Stefan Krogh-Hansens blog

Let me start by stating than I am no better than the rest. I also love to “hate” / dislike some of the so called celebrities that has gained space in the press during the last few years.

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but in Denmark we have seen more than a handful of these celebrities arise from some of the popular tv shows as the likes of Robinson, Paradise Hotel, “single life” etc. Some of these newcomer celebrities has become some we love to hate. This made me think about this phenomenon within the frames of what I in earlier post refer to as social groups.

The interesting thing about these celebrities that really break out of the show is that they do not fit in the largest social groups (they of course have some sort of niche fanbase), but in general we hate/dislike them because they do not fit in. If we look at the reality stars that actually are like the most of us, they never really seem to break out of the show and do something new with their career. However those that are different than the “normal” norms seems to get more exposure in the media.

Key here is of course positioning. They are different and bring something new and fresh. The fact that they are different “originals” is what got them casted in the first place and this is also what gets them promoted via PR in the tabloids afterwards. We love to agree that they are not fitting in our group.

So why is it these persons get hired for photoshoots, as bartenders, get free drinks at nightclubs etc?

First of all, the mere exposure from the reality show is of course an important factor not to forget about. They are of course hugely exposed during the time when that runs on TV. The question that remains to me is still, how they make a living out of the fact that eveyone dislikes them?

I think their “anti”-popularity is primarily driven by their fantastic PR. They are so good at getting coverage that they often appear several times per week in all the biggest tabloids. I think that to some extent it is just a good story to spread. We love to agree with peers and here is a golden opportunity to agree to the fact that this reality star is out of place. So this is why we want to have them at parties, bars, photoshoots etc.  – to mock them and to point our fingers at them while we all agree that we would never do that.

E.g. in Denmark there is a reality-star called Sidney Lee. He has roughly 9.000 fans. The counter fan group called “can this pineapple get more fans than Sidney Lee” got 28.000 fans in 24 hours!!! It has 182.000 fans now. To comparison the more well-known famous actor Brad Pitt has 27.200 fans. This clearly shows the emotions of “hating” someone is way stronger than when you think good of someone.

What do you think?

(picture taken from billedbladet.dk)

EDIT: I stumbled upon this article that I found very interesting in regards to celebrities (DANISH ONLY, sorry): http://politiken.dk/kultur/tvogradio/article983033.ece

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Years and years ago when humanoids decided to finally use their feet for standing and hands for cocktails we organized us into groups and social contexts. At a later point in time humanoids started to communicate through words. Suddenly man could pass on knowledge to generations. This knowledge was accumulated in the tribes – if one tribe invented the wheel (or nuclear weapon) then you were much stronger if you belonged to that tribe. In other words humans are only strong in the social groups they belong to. Think of your everyday life today! Who will fix your leg when it is broken? Who produce your food? Who is producing the car you drive in? Who is teaching you to read? That’s right – the community!

The social group feeling is deep inside us and it is a very strong human instinct. Think of wars. All of them are started in order to protect the unity of the group as e.g. the crusaders.

What I find interesting is the non-logic decisions and attitudes that occur in these social groups. It seems like you as a human are willing to accept a lot of bulls… rules and norms just to belong to the groups. I.e. look at different cults etc. that are willing to commit common suicide because of some obscure thought of doom day.

So what does all of this have to do with marketing?

I don’t know – you tell me. That is what I am trying to figure out. My thought is that for too long “we” (OK, admittedly I have) have been focusing on the consumer behaviour of the individual and I don’t think that this is right.

In example; Smoking is bad for you, everyone knows that. When you try the product it tastes like shit and you puke and feel sick. So why are so many people trying to smoke a whole package of cigarettes in order to be able to smoke without being green in their faces? Because they want to fit in their group! I don’t smoke – in my class in high school we were all jocks. For us it was not cool to smoke and no one did, why? Because we wanted to fit in the group!

Think of iPOD. When they started to pop up they had the cool design and the white ear plugs. It was cool to own one and it was kind of exclusive as well. You showed your belonging to the community by having the ear plugs in. Everyone knew that when someone was sitting in the train with white ear plugs – he/she was an iPOD owner, cool hur? So can we conclude that it is important to also show that you are a part of a particular group? I think so. I e.g. fans of national soccer teams or club teams. They all wear the correct jersey they put stickers on their cars etc. Another example is all the facebook groups that people are a part of. They want to show the world that they are fans, owners, members or whatever.

I used to think everything was about the product. As long as the product was better than good then step 1 in the marketing bible was fulfilled. But the ”no-logic” in social groups have started to make me think a bit different. What about high heel shoes for women? What about drinking snaps? What about smoking? What about boybands?

Whenever there is community, there is an anti-community! When things get too popular and too many people are members of the tribe then others go against it. We see that with a lot of sub-cultures. People want to fit in, but also be different. If not we were all members of one big community and no new communities would arise. Take music as an example. When the artist is underground, then they have a certain fan base but as soon as they go mass market then the original fan base thinks they have “sold out”. Some people like to be a part of a small secluded group of people and go against the established social groups whereas others wants to feel safe in the bigger social networks.

So what is the conclusion?

There are loads of models describing what kind of decision processes the individual consumer goes through. Some of them have been been focusing on information searching models. Some later models are built on research on brains and emotions. I think that the social part has to fitted in somewhere in the equation. This is interesting to dig deeper into and there is a lot of reading to be done here, so I am going to dig deep into this in the coming months (feel free to throw me links to research).

What do you think?

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