What's dumber, listening to 'Friday' or Russell Brand?

Honestly, I'd never heard of Rebecca Black. Until I stumbled on her song 'Friday' on Youtube. I thought the song was nice with a catchy beat. A tune that could grow on you, I felt. And then I did a search on the singer and guess what I found? Other than the fact that she was a 13 year old, that 'Friday' was being branded as the 'worst ever' song, and that Katy Perry had mocked the song by singing it out of tune at a Melbourne concert.

Well what can I say, welcome to the stupidity of crowds (read, herd mentality). In marketing parlance that means the influence of 'reference groups'. Tell you what, after reading the news stories, I started to admit maybe the song was annoying. The thought was planted in my mind via all that I read. If the world had an opinion, guess I must play along is what my subconscious mind told me. But thankfully I stopped before all the opinion got to dictating mine. As I heard the song again, I thought it had a groove to it that was easy and nice.

Reference groups go a long way in influencing our decisions as consumers. If the crowd's dying to buy Prada and only a few can afford it, guess the brand must be god's gift to mankind is what we think. Never mind that most designer brands look like something you can buy off any local shelf. A brand can be said to have 'made it' if it can get the crowd's approval. Engineering that, for marketers is as important as being a great product and a superior value proposition.

As for 'Friday', I may listen to it again. Oh, eat your heart out Katy Perry, Friday's YouTube numbers stand at 146,713,714. And I can't think of anything dumber than wanting to be with Russell Brand!