However in an environment of line extension failures and increasing market segmentation, cutting edge marketers are realizing that current marketing techniques and conceptual models are inadequate. Don Beck's colleague Christopher Cowan explains: "Marketers are now recognizing that there are deeper forces at work: that people exist in cognitive 'spiral spaces' rather than the flat-land of traditional demographic and psychographic indicators. We're going to see the rise of memetic and other profiling techniques to cope with fragmented markets and new media-distribution technologies."

To meet this need, Beck and Cowan co-authored Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change (1996), a book that takes the study of memetics a step further.

"Our view of memetics is different from conventional definitions," explains Cowan. "It is a way of thinking about things rather than categorizing them, [which allows for the fact that] people can exist in several simultaneously different forms of reality. This explains why customers may act differently in home or work environments."

"We streamline communications processes to match individuals, so that positioned products and consumers are speaking the same psychological language, thus increasing the probabilities of compatibility," states Beck. "In intensively competitive environments like the deregulated US airline industry, this directness is the key factor in maintaining brand awareness." Consulting to US-based Southwest Airlines, Beck used the technique, labeled ‘Values-attracting Meta-meme’ (vMEME) profiling, to "give frontline employees a total sense of its culture, which was later tied to a consistent corporate identity."

"Some marketers are able to converse with different vMEME tiers," says Cowan, "but most marketing Vice Presidents operate within the Orange vMEME (the basic decision making process level of many business people), which is very entrepreneurial, competitive, and expansionist. You have to show them that clients and customers are often looking for rewards different than those offered by typical incentive schemes, such as increased job security and a sense of extended family."

Cowan is quick, however, to point out that the vMEME spiral isn't a static hierarchy: "Whilst there are fewer people at the higher levels, this simply means that they are more expansive - they take more things into their consciousness. It doesn't mean that they always make good decisions or see wisely. People get the mistaken notion that you move 'from-to' on the spiral, but all you do is add on another layer (often existing on simultaneous psychological levels), so the past is never escapable. You can't say that moving up is better, or that moving down is worse. You'll find case studies of well-adjusted and happy people at any level of psychological existence."

Soft In The Head?

Despite the wealth of complicated jargon that it has spawned, memetics remains a controversial 'science'. Hardline sociobiologists Edward O. Wilson and Charles Lumsden believe that memetics is "biologically unfounded." Hot debate rages over whether memetics should be considered a 'hard' or a 'soft' science.

"Memetics is still a soft science looking for hardness," says Cowan. "It's easier in some sciences to analyze results because you can look at data chunks and their dissemination within the population using statistical trends. When you look at the deeper force beneath these movements, it shifts into the social science realm. There are contrivances to plug in the language of quantum physics; you can plug in chaos theory if you're prepared to accept that it's a hard science."

Cultural critics remain uncomfortable with the conceptual similarities of memetics to Isaac Asimov's psycho-history and William S. Burrough’s thesis that 'language is a virus from outer space.' "I don't know whether that perspective is factually correct," answers Brodie, laughing, "but it does hint at the semantic word-games of cognitive and communications sciences." For Aaron Lynch, "memetics might never equal the stuff of science fiction, but it can make an important contribution to the understanding of the human condition."

However memetics and the Spiral Dynamics model have much to offer traditional advertising agencies that are looking to expand their conceptual toolkits. The viewpoint is complex versus flatland. Memetics extends standard psychographic techniques by enabling advertising agencies to appeal to specific market segments by tailoring advertisements that speak their exact psychological language. Creative personnel can select key imagery and iconography that appeals directly to audiences. Agencies can map out 'values shifts' during campaigns, and re-position products by redefining their vMEME map. The 'psychological DNA' of competitors and their products can be mapped out and actively countered subtly.

However many critics overlook the ethical dimensions of memetic engineering. In describing his experience with the US sporting media, Beck offers an example of marketing rampantly out of control: "Marketing and advertising have become central to sports (each of which is a different meme game). In the US, the media has disconnected sports from its community, leading to an excess of media celebrities. Maybe pure sport is a myth. The ORANGE vMEME has become malignant, producing experts, consultants and interest groups that ride the back of sports. Athletes who make more money get separated from the fans, and the sport becomes simply a product or promotion. Fans will begin to resent it, and an anti-elite, anti-artificial component will rise, where it is better being a participant instead of a fan, and doing it yourself is of greater value than just watching from the stands."

Beck's role in dismantling South Africa's apartheid and his comments regarding the death of Diana Princess of Wales ("there was an open revolt by the British public against the Monarchy's BLUE vMEME, with ORANGE and GREEN vMEMEs rising up from the streets") hint at a more socially responsible and radically different role he envisages for future marketers. Responsible for the creation and maintenance of culture, marketers will be "spiral wizards who can integrate different parts of the spiral. If you literally think of it as a spiral structure, and you allow one tier to become weak, the whole structure is therefore weakened. All tiers need maintenance, checking, and tuning to be in a healthy form."

Brodie is even starker: "The long-term effects of intensive campaigns on a society's culture will have to be considered. The future for marketers is going to be very different. People will [become increasingly aware of how marketing] techniques operate. Because of the greater awareness of these tactics, traditional marketing campaigns will be increasingly rendered ineffective."

Lessons From American Airlines

Of the many consulting projects Don Beck and Christopher Cowan have undertaken, the opportunity to align the memetic cultures of American Airlines remains one of the most interesting.

Despite successfully applying Michael E. Porter's broad differentiation competition strategy, and investing in the SABRE airline booking system ("an intensely predatory system, gaining exclusive control over information flow," reveals Beck), CEO Robert Crandall's organization was suffering from the 'Humpty Dumpty Effect': when doing your best simply isn't good enough.

"One way we communicated extra value to customers was to realign in-house training, creating a better workforce of people who can do the job better naturally. Using vMEME profiling, I was able to match supervisors and flight attendants who had a natural synergy. This enabled American Airlines to cut costs because you don't need to bring in people who have trouble with training.