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The Ethics Of Persuasive Writing - Part 1
“Where does persuasion cross the line into manipulation?”
I looked at him. All eyes at the dinner table were watching me.
“Excuse me?”
“Bob” [not his real name, but he reads this blog and I'm saving him from further social embarrassment] repeated the question with exaggerated patience.
We were at the invitation-only conference for Internet business folks. Just before dinner, one of the speakers demonstrated the many ways to “manipulate” (his words, not mine) website visitors to produce a sale.
Now, his use of “manipulate” was positive. It was used in the context of creating a win-win situation and I’m all for that. The buyer gets the education they needed to make a good purchasing decision and the owner of the site made some money.
Everyone goes home happy. What could be wrong with that?
Yet, at its heart, each of those techniques were by definition “manipulations.” Whether it’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depends on your point-of-view and how well you’re educated in marketing, specifically and life in general.
I could argue both sides of the good/bad issue and make a convincing case for each.
Yet, here was Bob asking about the “the ethical lines” drawn in using techniques to get people to do things. I was a bit taken aback because he knew I’ve been successfully wielding the tools of persuasion in my copywriting career for some time.
And he certainly wasn’t minding the results his new website and email campaign were producing . . . so what’s with the question?
It’s, those pesky presuppositions. And he had to have known I was gonna see each one a mile off. That, and he was telegraphing his intentions like a latter day Samuel Morse.
In sales writing, a presupposition is a persuasion technique where the reader, in order to answer the question being asked, has to assume a statement is true or adopt it as a belief.
Presuppositions can also serve the dual purpose of revealing where a person’s innate prejudices are. Frequently, they do both — as they did here.
“Depends,” I reply. “And it doesn’t. Take your pick.”
I didn’t agree with his presuppositioned statement. Because logically, who said persuasion crosses the line into manipulation? Where’s the proof for it? How do you recognize it when it happens?
His second (and erroneous) presupposition – that manipulation is a bad thing. Isn’t there also such a thing as positive manipulation?
But again, to answer his question I’d have to buy into his frame-of-reference that manipulation is bad. I didn’t and I don’t. But it was a nice try on his part.
However, he called me out in front of group of people and he was grandstanding.
Time to school him in error of his ways.
In Part 2, Bob’s argument comes apart so fast — the crowd gets hit by shrapnel.
By Walter |
Topics: Client Top Secret, Inside The Mind, Lessons Learned |