Marketing or manipulation?

 So you have dropped on this article, well here are some things you may or may not know.

From sitting on the sofa watching TV, to the walking down your generic high street, from glancing through your social media on the train, then back home , look Im trying to tell you fucking all the time everyday , your been marketed too , manipulated, it’s not by error, or serendipity that batteries are at the tills while waiting to pay , or strategic, lyrics to influence and persuade you into the arms of their products and services.

It’s all a grandiose ploy to move you to buy, even shit you don’t need and certainly, you will not own in ten years.

Pure consumerism, it’s a throw away society.

You then have the algorithms built around your personal shopping experience, now throwing suggested items at you .

They call it a personal feed, a helpful user experience, or is it just enforcement on the back of devious psychology?

Where is the line from privacy to intrusion on your rights, when does a algorithm become a tool to assist then a tool to spy, manipulate and trick you emotionally into a experience made so simple and addictive to click and spend?

A certain online competitor of Amazon, use sms and email marketing tools, to word offers in a way that reads, claim your free £200 voucher , yet upon further examination and as the not as informed person clicks away, to supposedly claim this, it becomes clear that, actually, it’s once you spend another £180 you get £200 of products so in reality they mean spend another £180 then we will make your products up to £200 free of charge .its the language and how it’s marketed to you which boards criminal, in my book.

False economy, that social pressure of fashion driving peer pressure of the youth, as a knock on effect, creates mental health issues that sets balls rolling, at teenage years.

Generally a fad, product or service that his the market at speed, tends to die off in the same way, others which gradually become a trend, tend to stick around longer.

When is this acceptable and when is it not?

Back in the late 90s they banned certain methodologies, of sales, such as pyramid sales patterns .

They banned flash, subliminal advertising messages, in my opinion, none are as damaging and sly as the marketing campaigns, tricks and psychological  means to gain influence over people and persuade them to buy.

The jury is out? What’s your thinking?

By CJ Rudd

OUREAD MAGAZINE