When does manipulation go too far?

For longer than I can remember I thought about authenticity vs. manipulation, and especially in business.

I found manipulation unethical and felt that optimizing it leads to infomercials and sleazy sales letters that everyone sees right through.

But I still wasn’t sure. For example Gary Halbert said: “give people what they want, not what they need”. And: “if you’re gonna be stupid you gotta be tough”.

Given my uncertainty I decided to just go w being authentic.

I, myself connected much better w for example vloggers who were talking about fitness genuinely than some optimized site or video that tries to precisely match w what it thinks I want to hear.

Or someone who’s genuine in talking about business vs the business doofus, the so called expert who’s doing everything perfectly copy/marketing wise.

I still feel that it’s the people who have that philosophy their fault for making the market so jaded. They ruined ‘free’. Cuz there’s always a catch. They ruined ‘IMPORTANT’, cuz it never is. They ruined search engines with SEO and on and on.

The first guy to do buy one get two was amazing. Then it just become a marketing tool. The first biz to give free products to their YT heroes (Gymshark) was epic. Now it’s called ‘influencer marketing’.

Every time marketeers steal shit, it loses all of its value.

Side note. I think marketing should be thought more in the sense of creativity aka art then a set of fixed tricks you can use on your users.

Because once enough people do it, the user or whoever you’re targeting knows its a trick.

That’s why marketing becomes ineffective. So the emphasis should be on how do I help users discover our AMAZING product. Then ‘marketing’ strategies will flow naturally.

But I think I’m slightly less opposed to them nowadays… because while I do think you have to be careful w over optimizing or you’ll risk turning everything into low value click bait, I also think you need to be emphatic about your users and keep in mind how they see the world.

Because if you truly want to help them, you may need to be agnostic in how you achieve that.

If the most important thing to me is helping a person prevent heart disease then I think we need to be aware of what way of framing our information (or uploading our software to their brain) will cause the desired action.

If we tell them: here’s how to prevent heart disease, no one will care. But if we say, here’s how to eat well and look ripped so you’ll feel better, look better, have more success w the opposite sex, feel more confident and prevent a lot of diseases such as heart disease in the process, they’re much more likely to listen.

It’s kinda like how no one gives a fuck about global warming. Most companies tried to scream, here’s why you should care. W advertising, w social, w flyers, w documentaries etc. But the user (at scale) said I got my own problems, fuck off.

But tesla said, fuck it. They (users) don’t need to care. It’s OUR mission to address global warming by accelerating the advent of sustainable transport, not theirs.

Trying to change their view AND their behavior is the wrong approach. Instead let’s just work with their current behavior and views in order to achieve our goal.

So instead of trying to change their view, give them what they want and design it in such a way that it aligns with your mission. Turn it into a win-win.

So they launched this super sexy electric car that users wanted. Then they launched two other sexy cars w huge benefits such as less maintenance, amazing looks, no more getting gas, supercharger networks w free long distance travel, insane acceleration, super safety etc.

(And then now the model 3.)

They launched something users loved and as a side effect it just so ‘happens’ to play a part in saving the environment.

Obviously this was not an accident but carefully orchestrated by everyone involved at Tesla.

So while I still don’t have an answer and likely never will, for now I’d say err on the side of authenticity.

)
Youngling & Feynman

Turning Good Companies Into Extraordinary Ones.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade