Cult v Marketing Class
This course is based on my new book, Hoodwinked.
You don’t have to get the book but, like any class, you will gain more from it if you read the textbook.
Videos will be posted to TikTok and YouTube
Session #1 — Course overview/Introduction to Cults and Marketing
Reading: Hoodwinked, Introduction; VIDEO Escape from Jonestown (YouTube) Jonestown, 1978
In this session, we will introduce the Cult + Marketing Continuum and explain why we are not living in an attention economy, but an anxiety economy.
Session #2 — What is a Cult?
Reading: Hoodwinked, Chapter 1; Keeping it 101: Cults (Podcast, can listen or read transcript)
Video: Waco: The Rules of Engagement - Branch Davidians (1993)
Session #3 — Cult Recruiting Tactics, Deceptive Marketing
Reading: Hoodwinked, Chapter 1 (Gray box)
Why I joined a cult and how I got out
Videos: Why do people join cults? (Janja Lalich)
Inside the troubled past of NXIVM founder Keith Raniere
Escaping NXIVM: Behind the investigation of the alleged sex cult
Session #4 — Cult retention: Communities
Reading: Brand Community Albert M. Muniz, Jr., Thomas C. O'Guinn, Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 27, Issue 4, March 2001, Pages 412-432, https://doi.org/10.1086/319618 (this may only be available behind a paywall).
The Science of Sensory Marketing, Harvard Business Review
In Class: Clips from Brandy Hellville
Session #5 — How marketers use cult tactics
Reading: Hoodwinked, Chapter 2
Selling the Sacred, Chapter 14: Drinking the Crossfit Kool-Aid
In class: The cult gathering (video/website)
Session #6 — Cult + Marketing case study: Higher Education
Readings: Hoodwinked, Chapter 3
Session #7 — MLMs – The Ultimate Consumer Cults
Readings: Hoodwinked, Chapter 4
In class: MLMs vs Pyramid schemes
John Oliver on MLMs (on YouTube)
Session #8 — MLMs (continued)
Readings: Hoodwinked, Chapter 5
Selling the Sacred, Chapter 13. #BecauseofLuLaRoe
(Email me if you would like a copy of this article).
In class: MLMers, and ex-MLMers (online content listed in the footnotes
Session #9 — Brand Cults & Technology
Readings: Hoodwinked, Chapter 10 – Anger and Algorithms
In class: Zeynep Tufecki Ted talk