How Advertising Can Make You a Better Investor
Advertisers are great investors. They build billion-dollar brands based on an idea. That’s just exactly what cryptocurrency and religion have in common—an idea. Ideas are powerful!
How can knowing a bit about the cult of advertising make me a better investor?
Complexity and Confusion
Advertising is unapproachable to the casual observer. Big money has pushed your buttons for so long that you no longer know what buttons you have. Advertising is almost like learning a new language, living in Harry Potter Land, or a world of Hobbits; thus, some consider advertising equivalent to brainwashing or a cult. The Bible is equally unlikely but has street creed from being around most of written history.
Advertising is complexity to confuse, like a lot of financial products! Complexity always benefits the seller. They live and breathe it; you are just looking for a solution. Remember, they are selling you complexity and confusion because it fixes your problem. That’s what they do! Advertisers create a problem and then solve it for you, just like the financial industry’s products. They make products to solve a need that you don’t even have. Then, they proselytize you to make you need it.
Is the Financial Industry a Cult?
Advertising is a cult. Or a religion. Coke. Nike. Tesla. How about the financial services industry? Cult or religion?
Neither. It is business! The business is taking a slice of your energy/work/money because you don’t know what to do with it when you have more than you need. That’s what religion does, too. And cults, too, find the vulnerable, those looking to connect with other people.
The financial industry is not a cult. It is a business meant to make their owners money. Be an owner rather than a householder.
Comparison of Advertising and the Financial Industry
Both Advertising and the Financial Industry use abusive advertising. If we consider either a power-hungry cult that monetarily abuses its members, here are the advertising strategies both use to build a “cult following” for a business:
Solve a problem
The stock market and advertising both promise to solve your problems. They are searching for a solution to any problems you may have in love, life, sense of purpose, mood, or character, and all can be solved by investing in my product.
And they must work because businesses not adding value don’t have customers for long. Business is figuring out what people want and giving it to them.
They promise to solve a problem that works for both cults and businesses.
Create a funnel
The stock market and advertising both create a funnel. Start small and then go big. Or start with a lot and go to a few.
In marketing, this is the funnel strategy where you lead customers through a series of steps to either buy or commit more attention/time/energy to a process and eventually purchase the service. Funnels have free offerings or other content to build trust (lead magnets), then some other opt-in or free yada-yada that keeps you clicking. A funnel is used by advertising and the Financial Industry to build your trust and get your money progressively.
Get your money
Using advertising and the stock market means you must invest considerably.
It is true, you have to save some money to have people try to get your money. You have to save month after month and build a net worth worthy of trying to take. It is an investment to enter the stock market and, thus, the arena.
Build a community
Like confetti after every trade in RobinHood, options, crypto, and meme stocks investing and advertising can hook you. They all build community.
Not only is the welcoming community (dopamine rush) fun to join, but it is also challenging to leave. Community increases engagement, reduces unsubscribes, and encourages advocacy, advertising, and virality.
Since both are cults, you will be hurt when you leave the financial industry. That’s because they try to make your money “sticky” or hard for you to move.
An Appeal to emotion
Advertising and the stock market have both lost people 100k. Easily and every day because they both appeal to emotion. Since we don’t always think rationally (this is the behavior gap where investors lag their own investments), we suffer the consequences of being involved with advertising or the financial industry.
How Advertising Can Make You a Better Investor
Advertising can make you a better investor because you are just a product or service. The mission of any cult is to bring you inside and tap you. It’s a lifestyle that gives you a purpose—an outlook on life meant to take your life via your time/energy/money.
There are similar buying patterns in advertising and the Financial Industry. Both are trying to appeal to you and earn your trust. Rather, earn your money. But what’s the difference?
Stop watching advertising if you can. Cut the cord, pull the plug, stop watching the news (since news is just advertising (and a cult), too), and ignore everything related to complexity. Ignore the Financial Industry and invest in and for yourself.
