[HoniSoit]

Do you think subliminal advertising is a form of mind control with enormous power due to the unconsciousness of the recipients, and thus immoral? Or do you think it is no more than normal advertising in its effects on us, and thus not immoral?

[volition]

Well I haven't seen any evidence regarding its power of "mind control" so I'm more inclined to think its not immoral.

[Anaesthetic Toy]

I don't think so-called subliminal advertising is particularly effective. I certainly wouldn't consider it a form of mind control. What we can say with relative ease is that most consumer advertising does 'influence' people by attempting to manufacture demand, but that isn't essentially much different from any other process of persuasive argumentation in my opinion. That people are readily swayed by shoddy modes of argument probably reflects more upon an educational failure than on an insidiousness in the medium.

[Maxim Litvinov]

I'm not sure it's particularly effective, but then again there's lots of stuff that is like subliminal advertising that is effective, and the stuff is on some sort of continuum.

I mean, sticking people in the mood to make purchases (by changing the smell in the air, for instance) fits this category. Or providing ready credit to people knowing that they'll spend more because the money seems less real. Or providing a free drinks tab to poker machine users because the more soused, the more they'll lose.

I don't think you can just blame people for being stupid either - these methods are adopted because they'll work on the general public. It's the essence of marketing.

[Anaesthetic Toy]

Or providing ready credit to people knowing that they'll spend more because the money seems less real.

I don't think credit makes money seem less real because people are somehow naturally susceptible to that conceptualization. I would call that susceptibility a product of weakly analytical socialization, if for no other reason than my own anecdotal experience. Credit 'money' is as real to me as paper money, and I wouldn't say that's because people are stupid and I am not. It has more to do with my bothering to understand what the value of money is and not associating it with the paper. Something people can be taught to do, wouldn't you think?

these methods are adopted because they'll work on the general public. It's the essence of marketing.

But why do they work on the general public, Maxim?

[Maxim Litvinov]

I think anyone can 'teach' themselves self-control... to the point that they don't buy product x or don't eat chocolate cake when they want to. But you can't really permanently be defensive about these things.

So, to use a religious notion, it's really a matter of one's natural common sense/stoicism and temptation combined influencing a result.

But there are very subtle ways of undermining the former and maximising the latter, a few of which I discussed, and it's really hard to determine which if any of them should be considered naughty.

I mean, putting people in a good mood so they'll buy your lollipop seems innocent enough, but what about making them fearful so they'll buy your security system? Is it just a matter of steering clear of misleading or fraudulent advertising and being okay? Or is it a problem if you are deliberately targetting vulnerable people?

So many questions about business ethics. I don't think the general answer is to simply ascribe fault in most cases to one party or the other - business for fraud and the consumer for irrationality.

[Anaesthetic Toy]

But you can't really permanently be defensive about these things.

Blah. I think a person can learn to control their wanting as well as their behavior, such that one needn't be permanently "defensive" at all. In fact, I would be reluctant to characterize it as an issue of defense against attack in the first place. I don't think indulgence is implicitly negative, and nor do I consider temptation (argument) to be a kind of aesthetic offense.

But there are very subtle ways of undermining the former and maximising the latter, a few of which I discussed, and it's really hard to determine which if any of them should be considered naughty.

What's subtle and what's obvious is in many cases a function of what people are trained to look for. In many ways, this is a lot like learning to test. Business ethics is certainly a diverse subject, and like any diverse subject the context of a question will strongly influence its resolution, but I wouldn't call it really hard. It's accessible. Not rocket science.

I mean, putting people in a good mood so they'll buy your lollipop seems innocent enough, but what about making them fearful so they'll buy your security system? Is it just a matter of steering clear of misleading or fraudulent advertising and being okay? Or is it a problem if you are deliberately targetting vulnerable people?

I don't think you can "put" people in a good mood or "make" them fearful with elective advertising as we know it today. People react to these things based upon associative processes, and not only are those processes learned but they are subject to analytical regulation. You shouldn't want to slap business for attempting to be empirical in their advertising methodology, whilst giving the culture a free pass for being analytically bankrupt. Modern marketing is a culturally reactionary argument. Fraud, on the other hand, is lying and theft.

So many questions about business ethics. I don't think the general answer is to simply ascribe fault in most cases to one party or the other - business for fraud and the consumer for irrationality.

I wouldn't ascribe fault to a business for advertising, nor would I seek to fault a consumer for consuming. I don't think either are problematic. What's problematic is businesses that steal and consumers who consume without thinking. Broadly, it's a cultural problem - not one with the empirical advertising model.

[Maxim Litvinov]

Not rocket science.

Which is why it's hard - because it doesn't have the solid rules of rocket science. Unless you adopt a system with some hard and fast rules, you're sailing on the same seas as the rest of morality... only perhaps more uncharted, as popular discourse on business ethics is still not that well nutted out, so there aren't too many anchorage points.

I don't think you can "put" people in a good mood or "make" them fearful with elective advertising as we know it today.

I think you can provide *influences* that push to one or the other. Which would seem to raise the same issues at the end of the day.

You shouldn't want to slap business for attempting to be empirical in their advertising methodology

I'm not sure if you can reasonably start from that position - ie. it's going to be acceptable if it's just a case of using reason and research to maximise profits.

What's problematic is businesses that steal and consumers who consume without thinking.

What's problematic is that which produces a problem. From a consequentialist viewpoint, I'd suggest the present business/consumer interaction can produce problematic transactions long before you get to the boundaries of 'breaking the law' or 'not thinking at all': we have to consider shades of grey. And in terms of which body is most easily shaped (ie - in which arena such problems could most easily be addressed) and I think while apportioning blame is fine, dealing with this sort of marketing manipulation on the business side is generally easier and more productive than altering everyone's reaction to marketing stimuli.

[Anaesthetic Toy]

I think you can provide *influences* that push to one or the other. Which would seem to raise the same issues at the end of the day.

Nah. At the end of the day, I'm still going to turn my nose up at the "pushing" part. Using green and red decor in an attempt to tantalize hunger and thereby entice people to buy pizza is a form of argumentation, based upon research which suggests that the form works pretty well. It's an influence, like using pretty words and facial expression is an influence. It doesn't push.

Consequentialism makes me horny and everything, and I respect that you're making an argument from that perspective, but I wanna call it impotent whenever it goes without qualifying amidst cultural function. We shouldn't just react to mechanisms which produce result x or y when those mechanisms are only producing result x or y because of the function of the context z. Alphabet soup aside, I want to reduce your argument to "technology is dangerous"; empirical advertising can have a problematic effect, but that itself does not necessarily make empirical advertising a problem any more than cars are a problem because people are having car accidents.

Snarf, snarf.

[Gnote]

This is an interesting discussion.

You shouldn't want to slap business for attempting to be empirical in their advertising methodology, whilst giving the culture a free pass for being analytically bankrupt.

This is an extremely intriguing statement and one that I think holds significant validity. I tend to 'slap' the entire concept of advertising for many of the reasons that Maxim presented including implications on economic activity, specifically its effect on market processes and its attack on consumer rationality. However, the consumer obviously can't go blameless in all of this.

I think this issue starts to trend toward a grey area where the question becomes one of whether consumers are really rational agents capable of seeing through the attempts of advertising, or if social conditioning is so pervasive that it renders any such attempt impossible. Basically, does logic categorically trump conditioning?

I think the answer is 'yes' on the collective level, but 'no' on the individual level. AT is correct in his admonishment of our education systems. Clearly, if these systems were able to drill to the core of all of society's 'goofy truths', people would be more critical of those truths and better approximations of the 'rational consumer'. However, until the collective conscience moves in that direction - that is to say until education systems are forced, by the will of the people, to quesion such truths on their logical/rational merits - what hope does the individual have?

Basically, we have to decide collectively that no action be taken as the correct action until it has met a certain logical standard.

[Ahind80]

No matter what business you are in, the marketing is needed. But you have to find the best platforms so that can easily accomplish the goals. I am also having a thought on using best sorts of mobile marketing methods including the social media as well as sms automotive apps.