Richard Dennis
March 16, 2011, 03:08 PM
Gordon,
I know we totally disagree here. And if you want to call Beck a nut case or a fruitcake, that's entirely your right.
In my opinion, he's a very smart cookie and an outstanding marketer.
Why?
Certainly not because he rants or cries ... which he does, on occasion. But more for 2 reasons:
1. He has targeted conservative Americans as his market, and that is a very large, very underserved (by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, Washington Post, etc., etc., etc.) market.
2. What makes him effective is that he lets the real crazies in our society do their own talking. And luckily for him, they LOVE to talk. They don't say so much wild stuff when Brian Williams is interviewing them. But when they're at a gathering of their own kind, they let their hair down, and they tell you what their real plans and goals are.
And then, this being the internet age, someone posts that video on youtube or someplace else online. And Beck's genius is that he has an army or researchers looking for those videos. Over the past few months, he has played very, very revealing videos by people like:
Cass Sunstein, Regulatory Czar
Van Jones, former "green jobs" czar
Valerie Jarrett, Obama senior advisor
Barack Obama, President
Joe Biden, VP
John Holdren, Science Czar
Richard Trumpka, Pres AFL-CIO
Andy Stern, Pres Emeritus, SEIU
George Soros, billionaire funder of left-wing causes
Jesse Jackson, left-wing preacher
Al Sharpton, left-wing preacher
Anthony Weiner, left-wing NY congressman
Janet Napolitano, Dir Homeland Security
Rahm Emmanuel, Mayor of Chicago
Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader
Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader
Barney Frank, left-wing MA congressman
Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman of GE
Ron Bloom, Obama "car czar in charge of GM"
Brian Williams, NBC anchor
Katie Couric, CBS anchor
Whoopi Goldberg, actress
Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State
Hilda Solis, Labor Secretary
Ken Salazar, Interior Secretary
Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary
Todd Stern, Climate Czar
Carol Browner, Energy Czar
Wade Rathke, Executive Director of Acorn
Bertha Lewis, NY ED of Acorn
and many, many more
They say things that would get them in deep, deep trouble with the public if their comments ever appeared in the mainstream media. But, of course, they can count on their media brethren to cover for them.
But Beck just runs the video on his show, and these guys are hoist by their own petard. For a lot of them, Beck doesn't need to say a word. The craziness of these folks is self-explanatory.
And maybe more than that ... the more of these videos we see on Beck, the more we understand how biased and in-the-bag-to-the-left the mainstream networks and print media are. And that inspires a lot of people to support Beck even more, because we see zero truth coming from ABC, CBS, etc.
So Beck's marketing genius is NOT his own words. It's that he continually locates and leverages video of the crazies. It can't be too hard, becaue there's nothing they love to do more than talk about how smart they are. And THEIR rants have elevated Beck in record time to unhead-of heights for a 5 pm TV commentary.
Pretty good marketing.
Richard Dennis
I know we totally disagree here. And if you want to call Beck a nut case or a fruitcake, that's entirely your right.
In my opinion, he's a very smart cookie and an outstanding marketer.
Why?
Certainly not because he rants or cries ... which he does, on occasion. But more for 2 reasons:
1. He has targeted conservative Americans as his market, and that is a very large, very underserved (by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, Washington Post, etc., etc., etc.) market.
2. What makes him effective is that he lets the real crazies in our society do their own talking. And luckily for him, they LOVE to talk. They don't say so much wild stuff when Brian Williams is interviewing them. But when they're at a gathering of their own kind, they let their hair down, and they tell you what their real plans and goals are.
And then, this being the internet age, someone posts that video on youtube or someplace else online. And Beck's genius is that he has an army or researchers looking for those videos. Over the past few months, he has played very, very revealing videos by people like:
Cass Sunstein, Regulatory Czar
Van Jones, former "green jobs" czar
Valerie Jarrett, Obama senior advisor
Barack Obama, President
Joe Biden, VP
John Holdren, Science Czar
Richard Trumpka, Pres AFL-CIO
Andy Stern, Pres Emeritus, SEIU
George Soros, billionaire funder of left-wing causes
Jesse Jackson, left-wing preacher
Al Sharpton, left-wing preacher
Anthony Weiner, left-wing NY congressman
Janet Napolitano, Dir Homeland Security
Rahm Emmanuel, Mayor of Chicago
Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader
Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader
Barney Frank, left-wing MA congressman
Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman of GE
Ron Bloom, Obama "car czar in charge of GM"
Brian Williams, NBC anchor
Katie Couric, CBS anchor
Whoopi Goldberg, actress
Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State
Hilda Solis, Labor Secretary
Ken Salazar, Interior Secretary
Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary
Todd Stern, Climate Czar
Carol Browner, Energy Czar
Wade Rathke, Executive Director of Acorn
Bertha Lewis, NY ED of Acorn
and many, many more
They say things that would get them in deep, deep trouble with the public if their comments ever appeared in the mainstream media. But, of course, they can count on their media brethren to cover for them.
But Beck just runs the video on his show, and these guys are hoist by their own petard. For a lot of them, Beck doesn't need to say a word. The craziness of these folks is self-explanatory.
And maybe more than that ... the more of these videos we see on Beck, the more we understand how biased and in-the-bag-to-the-left the mainstream networks and print media are. And that inspires a lot of people to support Beck even more, because we see zero truth coming from ABC, CBS, etc.
So Beck's marketing genius is NOT his own words. It's that he continually locates and leverages video of the crazies. It can't be too hard, becaue there's nothing they love to do more than talk about how smart they are. And THEIR rants have elevated Beck in record time to unhead-of heights for a 5 pm TV commentary.
Pretty good marketing.
Richard Dennis
