Today is November 14, the birthday of Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
What pops into my mind when I hear that name is that the man was formerly Secretary General of the UN and that he was interviewed by Ali G. From the opening of the interview:
“I is here with the geezer who was the Secrety General of the United Nations. His name be none other than my man Boutros… Boutros… Boutros-Ghali. And him will explain about the United Nations innit?”
In case you somehow missed it, Ali G was one of the characters invented by Sacha Baron Cohen, the guy who invented Borat.
Ali is a white, middle-class boy from London who wears a track suit and orange-tinted sunglasses, speaks with a mock Jamaican accent, and conducts ridiculous interviews with high-ranking, unsuspecting marks.
AG: “Is Disneyland a member of the UN?”
BBG: “No! Because Disneyland is not an independent state.”
I’ve known about Ali G for over 20 years, ever since the show initially aired on Channel 4 in the UK.
But only today did I investigate how exactly Ali G got so many high-level interviews. Noam Chomsky… Ralph Nader… Donald Trump.
It turns out to be your standard social engineering, really nothing fancy:
It would all start with a flattering letter, often to a former official or directly to a lone personality who didn’t have a dedicated PR department, asking for an interview as part of an interview series.
The URL on the letter linked to a (real) website for a (dummy) production company, which was even registered as a business and had a real address.
If that first letter didn’t hook, there would be repeated requests, sometimes backed by endorsements from reputable people in the media world.
Once the mark agreed to the interview, and before the actual interview began, the producers would start making excuses for Ali’s appearance, manner of talking, and apparent idiocy. “He is very popular with the young-adult target audience.”
And that’s how you get high-level and often very smart people to sit through a shockingly silly interview. “We truly left there thinking he was the stupidest person ever,” said one high-level political celeb, who was interviewed on the Ali G show.
So what’s my point?
Well, maybe it’s the power of trappings of authority and status, as opposed to inherent value or talent.
Or if that doesn’t suit you, or if you’re not looking to camouflage yourself like Sacha Baron Cohen, then maybe the point is simply:
Different is better than better.
That’s a koan that marketer Rich Schefren likes to repeat.
People have a hard time truly judging who’s good, and who’s an idiot or a conman. It’s even harder before you have a chance to sit across from the person and have them ask you, as Ali G asked Buzz Aldrin:
“I know this is a sensitive question. But what was it like not being the first man on the moon? Was you ever jealous of Louis Armstrong?”
On the other hand, people have a very easy time judging who is different. It’s part of our neurology.
And that’s why, in many situations, being different — along with being persistent — is all it takes to get the interview or to make the sale.
Speaking of which:
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