Lady Gaga's Age Old Alchemy

Dr. Bob Deutsch

Brain Sells

www.Brain-Sells.com

The ubiquitous Lady Gaga is the newest “It Girl” with mega hits, a creative directorship for Polaroid and endorsements for brands like Estee Lauder’s Viva Glam products.  But  through an anthropologist’s lens, 23 year-old Stefanie Germanotta represents something completely primal, a shamanistic high priestess.

Beyond the torrent of press coverage and her 5.2 million Facebook fans, or “little monsters” as she lovingly calls them, lurks a fascinating back-story.   It’s not just how Lady Gaga sings and dances to her own beat, like Mic and Astaire, who danced to the melody.  Each shaman whether from New Guinea or the Amazon, has ann atypical gait and tempo, a reflection of their other-worldliness.

To the Spirit World and Back, with Knowledge

And it’s not simply Lady Gaga’s theatrics, wild outfits, headdresses and masks, although she shares these with most Shaman who cover themselves with rare feathers and paint their faces with natural pigments.  These attention-getting communication devices are necessary accoutrements of the shaman’s prototypal ventures out of the temporal and into the “spirit world“ where the Shaman does battle with the dark forces of the cosmos – fighting “monsters.” As the Lady says, for this you must feel “fierce.”  One must vanquish all doubt, blood-soaked and mythic.

Following the trials of battle, the shaman “comes back” to his people (having traveled beyond via trance or hallucinogenic) to give over  lessons – practical, existential, and cosmological.  In large measure the shaman’s expertise lies in how well these teachings are transmitted, such that the tribe experiences what the shaman has, as if they themselves had made the hero’s journey, a felt sense of “post-icipation.”

Then it is up to individuals of the tribe to rely on their newly expanded beings.  Moses is a model: lead your people to the promised land, and then they enter and proceed without you.  

The Benevolent Priestess

Lady Gaga is the archetype of the benevolent leader. This completely fearless-about-her-ambition Italian girl from Yonkers, has a dream and is outrageously outspoken, not only for herself but for her fans, particularly her young, female fans.

In her Barbara Walters interview, she voiced the sentiment, wanting to be a teacher, saying, “I want to liberate them from their fears so they can find their own place in the world.” In this way, she represents the essence of a brand. 

Attaching to Brand Gaga

Human biology and cognition dictates that people will attach to people, and brands, that provide the stimulus to more fully realize their latent potential.  Lady Gaga is like the Yellow Brick Road; through post-icipatng in her journey, each fan feels, “I can become myself.”   There is no greater gift to be bestowed.

Lady Gaga’s near-instantaneous rise to fame is largely due to her embodiment of a fearless leader, a hero who matches the zeitgeist of performance and pose, while appearing completely authentic.  In some peculiar way, Lady Gaga is like other leaders, such as Ronald Reagan or even Pope John Paul, who spontaneously performed and inspired intense emotional attachments and loyalty.

Gaga is Primal

Why is Lady Gaga so watched on YouTube, Twittered about, commented on and searched by the millions? Because she is the real deal. She is primal, a shaman priestess whose performances propels you out of your mundane existence.  She is artfully full of life that others may become so too. That’s the secret of stardom and that’s brand power at its greatest..

Marketer’s TakeAway:

1. A marketing strategy, no matter how good in the abstract, won’t work if its essence is not authentic to the “product.”

2. Channel selection is critical, but channels only exist to carry compelling “messages.”

3. Modern technologies are great, but how they operate and what they (re)present must answer to what human nature and the nature of mind intrinsically responds to. Remember, the future has an ancient heart.

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Dr. BOB DEUTSCH is a cognitive anthropologist.  He is founder and president of Brain Sells, a consultancy that advises clients on the mind and mood of various publics and how to communicate with them.