There is a basic point of departure in global marketing, especially when it is about entertainment products. That point of departure, that you are not likely to come up with at any managerial compendium, basically states that “most human beings are fundamentally a bunch of lazy ignorants -regardless of their educational background- who like to directly receive in their minds the information relative to what is worth and not, what is good and bad, and so forth”.
The real tragedy is not that many “global marketing gurus” think like that, no. The real tragedy is that the statement in question happens to be entirely true. Otherwise the global success of certain novels, films and pop-stars would be utterly inexplicable.
One of my favourite examples of this, in recent years, is undoubtedly “The Da Vinci Code”, written by Dan Brown. And yes, I admit it: I read it, and from beginning to end. I must however declare in my favour that if I hadn´t been crazy enough to have wasted several valuable hours of my time sailing through the pages of this crappy novel, I would have never been able to actually ascertain the phenomenon of collective stupidity it constituted.
Nonetheless, I was far from being one of the first world readers of it. It was all quite progressive in my case: I started seeing people reading the bloody book everywhere, hearing people and media talk about it incessantly… It was crazy. It was impossible to perform a fifteen minute trip on the underground without crossing the book cover at least ten times. But I never felt specially curious about it, nor did I get to have at any point an approximate idea of what it was about.
And it went on like that for several months, almost one year maybe, until the day came… I was at an international bookstore in Madrid, that I use to visit very often, and suddenly I found myself in front of one of those cheap editions of the book that seemed to be tirelessly running after me. All right, I took a deep breath, stretched  my arm and seized one copy of it. I then had a quick look at the back-cover, skipped through the pages, and checked the price: 10 euros. Well, the book was thick enough to allow me to practice my English at a fairly cheap price per page, so… what the hell!… Few minutes after I was at the cashier line, about to join the brainless-buyers club, previous step to become a fan club member… fortunately I never got to that second step.
Anyhow, I took the book home with me, and shortly after I started one of most irritating reading experiences in my life… Bewilderment turned up very soon: Even before the novel started, in the page preceding it, there was an isolated paragraph with one of the most inacceptable statements I have ever read in my life. In it, the author had the nerve to affirm that in 1975, parchments discovered at the “Bibliotheque Nationale de France” and referred to as “Dossiers Secrets”, mentioned the names of several great celebrities in the history of humankind as members of a secret organisation called  the Priory of Sion. He also has the nice thought of providing us with the names of some of those eminent members of the group: Jean Cocteau, Isaac Newton, Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo, Leonardo Da Vinci… Well, this statement does not just turn out to be entirely false, but I also found out that Mr. Brown did not even happen to hold the merit of being the inventor of such stupidity.
But let’s better talk about the novel itself. Even for a foreign speaker struggling to master the beautiful English language like me, it is mildly clear that the writing style is worse than mediocre, the plot is almost as farfetched as foolish, and honestly… this guy gives the impression of feeling pride of his total ignorance about the European cultural and historical background, which combined with an obvious lack of artistic ethics, allows us to discover the largest variety of nonsense ever printed. For instance, thanks to Mr. Brown an ignorant Spaniard like me could discover that it is a usual practice for the Opus Dei to recruit young members who are trained for the physical elimination of ideological opponents… come on!
Yes, as I said before, I read the whole novel. And not without effort. But I never regretted such an exercise of auto-flagellation. Because, despite not representing the most enriching experience in my life, at least it helped me to get a better idea of how conformist, dumb and sheeplike we human beings can be. But who could deny that it is definitely much easier if somebody else takes for you the decision of how you ought to spend your money or what opinions you should have? Global marketing is the art of analysing human behaviour, and that behaviour is usually not a source of pride. But at least it is profitable… for quite a few. So if you liked the “Da Vinci Code”, congratulations. And, please, explain me how you did it.