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 are posted as playlists on 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

                          Inside Cult Brands

Session #7 — MLMs – The Ultimate Consumer Cults

                        Readings: Hoodwinked, Chapter 4

                        In class: MLMs vs Pyramid schemes

                                       John Oliver on MLMs (on YouTube)

  Truth in Advertising

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

Nir Eyal

Session #10   Influencers as Mini Cult leaders

                        Readings: Hoodwinked, Chapter 7 & 8

                                          Selling the Sacred, Selling to Smarties

In Class: Teal Swan

 Session #11    Radical Influencers (Brofluencers)

                        Reading: Hoodwinked, Chapters 9

                        Are you in a cult?

 Session #12 Radical Influencers (Conspirituality)/Wrap UP

                     Readings: Hoodwinked, Chapter 11