1. Herd
How to Change Mass Behaviour by
Harnessing Our True Nature
By Mark Earls

2. What the experts say
"Bold in its conception and engaging in execution, offers the most
radical new theory of consumer behaviour in a generation"
(Gulf Business, March 2007)
"…brain–stretching stuff, looking at economic patterns, investment
history and behavioural psychology to help the reader become a
shrewder investigator."
(Securities and Investment Review, March 2007)
"It will change the way you think about marketing. It will
also change the way you think about yourself."
(Marketing Direct, November 2007)

3. Mark Earls
Marketer + Lifelong Advertising man
20 years as an Account Planner
St, Lukes, BMP, Ogilvey
A rebuttal to how the marketing and advertising community
view mass consumer behaviour

4. Overview
• ‘We species’ with an illusion of ‘I’
- reasoning behind his theory
• The Seven Principles of Herd Marketing
- to consider when trying to view mass behaviour

5. ‘We species’ with an illusion of ‘I’
• Super Social Ape
- We are all monkeys
• The illusion of ‘I’
- ‘Don’t part with you illusions when they are gone you may still
exist but you have ceased to live’ – Mark Twain
• ‘I’ vs. ‘U’
- West vs East

6. The Seven Principles of Herd
Marketing
• Interaction
• Influence
• Us-Talk
• Just Believe
• (Re) Light the fire
• Co-Creativity
• Letting go

7. The Seven Principles of Herd Marketing
• Interaction
- Each of us responds to an environment consisting of other people
responding to an environment consisting of other people, etc
• Influence
- Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s
opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation
• Us-Talk
- The power of word of mouth

8. The Seven Principles of Herd Marketing
• Just Believe
1. Create something of social meaning
2. The meaning must come from deep inside you. From your personal beliefs on what is
right in the world
3. You must follow your beliefs and let them shape your business works
• (Re) Light the fire
- Dove ‘Campaign for real beauty’

9. The Seven Principles of Herd Marketing
• (Co) Creativity
- Most new ways of seeing things are the result of a group of people
working together
• Letting Go
- If we really want to understand Mass Behaviour we have to let
go of our illusions of control

10. Personal Conclusions
• Not a ‘how to guide’
• Raises questions!