MORALS MANIPULATION MARKETING

VIKRAM VENKAT

This article is a study of the use of manipulation by companies, and its relation to viewers and consumers. We will discuss in depth the various techniques employed by markets to attract customers, the presence and depth of common manipulation forms in our everyday lives, and the fine line that divides a lie from a manipulative truth. This article does not intend to teach you how to protect yourself from falling into these traps, nor does it tend to teach any sort of trickery that will help you boost your financial economy.

This is a pure case study based on facts, information, and data.

Competition.

There are two kinds of reactions one can relate to being competitive – a sense of black and white, where everything feels like a blur and the only objective seems to go head-to-head routinely against other contestants that always seem to be incompetent in the beginning; and a bright canvas full of colours mixed up just right to provide a sense of purpose and need to life itself. To the latter, the world of business is a cycle of viciousness, where their needs and curiosities create the demand that need to be supplied by their vibrant [yet realistic] view of the economy. To them, nothing can substitute the joy of grabbing deals and weaving profits out of thin air.

Businessmen have never hesitated to resort to trickery to win the tug-of-war of markets – to them, nothing is immoral, nothing unethical. As long as they’re not illegal, they’re just tools in an instruction panel to gain financial stability. They’d nail a screw to a wall if a hammer is all they have, because as far as they’re concerned, success rates always depend on the number of jobs completed successfully – not satisfactorily.

But, the rise of competitors has forced them to rack their brains to come up with cleverer solutions – they now need to figure out how to screw a screw into a wall with the same hammer. This has led to the rise in not solutions or clarity, but rather more clouded decision-making and illusions. Because given a fixed amount of time, no matter how long, a person always feels the edge. And when he does, he resorts to the easiest way out.

Our case here is quite different. These businessmen didn’t resort to methods that would directly challenge the law. Rather, they found loopholes – flaws in the system that’d be the drain pipe for their profits; amoral practices that’d benefit them while keeping it legal. And what started as a shield against the law is now an everyday practice for the average market retailer. And here we’d discuss one of those practices, its ethical implications, and the line beyond which it gets spotted in the radar of illegality – manipulation.

Ethics.

There are two sides to every story. And while the practice of manipulation might help in generating huge revenues for private, as well a nation’s economy, there are a few ethical boundaries that are broken. Might be insignificant, but this ignorance may lead on to businessmen taking advantage of a consumer’s gullible nature. Moral rules that stay fixed do not help either – loopholes are better found in a fixed set of rules, than an arbitrarily scaling rulebook.

So in terms of marketing, how can we define manipulation?

Methods used to attract and/or lure a major part of the consumer force into investing largely to their product of a specific category, yet do not cross the fine line beyond which it is fraudulent marketing. The fine line that divides manipulation and fraud is the very same line that divides Oxonian vocabulary from Shahsi Tharoor. Ironical, huh?

Manipulation has always played an integral role in determining a market’s success rate, i.e. the number of products/services successfully sold. It is a solid pivot that can turn a market’s profit machine either way. It is the muzak of business – generally left unnoticed. And ever since it has been noticed by the shrewd and the curious, they’ve questioned the method in use and it’s morality – when in reality they did not like the feeling that even people like them have been gullible.

In fact, muzak in itself is a fine example of emotional manipulation. Muzak is used to define ambient music – the sonic background that surrounds you at all times, yet is noticed by very few. The next time you go to a mall or a restaurant, close your eyes and listen over the chitter-chatters – you’ll notice a soft soundtrack play. This low-decibel waveform has the ability to control the decisions people make subconsciously, subconsciously. And no, this isn’t science – it’s just psychology. The soft jazz beats in an AC restaurant keeps you there longer, thereby the business tends to have more sales; but in a roof-tiled shack that offers fast food and beverage, the music that generally plays tends to be faster and much more uncomfortable – thereby enabling them to serve more customers. Airports and public spots play famous pieces, so that you tend to listen to valuable information that might be given just before the bass drops.

Attention.

Another timeless trick used by marketing professionals is the subtle push of desperation, i.e. they make it seem like you’re in need of their product. For this trickof theirs, a lot of psychology is put into work simultaneously – the placebo, the déja vu, and reverse pyschology as well. For example, take the instance of marketing a water bottle. There’s nothing interesting to it, granted it is a day-to-day utility. So how do you make this more relatable to people? Make it look cold, refreshing, and more importantly, make them thirsty. And this way, when a person is thirsty, the conjured images in his mind are more related to this advertisement of cold, refreshing water – which they tend to buy as well. In this way, the placebo and the déja vu are put to good use.

Reverse psychology is used to market not-so-likeable items, such as aerated beverages and junk food. This requires a different marketing strategy due to the fact that they’re implanted in impressionable brains as being unhealthy, and they tend to convey the fact that they’re tasty, as well as that they’re unhealthy when consumed in large quantities. As laymen, we usually tend to overlook the other fact due to what’s commonly known as the confirmation bias. For marketing these, the apparent consumers in ads tend to be healthy and fully-developed children that go on to eat a portion of these and appear healthy as well. This way, the taste factor is passed onto the same impressionable brains – so the next time you’re a kid that pesters elders for these, blame the right persons.

Media has now become the ultimate source for all marketing. Though some feel that this has made companies lose a personal touch with their customers, showcasing on a large scale is impossible to handle by companies alone. And even though the rise of social media is on the rise, companies depend on an already established outlet to take care of a large part of product marketing. And when it’s media, it’s all about appearance. As manufacturers keep taking huge strides to make products look better on TV and posters, the divide between the apparent and the actual is growing. The edge is on the rise.

Boundaries.

And as we’ve seen, the emphasis is real. Cautious moves, when combined with clever tricks, can lead to the most subtle manipulation techniques; under no circumstance should a method be conceived under urgency. For it may lead to blatant persuasion, and in some cases, unethical manipulation. Examples of such methods include untruth, exaggeration, and gaslighting.

Untruth and exaggeration are quite self-explanatory, while gaslighting can turn out to be a very unstable method; it has a high risk of backfire, and can lead to dangerous consequences. It involves the process of lowering a person’s self-esteem and making him increasingly doubt himself for everything, which can lead to something as simple as DID, to fatality. I use the word fatality, because it can turn out to be fatal for himself, or the society he’s a part of. The community should be avenged by legal and moral challenges, not rebuking and stooping to their level.

And hence, we see that manipulation is great tool – and as they say, the value of a tool depends on the person who puts it to use. A hammer can be used to drive a nail into a wall, or a person to pulp. And as exists a tool, so does morality. As long as everything that is done stays within limits, nobody is to blame – it is just pure cleverness, and experience. To trick a consumer into becoming a customer is no easy job; accept that fact that you’re gullible, too.

And herein I conclude this article.

[curtains fall].

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