Half the population has a double digit IQ. The methodology has converged on what it has because it works on the majority of the population. Most people don't see through it.
I agree that it is the strategy because it works, but I dont think you can just blame it on the stupids.
A lot of social branding is made by the upper class, for the upper class. After all, they are the ones with disposable income looking for meaning at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
I'm not sure there's a reliable distinction between the wealthy and the stupids. Very little wealth is generated solely or principally as a consequence of applied exceptional intelligence or talent.
Increasingly, as pools of wealth become so concentrated as to be impossible to consume entirely within a statistically average adult lifespan, and are thus passed on to offspring, there is little to no intelligence or talent necessary whatsoever.
For an extreme example consider that in my country we are about to endow yet another habitual gambler with a multi-billion dollar fortune, instantly catapulting them and their entire family over multiple generations, into status of what amounts to minor nobility. And their contribution to society, at least as far as this reward is concerned, is that they had the foresight to spend $5 or $10 or $100 on lottery tickets for the unknownteenth week in a row.
I agree that it isnt deterministic, but I think there is a very real correlation between wealth and intelligence, however you want to define the latter.
How much disposable income does the illiterate 20% of Americans have, and who is targeting them with their social consciousness marketing
A lot of social branding is made by the upper class, for the upper class. After all, they are the ones with disposable income looking for meaning at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.