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The Hype Handbook — Chapter-02: Create Your Own Secret Society (the Piggybacking Principle)
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W HYPE STRATEGY #2 CREATE YOUR OWN SECRET SOCIETY (the Piggybacking Principle) The orator does not require to convert to his views all the members of a jury, but only the leading spirits among it who will determine the general opinion. As in all crowds, so in juries there are a small number of individuals who serve as guides to the rest. —GUSTAVE LE BON hile a plate of bacon and eggs is seen today as the quintessential American breakfast, this wasn’t always the case. In fact, as recently as the early 1920s, most people in the United States kept their first meals of the day light. It wasn’t until Edward Bernays set up shop as the original public relations professional that this all changed. As nephew of psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays was in a perfect position to learn about the inner workings of the human mind. However, Bernays lent his knowledge to purposes considerably less pure than those of his esteemed relative. Early in his career, Bernays worked as part of the Creel Committee—the propaganda agency responsible for selling World War I to the
American public with sayings like “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” He then turned his talents to the more lucrative private sector. While on retainer to promote Lucky Strike cigarettes, he effectively eliminated the taboo of women smoking by organizing a “spontaneous” march in which suffragettes lit up cigarettes to demonstrate their liberation from the shackles of the past. He was behind a behind-the-scenes campaign to promote the idea that disposable cups were more sanitary than reusable ones on behalf of Dixie Cup. He even engineered the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Guatemala for the United Fruit Company. It was while working on a campaign for Beech-Nut—one of the country’s predominant producers of pork products at the time— that he managed to change the culinary patterns, and waistlines, of the American public forever after. Edward Bernays had spent a great deal of his professional energy cultivating ties with some of the country’s most influential people across various industries—people who themselves had webs of connections across their fields. Now he contacted a prominent physician and persuaded him to conduct a “study” on the health benefits of bacon. What the physician came back with was that bacon was, in fact, the perfect breakfast food in that it “replaces the energy you lose during sleep.” Once assured of these results, Bernays asked the doctor to communicate his findings to the medical community, which he did by distributing them to a list of 5,000 MDs across the United States. Within no time, doctors from coast to coast were recommending that their patients eat bacon for breakfast, and the dietary habits of a nation were transformed. PIGGYBACK ON THOSE WHO HAVE WHAT YOU WANT
Regardless of how you feel about the ethical implications of pushing packets of concentrated cholesterol on an unsuspecting public, there is a lot anyone selling anything can learn from Edward Bernays’s notorious promotional campaign. A lot of advice on marketing, promotion, and sales focuses on painstakingly building a following person by person. Bernays, on the other hand, understood that the appearance of a spontaneous grassroots following is far more important than whether it actually happens that way. Where he found real power was in identifying the individuals or institutions that had the most sway with the audiences and markets he needed to reach and then getting these individuals and institutions to want to advocate products, causes, messages, or ideas on his behalf. It is difficult and time consuming to get masses of people to discover you and love you. The most effective hype artists hedge against this difficulty with a two-pronged approach. On one hand they generate the public perception of a spontaneous groundswell of dedicated attention (one of the best ways of doing this is detailed in the previous strategy). At the same time, however, they work assiduously to foster strategic alliances and mutually beneficial friendships. In many cases, it is the latter that has the biggest impact. PLAYING WITH EGO, APPRECIATION, AND RECOGNITION Before Andy Warhol became the legendary pop artist most people remember him as today, he was a kid named Andy Warhola from Pittsburgh who came to New York City to try to make it as a commercial illustrator. His earliest successes were in this field— providing him with the financial cushion to engage in the bold artistic experiments for which he eventually became known.
As a child of working-class immigrants, Warhol had no money and no connections. He compensated for these deficits by turning himself into a master of hype. Whenever Warhol would show up at the office of a magazine or ad agency in his early career, he would present a little gift to the art director’s receptionist. He would often bring coffee and doughnuts, run unsolicited errands, and pay lavish and sincere compliments to the power players most responsible for influencing his standing in their insular world. As he moved from the commercial to the fine art world, he used the same approach. While other artists were holed up in their studios painting, he made sure to put as much effort into socializing with, charming, and flattering the most influential gallery owners and curators of his day. And when he transitioned into filmmaking, he would go out of his way to arrange private screenings for the most influential critics in the independent film scene. Warhol was certainly not above picking fights and provoking people. His paintings, his mass production methods, his look, his sexuality all made him enemies and got people worked up. However, what Warhol got—and what many notoriety seekers miss —is that while making waves in public is a great technique for generating publicity, it usually fails unless you lay the groundwork. Beginning in 1969, Andy Warhol formalized and accelerated the technique that had always lain underneath his success. It was in this vein that he founded Interview—a magazine that, while much emulated since, was unique at the time in that it was entirely made up of interviews with celebrities, beautiful people, and tastemakers of various stripes. In addition to making the publication appealing in its own right, the format gave Warhol an excuse to connect with, talk to, and bond with the kinds of people who would inevitably boost his career. By the 1980s, the magazine was directly responsible for a steady stream of lucrative celebrity portrait commissions.
Warhol had always piggybacked on the success of people more powerful and influential than he was to accelerate his career. With Interview, he was simply doing the same thing on a larger scale. The idea that success only comes to those who know important people is a fallacy. What hype artists understand is that while there are old boys’ networks, circles of influence, and power centers, it is possible to break into them. How? By playing with the most deep- seated of human desires—to be recognized, to be appreciated, and to be noticed. But the question still remains: Of all the people you could meet —of all the relationships you could massage (in the undoubtedly limited time you have in which to do so)—which ones should you choose? FINDING THE RIGHT BACK TO PIGGY UPON For the nine people left on the planet that don’t know who Dr. Oz is, here’s a recap. Mehmet Oz is a physician who, after focusing on practicing medicine for a few years, refashioned himself as a public personality. The career move went over well. Time dubbed him one of the 100 most influential people of the year. Esquire named him one of the 100 most influential people of the century. And in a demonstration of true editorial understatement, Healthy Living proclaimed him to be one of the greatest healers of the millennium. But as Oz’s fame grew, it became clear that healing was, in fact, not his only priority. In 2014, a team of medical researchers released a report proving that 60 percent of advice given on Dr. Oz’s TV show lacked scientific basis. Soon afterward, 1,300 doctors signed an open letter calling him “a quack and a fake and a charlatan” whose “advice endangers patients.”
Somehow the outcry did little to affect Dr. Oz’s fortunes. His show won a Daytime Emmy in 2018. And later that year, the president of the United States appointed the good doctor to his council on sports, fitness, and nutrition. The Dr. Oz Show is still going strong. His net worth continues to soar, with a boost from his new role as spokesman for RealAge.com. Having upward of a thousand people in your field publicly state that you were a fraud would sink many careers. So why is Dr. Oz still standing? Above all, it comes down to one word: Oprah. Oprah Winfrey likes Dr. Oz. She helped create him. It was by appearing on her show that Oz got famous in the first place. Millions of people worship Oprah. They view her as a force of pure good in the universe. So when she continued to support Dr. Oz after his brush with disgrace, that was all many people needed to know. What was good enough for Oprah was good enough for them. ALIGN YOURSELF WITH THE MINI- OPRAHS OF YOUR WORLD Here’s the point where you might be asking yourself, “Did this guy seriously just recommend that I go out and meet Oprah Winfrey?” Of course not. I understand that you are most probably not going to be able to get Oprah Winfrey to tout your wares. At the same time, there are undoubtedly mini-Oprahs in whatever niche you operate in. One of the best parts of doing business in the age of the internet is that success doesn’t require you to become well known and
highly respected by everybody. You just have to become well known and highly respected in your niche. And these days, niches can get really specific. Are you a corporate wellness coach for BPO professionals? Make a list of the mini-Oprahs in that space. A life coach who specializes in career transitions in the organic food industry? Find the mini- Oprahs. A consultant for north Alaskan salmon fisheries? You get the point. Fortunately, it’s a whole lot easier to get mini-Oprahs to know and like you than it is to do so with the real deal. One way to do this is to become a remarkably keen observer. Are there trade journalists in your field who get all the comments on the most relevant social media platforms? Are there admired gurus in your industry whose names are completely unfamiliar to your mother? These sorts of people will typically be far more responsive than full fledged celebrities, especially if you approach them the right way. And what is the right way? Once you’ve identified the people you need to know—and who need to like you—create (or adapt) a platform to showcase them. A mass celebrity like Oprah Winfrey needs to appear on major mass media to make it worth her while—network TV or satellite radio. A niche celebrity, on the other hand, will be content with niche media. You’re lucky to live in an era in which niche media is remarkably cheap and easy to produce. Blogs. Podcasts. Subreddits. YouTube channels. The specifics of the kind of online media that is relevant at the moment change all the time. Regardless of the specifics, the savviest digital-age micro-celebrities understand the value of appearing on lots of niche media outlets instead of (or in addition to) the old model of appearing on a handful of major media outlets. You can use their understanding to your benefit. What you’ll discover is that it often doesn’t matter how new your platform is or whether anyone has ever heard of it. As long as you find ways to stroke the egos and show appreciation to the people
you want to connect and bond with, they’ll be incredibly receptive to appearing on it. Then, like Andy Warhol’s Interview, you can use the conversation to kick off a relationship. One way of harnessing ego and the desire to be appreciated and seen is to give your quarry a way to talk about a subject that means a lot to them and that they don’t usually get to talk about. I remember hearing a story once about how in the seventies, when David Bowie was at the peak of his fame, it was almost impossible to get an in-depth interview with him, even for the most prominent journalists of the day. One young rock journalist from a minor publication decided to give it a shot anyway. He called Bowie’s people, and they almost hung up on him. Fortunately for him, he managed to blurt out what he wanted to interview Bowie about before they did. The saxophone. You see, the saxophone was David Bowie’s first instrument. He played it on every one of his albums. He loved the saxophone. Yet no one had ever thought to ask him about it. Sure, interviewers wanted to know about his songs. His singing. His costumes. His theatrics. His relationships. His debauchery. But never his sax playing. Bowie’s people knew about his love for the sax, even if the broader public didn’t. And so they granted the interview. And while the interview began with questions about the superstar’s woodwind prowess, it eventually went on to a wide range of topics, resulting in a fantastic in-depth piece and establishing the journalist’s career. Remember, the people you admire (and could benefit from knowing) are still human beings. They have needs, insecurities, and interests like everyone else. Dig into the crevices where others fear to tread. Another way to create your secret circle of influence is to keep an eye out for people who will become the string-pullers of the future. Who are those wunderkinds who never stop, who are always impressing everyone, who always get things done? You know the
types. The ultra-creative ones or the ultra-charismatic ones or the ultra-Machiavellian ones. Build your bond with them now before everyone is rushing to. By that time, it’s often too late. However, connecting with the members of your future secret cabal is no use if you don’t do what you need to in order to hook them in and cement the bond. You need a circle of people who will be willing to do for you what Edward Bernays’s doctor did for him. BECOME THE PERSON EVERYONE’S ALWAYS HAPPY TO HEAR FROM When Chrissie Hynde wanted to get into the world of rock ‘n’ roll, moving from Akron, Ohio, to London, England, was only the beginning. In 1973, rock was a young man’s game, and Hynde was an adult woman with no musical training. Yet within a few years she was fronting the Pretenders, a band that would eventually be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Chrissie Hynde’s early success had little to do with the size of her mailing list or power of her elevator speech. During an interview with Marc Maron on his WTF podcast, Hynde talked about how one of her first jobs in the UK was working at a clothing store owned by future music and fashion impresarios Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. While Hynde was there, McLaren introduced her to a young man named John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), who would go on to front a band called the Sex Pistols. McLaren also connected her with David Johansen of the New York Dolls, which led to her first major gig. At a certain point, Hynde introduced her old friend Johnny Rotten to Chris Spedding, another scenester she had met and who would ultimately record the Sex Pistols’ first demos. When Hynde eventually started her own band, the Pretenders, and needed
someone to architect its sound, Rotten connected her with legendary producer Chris Thomas. And so on. Although Hynde has stated that she “is the most hands-off businessperson in the history of the business,” she has always instinctively grasped a key tenet of success that eludes many professionals: Reaching the pinnacle of your field is a function of getting to know the kind of people who can accelerate your growth in the shortest possible amount of time. So how can you follow this literal rock star’s example and use the power of relationships to electrify your own career? Upon landing in London, Hynde jumped headfirst into the thriving music scene and impressed everyone who mattered with her in-depth knowledge and abiding love of rock ‘n’ roll. While social networks give unprecedented ability to connect with influencers, many businesspeople spend far too much time using these platforms to push their sales messages at the expense of forming real relationships. Instead of beating people over the head with industry-speak the first time you meet them, start with a conversation topic you both care deeply about. You’ll be surprised how often getting to know someone over an area of mutual excitement leads to a remarkably meaningful bond. In the early seventies, there was really only one role available for most women who wanted to be involved in the rock scene—the groupie. Groupies were known for collecting X-rated encounters with famous musicians and judged their “success” in terms of how many of these encounters they had. This was a game that Chrissie Hynde was not willing to play. Rather than aiming to put additional notches on her bedpost, Hynde went out of her way to build deep friendships with members of the scene she found interesting and talented. In turn, these friends helped her build her career. The business world is not all that different. Plenty of networking “groupies,” social and otherwise, spend their days collecting followers and business cards, only to wonder why these fleeting
acquaintances fail to call them back the next day. Truly successful people, on the other hand, focus on the depth of their relationships. Keep in mind that despite her ambition, Chrissie Hynde asked sparingly for favors from her friends. Instead, she looked for ways to help them—by introducing them to new bands, new musical ideas, and each other. As a result, rock’s most influential people were always rooting for her to succeed and regularly volunteered to help her out. Follow Chrissy Hynde’s example. Introduce your newfound friends to each other. Offer to review their works in progress and share your ideas with them. The more generous you are, the more likely it is you’ll have an army of influencers behind you helping to make you a star. But the idea here is not to be a networking whore who collects business cards at events and then fires off a bunch of random introductions every day. Your goal here is to be the man or woman that everyone important is happy to hear from when you call. You want to think depth, not breadth. The most influential “old boys’ clubs” and secret societies don’t accept everyone. And when you can’t crack one that already exists, create your own. If you can do this, you have potentially unlimited power. Once you have this power, it’s important to figure out what to do with it. HOW TO USE THE SECRET SOCIETY YOU’VE BUILT For years, Tucker Max, the author of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, was called “the king of fratire”—a guy best known for his stories of drunken womanizing. While this role was very lucrative for Mr. Max, certain changes in his life made him rethink his image. He now had a wife. A kid. The prospect of continuing to make his living as the
patron saint of bro culture was no longer as appealing as it once was. So Tucker Max decided to start a business. One that had nothing whatsoever to do with beer, babes, or partying. But it did have something to do with books. In fact, it was called Book in a Box—a service that businesspeople could use to quickly turn their ideas into an authority-building book. It was like ghostwriting on steroids. There was only one problem: He had to build an audience—a customer base—around his new service, but none of the people who made up his current following associated him with anything other than debauchery. To start from scratch and build a new following around his new image would have taken years. What he did instead was something that anyone aspiring to have a breakout book—or breakout business—should emulate. He contacted the various members of the tight clique of friends of which he was part. James Altucher, Ryan Holiday, Tim Ferriss, Lewis Howes. And he told them he had a new business venture he wanted the world to know about. Max’s friends immediately booked him on their podcasts, wrote about him on their blogs, and published articles about him—or rather, about Book in a Box. Within months, the company had generated $6 million worth of revenue. Once you’re sure the circle you’ve built around you is truly made up of your friends, and not just people in “your network,” it’s time to start pulling the behind-the-scenes levers of whatever really makes things happen in your world. What hype artists know is that secret cabals of powerful people who are helping each other out in the shadows really do exist. It was how Edward Bernays got America to eat bacon, how Andy Warhol got people to accept soup cans as art, and how Dr. Oz gets people to accept strawberries as a teeth whitener. And no matter where you come from, how much money you have, or who you know when you start out, it’s a method available to you.
Putting It into Practice • Launch a signature piece of media that is easy and inexpensive to produce and features interviews as its main event. Other people will be creating your content for you and will thank you for the opportunity. • Make a list of people who have the power to help your career or introduce you to those who can. Find their contact information by doing an online or social media search. Invite them to take part in a podcast, webinar, or blog interview by telling them you’re only talking with the top 50 people in the field. • Host get-togethers. These can happen in person or virtually. Ask people in advance to come with a request for a piece of advice they want and with a favor they need. Be sure to bring your own as well.