
Member
Reply to  B125
1 year ago

Plus, these are ad campaigns upon which millions of dollars are spent, whether individually or in the aggregate.

The notion that anything isn’t “on purpose” strikes me as naïve, at best.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

I believe there is a metric or index used in that industry, a standard adopted like the ISO standards for measuring “industry safety”.

Similar, no, tied into the ESG and diversity industry scoring.

Remember, that “sensitivity” now “diversity” scoring determines the price of lawsuit defense charged by law firms, much as stocks, insurance, loans, or malpractice are priced according to perceived risk and liability management.

In other words, did you cover your ass sufficiently?

‘Cuz we’re gonna charge you for it.

A nation where every second billboard is for ambulance chasers is a nation cannibalizing itself.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

“ There are numerous confirmations of the head of an ad campaign specifically ordering a mixed-race ‘family’ or a same-sex ‘couple.’ ”

3g4me, my son told me this quite awhile ago at his company. Coming from the University, I saw this as well with Blacks. Pretty much the only Blacks we had were playing sports ball, but nevertheless they were depicted in all photos of campus life.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Brandon Laskow
1 year ago

The homepage for my husband’s dentist-prescribed anti-snoring mouthguard features a black guy in bed with a White woman. It has nothing to do with sales or marketing of the item in question; it has everything to do with marketing the anti-White male narrative.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

Stonetoss meme: “Burgers?”

mikeski
Member
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

Upvoted for the use – or lack thereof – of capitals, you sly boots.

RealityRules
RealityRules
Reply to  Brandon Laskow
1 year ago

I have been doing some research into this topic for something I am working on. It turns out that there are various reasons. Surprise! Surprise! One reason is that “academic”/activists who work hand in hand with the ADL as diversity consultants are also working with the ad industry. I was looking at that old clip of Krugman saying that white people’s power is going away recently. At the end he says that Bill de Blasio is the future and gets an evil smirk. There are diversity experts in academia who probably consort with Wall St. emissaries like Krugman who are… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  RealityRules
1 year ago

Academia- credentials, job licenses- are the bottleneck.

The commies, natural bloviators, grabbed the teaching colleges first; everything flows from there.

(It’s a natural two-fer for them, since college’s real business, now, is to sell lemon loans and launder dark pools-

no longer prep school for high society or places where guys do cool stuff together.)

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  RealityRules
1 year ago

But, its such an efficient strategy. As in leverage by a minority; as in low cost, low effort investment. Get the locals to kill each other, and once weakened or gone, you get all their assets really cheap. You see these sponsored wars wherever draws the elephants’ interest. Again, you combine the instincts of African cannibals with a large modicum of White smarts, and you’ll get the alpha of Spiteful Mutants. Worse, when the locals start to copy your successful strategy…becoming themselves copies of that slaver culture. Then, it becomes an arms race spiraling downward as the Nu-tribes fight each… Read more »

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
1 year ago

Marketing is one of those things where you need at least some for a new product to get the word out. But, it is also a mystery to me why Coke needs constant commercials. They’ve been around over 100 years and everyone and their mother knows who and what Coke is. Plus, a lot of ads are just grating and create negative associations. OTOH, I still remember advertising from when I was a kid. The “where’s the beef” advertising campaign has not been run since I was 13 years old and I will still remember it on my death bed.… Read more »

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
1 year ago

Tars: I am the worst possible candidate for any marketing campaign, being naturally contrary and skeptical and uncaring what the ‘cool kids’ think is the latest ‘thing.’ Fwiw, although I hate both Pepsi and Coke for being globalist, anti-White whores, I drink diet Coke. And yet one of the ad jingles I remember most clearly from my youth is Pepsi’s “You have a lot to live, and Pepsi has a lot to give.” That, and the Alka Seltzer (which I have never used) “Plop plop fizz fizz.” So some advertising may ‘work’ in the sense of being notable or memorable,… Read more »

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

I tend to agree. I can remember ads that were outright illegal to run for as long as I understood the most basic of language. Yet, despite having never run other than the first few months of my life, I picked them up from somewhere. Like “Call for Philip Morris” and “Winston taste good like your cigarette should” and 4 out of 5 doctors recommend some cigarette brand or other. I also remember those plop plot fizz fizz commercials and also have never once used them. These are fairly benign jingles or statements. The car dealership commercials, especially on the… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  3g4me
1 year ago

Coke and Pepsi are indeed globalist anti-white whores, but so too is every corporation. I expend no hatred on specific corporations; I unload it upon corporations tout court.

Mr. Generic
Mr. Generic
1 year ago

Great essay. It took me many years to figure out that (with the possible exception of local markets) “marketing” is just a jobs program for favored-but-incompetent cloud people and “advertising” is at best a massive money-laundering process for favored corporations, and at worst a giant demoralization/subversive operation run globally by the usual suspects.

krustykurmudgeon
krustykurmudgeon
1 year ago

I wrote about this on a message board in may:
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=551080

Tom K
Tom K
1 year ago

Speaking of marketing, I propose that an old but useful word from the 19th century be resurrected: the word is ‘poltroon’. Poltroon: 1. an utter coward 2. a lazy, idle fellow; a sluggard; a fellow without spirit or courage; a dastard; a coward. This in order to relabel the GOP as the Godawfully Obnoxious Poltroons. It would have a couple of obvious (Godawfully Obvious Poltroons?) advantages. First it would redirect attention from the unfortunately true appellation the Stupid Party to where the blame squarely belongs, the grifthood that is party leadership. Second, the word appears to be (although it isn’t)… Read more »

Mow Knowname
Mow Knowname
1 year ago

“Imagine a big company not having a marketing department”
Or not having a Mission Statement or a DIE bureaucracy?
One still wonders how Rockefeller, Westinghouse or Ford ever managed to build anything.

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
Reply to  Mow Knowname
1 year ago

Mow, all three were marketing geniuses in their own way. Ford understood elasticity of demand better than anyone. Westinghouse was a genius of public demonstrations of the potential for electricity. Rockefeller understood vertical integration and distribution better than anyone. And he was more ruthless than Bill Gates in crushing competitors.

Old-fashioned marketing is underappreciated. I understand the cynicism around today’s corporate BS and “hype”. But we can learn from the old masters.

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  Captain Willard
1 year ago

If you can believe it, George Westinghouse’s big break came when he invented brakes for trains decades after trains were moving around the country.

Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
Reply to  Captain Willard
1 year ago

Capt. Willard: as old John D was wont to say: give the competition a ‘good sweating’

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Stranger in a Strange Land
1 year ago

If I had a time machine, I’d target John D., creator of the modern corporation.

Amongst his many crimes such as the General Board of Education and Rockefeller petro-pharmaceuticals.
Any guy who can turn snake oil into today’s medical tyranny is frickin’ Lex Luthor. A crypto, too, of course.

Heck, his gangs beat up other guys and stole their barrels, he wasn’t a driller.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Stranger in a Strange Land
1 year ago

Ha! I like that and will use it in the future.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
1 year ago

Twitter shouldn’t be reality. In a more perfect world it wouldn’t be, or wouldn’t exist at all. But the fact is, the Clouds who have a lot to do with shaping our reality think Twitter is reality. So it is. We call it Clown World.

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 year ago

Twitter is part of “the bubble” If it weren’t free, nobody would use it. It has spent most of its life losing vast sums of money. Many internet companies are just vast money losing enterprises who somehow keep bringing in cash to stay afloat. AFAIK, Patreon loses vast sums of money. I don’t even know how this is possible. It’s a skimming operation. How in the hell do you lose money inserting yourself between a customer and provider and charging a fee to do it? It brings me back to the point that much of the “virtual economy” has only… Read more »

imbroglio
imbroglio
1 year ago

“If you are selling station wagons just when Chrysler introduced the minivan, no amount of marketing is going to change the fact that the minivan was a better family vehicle.”

But if I can get the authorities to force you to buy my station wagon, I don’t need to worry about marketing.

Coke could take a year off from marketing because the success of its prior marketing would enable it to do so.

Chet Rollins
Chet Rollins
Reply to  imbroglio
1 year ago

Would argue marketing is part of the multi-faceted “shelf space” strategy to get stores to stock your product in sufficient numbers. Once that succeeds, there’s not much more marketing can do other than some seasonal promotions, like their Christmas campaign, to grab even more shelf space..

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Chet Rollins
1 year ago

Interesting analysis Chet. We assume marketing is directed at us, the consumer, in order to get us to buy the product. But perhaps it’s directed at another audience—such as the store—and to encourage shelf space stocking decisions? Food for thought.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

Outwardly visible corporate “virtue signaling” is mostly directed at (let’s call it) finance. Internally it’s for employee demoralization. A little is for class signaling among professionals. Network TV ads, for example, are directed at other ad companies (and people whose fantasy career—because ad-funded media wildly romanticizes it—is “in advertising”). Of things we recognize as marketing or branding, pretty much only packaging and minor psychological terrorism (sweepstakes and coupons and other short cons) are directed at us. It hasn’t always been so bleak, and it’s not that bad everywhere (yet). YouTube compilations of Japanese Christmas ads will remind old guys of… Read more »

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

The battle for shelf space is invisible to the public but fierce and scientific. Point of sale promotions, end-cap displays, coupons and even in-store music are all diligently studied to maximize sales.

This is all part of marketing.

AnotherAnon
AnotherAnon
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

Archer Daniels Midland underwrote McNeil Lehrer Newshour for years. Fully 5 people in the “listening audience” had any idea what ADM was or even what business they were in. Yet it was probably the best “advertising” money they ever spent in terms of protecting themselves from ever being the subject of an unflattering news story and also influencing Congresscreeps about legislation, regulations, and other topics of vital interest to ADM’s seat at the federal welfare queen trough. (This is in addition to their lobbying arm of course). As you suggest, the audience isn’t always who we assume it is. And… Read more »

Mycale
Mycale
1 year ago

The DeSantis operation highlights just why the political class still does not really understand the internet. He thought he could hire professional meme-makers and then hire social media influencers who read talking points. Well, for a professional political operative in the USA, using your surrogates to read centrally-produced talking points is totally normal. Those supporters get the talking points then go on CNN or MSNBC or whatever and reads them over and over. This is a daily thing. Yet, here, you’re telling people to circulate these talking points on a website that shows what everyone is saying at all times.… Read more »

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  Mycale
1 year ago

Nowadays the Dems have actually outlawed joke advertising. As in Doug Mackey. No sense of humor. None.

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  Tom K
1 year ago

I heard he was just sentenced to 7 months in prison. As bad as that is and the precedent it sets, he lucked out. He was facing 10 years.

Valley Lurker
Valley Lurker
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
1 year ago

Just wait until the mandatory sentencing is passed down for owning a stuffed blue plush octopus.

pantoufle
pantoufle
Reply to  Mycale
1 year ago

Try to imagine the Soviets making memes.

Bourbon
Bourbon
Reply to  pantoufle
1 year ago

“Quantity has a quality all its own.”

– St Joseph Djugashvili

===========

“What a little swine, denouncing his own father.”

– St Joseph Djugashvili

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
1 year ago

“If you are selling station wagons just when Chrysler introduced the minivan, no amount of marketing is going to change the fact that the minivan was a better family vehicle. If you are selling Ron DeSantis in the age of Trump, no amount of social media influencing is going to change the fact that he is just another conventional politician in an unconventional age. The best marketing is a product that sells itself, whether it is cars or politicians.” It’s probably still said about a star salesman that “he can sell ice to an eskimo” or “he can sell sand… Read more »

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
1 year ago

Online influence is definitely a thing, but probably not in ads. The latest Robert Epstein accusation that Google manipulated a huge portion of American voters by doing things like reminding you to vote if (based on search history) it thought you were a Democrat, but not if you were a Republican. That, and other things (like what came up with search results). Glaringly obvious to everyone here, but it’s the sort of background noise that probably has an impact in close elections with 170 million registered voters. Slightly OT: Dilbert Adams might be a raging narcist on the road to… Read more »

Severian
1 year ago

Ironically, it was the Bad Orange Man himself who convinced the political class that Twitter is real, at least when it comes to marketing candidates. Trump was forever “going viral”… Except that he was “going viral” on traditional media. I remember giving the Left some free advice back in 2016: You can neutralize Trump by covering him as if he were just another politician. Your story should read “Trump held a rally today, in which he discussed immigration, trade, and the economy.” Do “deep dives” and seventeen-part “analyses” of his “policies.” Make him just some suit doing the rounds with… Read more »

Severian
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

Their first clue should’ve been “every rapper on earth comparing himself to Donald Trump, 1979-2015.” When it comes to selling an image, nobody beats rappers.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

Trump got into trouble waay back when in Atlantic City and his Taj Mahal casino. His casino, and casinos in general—he had three at the time I believe—were in economic trouble due to economic downturn. Trump had a balloon loan of close to a billion dollars due. The trade papers had a field day predicting Trump’s industries imminent financial demise. He met with the bankers and convinced them that a foreclosure would produce little more than a worthless and unsellable liability on their books, but if they restructured the debt they could continue to have a “Trump” asset on their… Read more »

RDittmar
Member
Reply to  Compsci
1 year ago

My daughter bought a night’s stay at the Taj Mahal for my wife and I as a present back in the day when it was open. When we were leaving the next day, we passed by the police tending to someone that had been stabbed. This doesn’t have anything to do with Trump. Just be aware that if you visit Atlantic City, you should be prepared to take a knife in the chest.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  RDittmar
1 year ago

Yep, crappy neighborhood. Also my first visit there I was impressed by the distance between casinos along the Boardwalk. When you book a stay, don’t expect to walk from one casino to the other like the Strip in Vegas. They really have you.

Marko
Marko
1 year ago

The best marketing is a product that sells itself, whether it is cars or politicians. I read somewhere…it may have been in the comments here, that anything that needs gaslighting or legislation is almost always a bad idea. Advertising helps to get the word out for new products, but for the world-changing products, the advertising is almost always “Look at this cool thing!” rather than “You need this.” For example, I don’t think there was any gaslighting or legislation for typewriters, stock purchasing, airplane tickets, or refrigerators, and certainly not for the internet and mobile phones. Did Donald Trump even… Read more »

pyrrhus
pyrrhus
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

I am informed by a former marketing executive close to me that major consumer companies do indeed stop advertising profitable products that everyone already knows about…It’s called milking the brand..It’s much more important, and easier, to keep the customers you have than than to woo other peoples’ customers, so they run little promotions as well, as you can see on cereal boxes…

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

Electric vehicles come to mind. Without major subsidies and now legislation gradually banning the production and use of internal combustion engines there would not be a market for EVs. EVs, unlike the refrigerator or the internet, did not sell themselves

CourtAstro
CourtAstro
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

no, not necessarily. The advertising for one recent pharmaceutical launch was pretty much, “You need this; you’d better buy this; I am looking at your driveway right now”

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

Campaign gurus had talked themselves into thinking that social media was the way to go after Obama “used social media” to beat Satan in 2008 and Trump used “viral memes” to beat She-Satan in 2016. However, if they were honest (lol) the 2020 election provided a refutation of the strategy as Trump was “othered” from all social media and yet the regime still needed truckloads of ballots to defeat him.

pyrrhus
pyrrhus
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

Yep…Everybody already knew too much about Trump in 2020, there was nothing left to promote…People recoiling from the “mean tweets” probably had never read any of his tweets, but it didn’t matter…

CourtAstro
CourtAstro
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

Right—the meme-Woodstock people complemented Trump, they didn’t get him elected. Because of his jokey, not-otherwise-credible persona, the memes played to his single clear strength for campaigning purposes. Robert Kennedy Jr. is a useful contrast here, since there’s no way he could implement cartoon advertising. Nikki Haley could never do that— she is the wholesome POC you are supposed to be eager to show off to your fellow whites. I was shocked in 2017 to see many people in the lower rungs of academia and journalism earnestly researching whether “memes impact elections;“ this is the old clothes-make-the-man fallacy, but I now… Read more »

RDittmar
Member
1 year ago

What following does Twitter have today? I must admit that I used to surf over there to read comments by a few people, but now it seems like you have to register for an account to read anything. I have not and will not do that, and I wonder if traffic to that site has dropped because others feel the same as I do.

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  RDittmar
1 year ago

Zman has some bangers on there. That man needs a bigger following on Twittx.

The Ben Shapiro and Joel Pollack meltdowns have been unreal. Just mind blowing stuff. Just a pubic hair’s distance from openly advocating mass ethnic genocide.

They’re going to look back in a year and do some heavy scrubbing off their timeline.

FreeBeer
FreeBeer
Reply to  RDittmar
1 year ago

It’s kind of crazy on Twitter right now because you can get away with way more than you used to be able to get away with before Elon took over. It is definitely not the leftist Safe Space that it used to be.

I have an account there just for fun. There is a lot of fun to be had on there trolling the ADL and the like. There are some seriously funny people on the far right doing some entertaining stuff on there. Things like the racist Star Trek posters are juvenile but still fun.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  FreeBeer
1 year ago

Yes! Alia the Returned Reycist!, and Racist Star Trek!

“Even a green-blooded, pointy-eared knob knows not to buy from a Ferengi!”

Episode XVI, “The Ginormous Negresses of Watermelon Planet”

Apex Predator
Apex Predator
Reply to  RDittmar
1 year ago

I don’t think Elon is doing himself any favors by making it a walled garden where you MUST register simply to passively read comments. Likewise, they’ve become utterly paranoid about bots so if you do something like use a VPN and then login again on a different server or IP you have to jump through a somewhat complex series of hoops to “unlock” your account.

Overall? Not worth it… make something too much of a hassle and no one will use it. Simple as.

Archie Parr
Archie Parr
1 year ago

I see that Pedro Gonzalez is no longer listing any affiliation with Chronicles on his Twitter page. I hope they cashiered him soon after his payout from the DeSantis people. A person like that doesn’t belong on their masthead. What were they thinking with this diversity hire in the first place?

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Archie Parr
1 year ago

Since politics is all just pro wrestling for non-athletes, as the Million Dollar Man always used to say, “Everybody’s got a price!!”

Barnard
Barnard
Reply to  Archie Parr
1 year ago

He had an article about California in the most recent issue of Chronicles. They still have him listed as a contributor on their website and just posted a good piece he wrote comparing liberals concerns about Palestine with how they have completely forgotten about the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment. They even tagged him in it when they posted it to Twitter. Pedro did not post it in his own feed, at least that I saw. He seems to be the one who wants to put Chronicles behind him. Maybe the DeSantis people have promised him something once the campaign… Read more »

Valley Lurker
Valley Lurker
Reply to  Barnard
1 year ago

He did a good take down of some of the scumbag grifters around Trump some months back, the current iteration of the Bill Mitchell types, although seemingly more integrated into the actual campaign. I found it notable but not surprising. That said he just waded too far into the deep end and strangled his developing brand in the crib. I think he wanted to shoot too high too soon.

Valley Lurker
Valley Lurker
Reply to  Valley Lurker
1 year ago

I apologize for the stream of clichés upon review back to back to back. Yikes.

Clayton Barnett
1 year ago

>>Coca-Cola could discontinue all advertising for a year and not see a change in sales.

“Absence is presence.” ~ Pope Pius XIII

Whitney
Member
1 year ago

“Put one picture of Hitler on your gigantic scoreboard and you will be fired before the game is finished.”

I really hope this a troll and that the person that did it thought, “worth getting fired over” because it is hilarious.

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  Whitney
1 year ago

Actually my first thought upon seeing that was remembering a fellow Gen-X coworker in the 90s asking me if WWI was “the one with Japan”. She didn’t have a clue who fought when and in what war and certainly no idea as to why they did so either*. Given that, and especially with the raft of foreigners and affirmative-action students at universities, it’s quite possible for a student to have just grouped a bunch of stuff from 20th century leaders for a quiz and put it up there without a second thought about mustache man. *(Every history class taken in… Read more »

mmack
mmack
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

Actually my first thought upon seeing that was remembering a fellow Gen-X coworker in the 90s asking me if WWI was “the one with Japan”.

“Yes. They bombed Ft. Sumpter on December 7th, 1917.” 😏

Brandon Laskow
Brandon Laskow
Reply to  mmack
1 year ago

There’s no “p” in Sumter.

Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
Reply to  Brandon Laskow
1 year ago

…and there’s an ‘or’ in Fort – not that any Gen-X’er would have the first clue – much less care.

Salmon Jones
Salmon Jones
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

A great way to blow boomer’s minds and look smart is to point out to them that yes, Japan was actually involved in WW1 and they were… gasp… get this… on the USA’s side, even! The eternal old person just kind of assumes everyone is what they were when they were young and always has been and pointing out that Japan and Italy were on the “good guys” side (not that there were any good guys in WW1 but you get the rhetorical point) in WW1 and then weren’t in WW2 ties their brains in knots. Something happened between one… Read more »

Eusebio
Eusebio
Reply to  Salmon Jones
1 year ago

Regarding Muslims and their attitudes to non-Muslims-you not familiar with the various slave trades,Ottoman pogroms in se Europe,Islamic conquest of India, raids into Spain,France,italy,England?

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  Eusebio
1 year ago

And yes, even slave raiding in Iceland. Lovely people.

Gandydancer
Member
Reply to  Eusebio
1 year ago

It’s not as if the Vikings didn’t take and trade slaves, so for them to complain about Muslims doing it would be pretty rich.

Apex Predator
Apex Predator
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

I can promise you that your 90s Gen X Clueless Chick co-worker is a fucking Rhodes Scholar compared to the detritus being churned out of University today. These kids are borderline retarded and I’m not even joking. They know –nothing– about anything. Not only would they not know whether Japan was involved in WW1 they likely are not aware there -was- a WW1. Absolutely historically illiterate, innumerate, and most shockingly, quite proud of it and bursting with self-esteem. Add to that the general mixing of the gene pool with the mud genetics of the goblinas, Half-ricans, etc. and yeah Brazil… Read more »

Venndiagram
Venndiagram
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
1 year ago

Yeah, there was nothing worse than spending 6 weeks on the French and Indian war in October and then you spent a week in May on WWI and WW2,

mmack
mmack
1 year ago

This is why history books are full of bad ad campaigns. Even the dumbest ideas will win over some people, because it is assumed that all attention is good attention, so even a terrible ad can work. What of the reverse effect: Your ad is so damned stupid I REFUSE to buy your product? The truth of it is, most of what passes for marketing is nonsense. Awaits the comment section filled with everyone’s favorite Stupid Ad Campaign. Those people then hired lots of “social media influencers” who would talk about Ron DeSantis as if he is their old pal.… Read more »

Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
Reply to  mmack
1 year ago

Joey B compensates for having a Chevy Vega brain by owning a classic Corvette.

mmack
mmack
Reply to  Stranger in a Strange Land
1 year ago

All the better to hide classified documents in Jack! 👍

Gandydancer
Member
Reply to  mmack
1 year ago

Were minivans classified as trucks for import duty and air pollution purposes? There used to be boatloads (literally) of small trucks, mostly from Japan, on the road because they benefitted from lower import duties and less expensive engine regulation and were therefor a good value, relatively. I owned a used Datsun, then a new Nissan (same company, with some disimprovements in its product).

WillS
WillS
1 year ago

No amount of marketing can offset the low quality offerings being sold to the American people. Garage is garbage, two legged trash .

Barnard
Barnard
1 year ago

Checking in on Pedro, he is now getting into name calling arguments with Nick Fuentes on Twitter. He is averaging around 25 replies to his tweets and 150 to 200 likes. I don’t know what the DeSantis donors are paying him, but even $2,500 a month can’t even be close to worth the money. In the event he gets canned before DeSantis dropped out it seems likely he will scorched earth on them, which will be entertaining for a few days. Maybe it is because I do have an accounting background, but I really thought there would be some shift… Read more »

Chet Rollins
Chet Rollins
Reply to  Barnard
1 year ago

I thought something was off with that guy when he accused Kristi Noem of infidelity. Mind you, he was right, but not having the receipts for such a massive accusation shows someone who doesn’t have the savvy and temper for the big leagues and is bound to self-implode.

Barnard
Barnard
Reply to  Chet Rollins
1 year ago

Looking back at it, I think the Noem allegation was a test run at being a DeSantis smear merchant. It was obvious he was just repeating rumors he was being given by rivals in the national party and SD state reps who didn’t like Noem. It was weird too Pedro didn’t even mention it when the rumors were proven true.

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  Chet Rollins
1 year ago

Guys, I have to come clean. My guilty conscience won’t let me alone.

I’ve been having an affair with Kristi Noem too. It’s been very hot, but I know it’s wrong. She won’t leave me alone.

I tell her that I can’t associate with her due to her fake populism and that she only reinforces the system that is killing us. But then she gets sexy with me again and I lose my resolve.

mikeski
Member
Reply to  LineInTheSand
1 year ago

Way to take one for the team.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Barnard
1 year ago

Political parties exist primarily to make money. So it makes perfect sense that they would keep on campaigning the “old” way. Since that’s how they get paid. If winning were the #1 goal, or a goal at all, they might change, but it isn’t.

honky tonk hero
honky tonk hero
Reply to  Barnard
1 year ago

“Checking in on Pedro, he is now getting into name calling arguments with Nick Fuentes on Twitter”

Mexican standoff?

c matt
c matt
Reply to  honky tonk hero
1 year ago

Need one more.

Geraldo?

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

I give Steve Sailer a lot of grief, but he has made a very good point in the past. Before becoming the “Great Noticer” (and, more lately, the Sgt. Schultz of noticing), he worked in marketing. During his time in that business, he noticed (no pun intended) that advertising when a company had actually change/improved a product or was introducing a new product worked. But if the company was peddling the same old product, advertising didn’t do anything to sales or brands awareness. DeSantis had nothing new or better to offer Trump voters, so he marketing went nowhere. In the… Read more »

Barnard
Barnard
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

If you can sift through what the DeSantis influencers are peddling the argument is “the policies Trump ran on in 2016, but pushed by someone competent.” They harp on all Trump’s faults and shortcomings as if those are some great revelation to his supporters. The argument that DeSantis is going to get them implemented is laughable.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Barnard
1 year ago

What the GOP establishment has never understood about Trump supporters is that Trump supporters love that Trump is a loose cannon. They love that he says crazy stuff and attacks the establishment – both Dems and the GOP. I think that many Trump supporters do understand that Trump is a more than a bit of a carnival barker, but they also understand that you need a guy who’s a bit out there to take on literally everyone in the system. Because GOP establishment hates Trump the person so much, they just assume that everyone else does too, which means that… Read more »

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Prior to Trump, I do think that most normiecons would flock to whatever guy/gal the GOP put forward because “at least s/he’s not a Democrat”. As long as I’ve been alive, normiecons were always angry at what was happening to their country, and they’ll go for the guy who says they’ll reverse what the Dems have done…cut spending, enlarge the military, family values, fight terrorism, through the years, whatnot. Trump threw a light on a great many things, but I still think that many if not most normiecon voters will flock to a milquetoast Trump because FJB! It won’t be… Read more »

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Marko
1 year ago

If Trump isn’t the candidate, the GOP will lose badly. Enough Trump supporters will stay home to completely tank the GOP candidate.

Granted, Trump will also likely loose, so GOP is done with the presidency.

Tired Citizen
Tired Citizen
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Good post – but one thing. Yes – he’s a watered down trump, but he is also lacking in the personality of Trump. He’s ultimately an establishment guy, and he lacks the tenacity that Trump has allowing him to irritate our ruling class more than anyone else ever could. DeSantis will make deals with his friends on the left, he won’t be the annoying wrecking ball that keeps swinging back at them.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Tired Citizen
1 year ago

Yep. See my reply above. It makes that exact point.

Brandon Laskow
Brandon Laskow
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Trump will most likely lose, not “loose”.

It’s maddening how common that error is, especially coming from intelligent, articulate people.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Brandon Laskow
1 year ago

Trump will most likely lose, but he will definitely loose. What, who knows.

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

Well, my 1980s vintage MBA Marketing textbook already understood Sailer’s observation about diminishing returns to advertising etc. The early marketing computer simulations we worked on – really just linear programming /optimization models – incorporated all these ideas. The state of the “art” today is much more sophisticated.

DeSantis is the “linear optimization” of Trump haha. But it’s not the same product, is it?

This shows the limits of marketing, but it doesn’t invalidate marketing itself. I think this is perhaps the distinction Zman should have made.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

There’s something about marketing that high-level executive love. They’re part of a high-class game. It’s like being part of a club or having your photo with a celebrity.

right2remainviolent
right2remainviolent
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

HA. Love it.

Early in my career I was in big box retail and one time I was invited to the monthly marketing read out. Last 90, next 90 blah blah blah.

They got to my department and say the last flier was a huge success! we sold over 1,000 units of the widget due to this ad. I spoke up with the fact we normally sell 800 per week, so the the lift was 200 units. Still a wonderful accomplishment but you can’t claim the whole nut.

I was never invited back to the marketing read out.

mmack
mmack
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

“Slowly, Z got ‘educated’.” “Every year I exceed my budget by five to ten percent. In good years, I tell the boss that these efforts paid for themselves. In bad years, I tell the boss that I went over budget to mitigate the downturn. Every year I promise to spend no more than I spent last year.” When budgeting, always ask for 20 – 30% more than you really need. Your boss will freak and browbeat you down to 10%. Then spend every penny because if you still have money left over at the end of the year, they won’t… Read more »

Neutrino
Neutrino
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

Alcohol and guesswork.
True then about marketing, and still true now.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  thezman
1 year ago

“Every year I exceed my budget by five to ten percent. In good years, I tell the boss that these efforts paid for themselves. In bad years, I tell the boss that I went over budget to mitigate the downturn. Every year I promise to spend no more than I spent last year.” This tact is sooo common in various forms. That’s one of the reasons I was a hard nose in committee discussions back in the university. I had a simple rejoinder for all such claims: “If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist”. My discussion then turned to… Read more »

PM
PM
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 year ago

On point for your comment, I think: https://www.unz.com/isteve/what-if-advertising-on-google-and-facebook-or-tv-doesnt-much-work/ “… I’ve often recounted the curious tale of how in the 1980s I worked for a marketing research start-up that created perhaps the all time best real world lab for carrying out Randomized Controlled Trials. In eight towns, we bought the new laser beam checkout scanners for all the supermarkets and drug stores in town in return for their cooperation. We recruited 3000 households in each town who agreed to identify themselves to the checkout clerk, so we could record all their consumer packaged goods shopping. And we controlled what TV commercials… Read more »