Black Friday: How Fashion Brands Use Cult Tactics on You

Brown may be the new black — but brands are the new cults. Amy talks to CUNY professor, author, and ex-marketing executive Dr. Mara Einstein about how brands exploit cult-like marketing tactics to get us to buy, particularly during events like Black Friday. They discuss the real reason brands pushed Christmas shopping before Halloween (!) this year; how brands get us to buy in a world where we're increasingly disconnected from each other; why the "attention economy" is really the "anxiety economy"; and more.

Chapters:

00:00 - Intro to Dr. Mara Einstein and her research
00:52 - How brands are like cults
04:43 - How the luxury industry employs scarcity marketing to get people to buy things like Birkin bags
06:59 - The power of scarcity marketing
09:52 - How the economic blackout might affect retailers on Black Friday in 2025
12:45 - How brands like Lululemon and Cos harvest your data
16:54 - Why the "attention economy" is really the "anxiety economy"
19:47 - How brands "rage bait"
28:32 - How fashion marketing got people to buy Lucky Strike cigarettes in 1934
35:03 - Dr. Einstein weighs in on the de-influencing trend

Links & resources:
• Amy Odell's Back Row newsletter (amyodell.substack.com) —
• Get Dr. Mara Einstein's book: ⁠Hoodwinked⁠ How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults (amzn.to/3LVN1jx)
• Listen to Dr. Einstein's podcast, Hoodwinked in Apple (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hoodwinked-with-…):
Or Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/4MPp2hiip2CaSdOqSbWObh)

Credits:
Produced by Amy Odell. Edited by Amy Odell and Jonathan Voytko.

#FashionPodcast #BackRow #fashion #blackfriday #shopping

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