E46 - Manipulation in marketing

Speaker A: Hello everyone. My name is Carlos Velasco and I'm an associate professor at uh, bi Norwegian Business School. And I would like to welcome you back to the Customer Experience Management podcast hosted together with Professor Anders Gustafsson. And I am thrilled to be here with you as we kick off season AH5 of the podcast. After a few months away, we are returning with renewed energy and a fantastic lineup of guests. Ah, this season we will be exploring fresh insights, real world challenges and um, several ideas in customer experience. So thank you for joining us and uh, let's get started. Today we have a special guest. Uh, her name is Maria Arango Cure. She is a doctoral researcher at uh, Jokoping. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing well the name because it's in Swedish, but will correct me later. International Business School where she studies the ethical and relational dynamics of digital technologies. Her work is uh, basically interdisciplinary and she's bringing, or kind of like bringing together marketing, information systems, organizational studies and ethics. She has over 15 years of experience leading a uh, digital consultancy. Uh, Maria brings a practice, informed perspective to questions of responsibility, design and decision making in digital environments. She also serves on the board of the Ethical Move, a global initiative advocating for transparency, integrity in marketing. Transparency and integrity in marketing. So perhaps unsurprisingly, a topic we're going to be covering today is related to uh, these interests and these topics that he has been um, basically exploring. We're going to be talking about manipulation in marketing. A ah, really relevant topic. I think for many of us that although we all talk about it as if we knew what it was, we do not necessarily have a clear definition in our minds. And I think part of this podcast or the idea of this podcast is to kind of like try to get some ideas of what is manipulation and what can we do about it. So Maria, welcome to the podcast. It is a pleasure to have you here. Maybe let's start by you telling us a little bit more about yourself.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. It's ah, an absolute pleasure to be here and to join you today. Um, sure. So let me tell you a bit about myself. Um, I am Colombian, uh, and I started my education there. I was studying uh, audiovisual communications. Um, that was what my undergrad, uh, is in. And then I came to Spain and I studied uh, marketing. And after that once I came to Sweden, I started working in human um, computer interaction and finally entered my um, my PhD studies in the business school. So it is absolutely interdisciplinary, eclectic. It's uh, a Bit of everything. But it really matches sort of my own life's trajectory and my personal interests and what I've been working. So I've been in the industry for 15 years. I have my own consultancy and I do everything from design, digital marketing strategy, and so kind of where my interest goes, then my academic interests tend to follow. Uh, and I think that the big connecting thread and what really calls to me is communication and decision making, whether between people, between people and brands, and how these interactions are shaped by either the business environment or the technological environment. Um, so I think eventually, after many years, I've been able to see, like, a very clear, thorough line between all of the very different, uh, areas that I've explored.

Speaker A: Right. That is a very interesting path. I actually didn't know before we started talking, but you also have, uh, a background in hci, which I do as well, which is quite interesting.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: And I kind of, uh, think that it's super nice how you have kind of mixed industry and academia in ways that probably inform each other quite nicely. Right. So, yeah, that's very nice trajectory. Maria, thank you for sharing that. Um, you know, in this, this podcast is about customer experiences. So we usually like to ask our, our guests, uh, you know, how do you define experiences and why is it important in the particular topic of today, you know, which is basically manipulation. To think about manipulation in the context of customer experiences, that's.

Speaker B: I think it's a great question. And I've been kind of pondering about it because experience feels to me like has the same problem as manipulation. We all use the word, but we very rarely kind of stop and think like, ok, actually is an experience. So this forced me to do that process for myself. And I think for me at least, an experience is an encounter that creates an impression, uh, to put it very kind of simply. And it can be between people. It can be between a person and an idea. It can be an encounter with nature, with a brand, with a product. There's many different, um, but it's always that. It's this encounter of two entities, and it creates an impression. We obviously encounter thousands of millions of things every day, but only those who leave an impression behind are the ones that we would consider an experience. Uh, in my perspective, and I guess in the case of customer experience is now bringing it, like, to the business, um, area. Manipulation can determine that impression. Right. So if I encounter a brand and they are acting manipulatively, or if I am left feeling tricked or scammed or pressured, that is the impression that I'm Walking away with. So from a purely like brand business perspective or brand equity perspective, manipulation is damaging the lasting impression that you're leaving on your customer or on consumers. So that would be.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that makes absolute sense. I like your definition because it's kind of like an impression that we get from an encounter, some sort of event. And in a way that event could be, let's say, like marketing, uh, communication or some sort of like marketing persuasive message that in some cases might be manipulative or not. And that could influence, of course, the impression that we get, uh, whether we are aware of it or not. Because that's the other part. Sometimes we are aware of it, sometimes we are not. But then there is somebody creating that message, I guess. Ah, that makes absolute sense. Now one of the things, uh, basically we are uh, going to be talking about one paper that Maria, ah, co authored recently, ah, when I say recently, it was literally published like a month ago or something like that. Right. So it's very, very recent in the Journal of Business Research. I'm going to leave the link to the article in the bio of the podcast so you can access it. But basically it's about manipulation in marketing. And uh, one of the things that you mentioned, um, in this uh, uh, paper, you know, is this idea that we all talk about manipulation, both in marketing professional settings and so on. And we rarely sit down, as you just said, you know, to define it. So I guess my question is twofold. Like the first is how did you get interested in this topic to start with? And second, how do you define manipulation?

Speaker B: Okay, um, so there's a little bit of a long story as to how I ended up um, getting involved in this topic. But, um, essentially during the pandemic, I guess not only me, but uh, a lot of people started to give themselves a space to think a little bit about their work and about their job. And I was uh, starting to feel like a lot of dread and a lot of burnout towards my marketing practice and things didn't quite feel right for me. And around that time I got involved with this organization called the Ethical Move, which was started by uh, a marketer from Switzerland called Alice Carolina. And uh, she essentially just wrote this manifesto calling out all of the things that we as marketers are told we need to do to be good at our jobs. So all of the trickery and how then it can be small things. If you're hosting an open house and trying to sell a house, then, uh, you put cookies in the oven so the house smells like home, and people are more likely to buy to much larger and much more insidious things. And ah, so I got involved with this organization because the message really resonated with me. I felt like, yeah, I get that tiredness of feeling like we always have to be tricking people, that it's always us against the consumer if we want to be a good marketer. And that's when I realized, so part of this organization revolves around this pledge and where businesses and marketers pledge to do marketing ethically. And, uh, I discovered that there were thousands of people and of businesses who are feeling the same way. It wasn't like this lonely feeling of, oof, maybe I'm not cut out for this. But this big, there's a lot of us who are thinking that this is not the way things should be. And more and more, as we worked within this organization, we realized all of these people who had taken the pledge, who really wanted to do things differently, were looking to us for advice on how do we do this. And that has never been the goal of the ethical move. We're more about starting the conversation and sharing resources. And we're not meant to be prescriptive in that sense. But I thought, okay, there must be something in academic literature, there must be some smarter brains, must have thought of this before. So it kind of started my deep dive. And what I found was this muddled field with a lot of conversation, uh, about manipulation, persuasion, coercion, and all of the terms used interchangeably. A lot of work focused, uh, on very specific legal frameworks and phrasing the entire thing around legality and, um, and very little in terms of what to do if you're a marketer and you want to do things better. And coming from practice and from industry, for me it's really important that we not only write this little paragraph at the end of our papers that says our work contributes to the managerial implications or whatever, but that it actually does. And so I thought, okay, then, then it's up to me. I want to do this deep dive. I want to go in and start looking as to what we know, what is still missing and how can this be translated to the layperson who's sitting behind their computer trying to sell their product or their service or, uh, roll out their marketing agency. And that's kind of how it all got started.

Speaker A: That is, yeah, that is a nice, nice background to, to your interest in, in manipulation. And yeah, you're right. You know, it's like, I feel sometimes also that we get to the end of the, our academic papers and we have like these. Something seeming like pushed by the reviewers. What are the managerial implications? But it feels sometimes that is not necessarily that articulated to real practice. And in a topic like manipulation, which is kind of quite important, I guess, having a clear and direct and um, at least informing people on the possibilities and the alternatives that they have, to act on it, I think would be something, uh, important. But considering this background, how would you define manipulation from your, the perspective of your paper? And kind of like how was the process of reaching that definition? I guess it's also a question.

Speaker B: Yeah. So the presence, uh, there was uh, an inordinate amount of reading all of the very many definitions that are out there. And a lot of it was quite philosophical work, uh, that was trying to find the boundaries of manipulation and a lot of studying individual cases. So. So if I go play poker, is that manipulation or not? Because I'm agreeing to other players deceiving me, uh, to take my money and a lot of like studying all of these cases. And that's how we ended up with this definition that is kind of wordy and, and it doesn't like roll of the tongue easily. So like to quote directly from the paper, manipulation is the intentional attempt to influence a person's behavior, goals, emotions or perceptions through deception or the exploitation of their vulnerabilities in ways that appear to limit their choices and that occurs without free and informed consent. So clearly very wordy. Uh, but every single one of the terms that are included there reflect sort of a discussion that has happened in the literature. Is it about intent? Is it about whether it succeeds? So intentional attempt, uh, is it about, uh, a person's behavior, goals, emotions, or is it just about the way they act? But I would say in layman's terms, we're just to kind of try to bring this more to a human level. It's just trying to influence the way people act, think or feel by deceiving them or exploiting their witnesses, their weaknesses, so that it seems that they have no choice. That that is kind of the, the core.

Speaker A: And um, you know, I told you that I was. I basically integrated this, this article in one of my recent classes called Purpose Driven Brand Management. And one of the things that I found particularly useful in the discussion is that at least when you have a clear definition, it is much easier to judge things that you see on whether they actually are manipulation or not. And of course there might be, uh, some probably reviewers or other people that might disagree with your definition, but that's not necessarily a Bad thing. It's actually a good thing. And, um, I guess the key is, what is your definition in the end, and how are you going to judge the things that you do and that you observe on whether they're manipulative or not? And I want to highlight some points because in your definition, you mentioned it's an intentional attempt. There is also the concept of influence, but not any kind of influence, but you have two keywords or processes, which are deception and exploitation of vulnerabilities. And then you have these final components, which is basically the absence of informed consent. So I think one of the things that I really enjoyed about reading this paper is that, you know, I'm a true believer in philosophy as kind of like this fundamental, uh, field that basically we all derive from in a way. And you go back to the philosophy and you talk about the ethics of how we judge whether things are good or bad. And you talk about kind of like these two trends, one that is judging, uh, things positive, whether they're positive or negative, based on the outcomes, and then one that is about the intention that you have. So my question here is, why did you focus on intent rather than outcome? Um, uh, in your definition?

Speaker B: Well, I think, and this might be one of the most contentious points that we found as we were developing the paper with the reviewers. Uh, a lot of people disagreed with that decision. Um, and I think at the core of it, it does go back to philosophy. And I think we all have our personal take on ethics, whether we feel that it's about intentions or whether we feel it is about outcomes and that utilitarian or Kantian divide kind of colors how we see things. Um, but one of the first things that we found and that started kind of guiding the process, uh, was from Robert Nogle, who is, of course, one of the authorities in the topic. And he says that it is very important that we do not confuse the outcomes of manipulation or the ethics of the outcomes of manipulation with the ethics of acting manipulatively. And that for us, that was a big trigger. Right. Um, we can discuss the ethics of what happens, but we can also discuss the ethics of what I'm doing. And that translated very well to us in terms of trying to produce a paper that would inform a marketer trying to behave ethically because outcome is difficult to assess. I don't know if my FOMO campaign is going to actually produce fear and make people buy when they otherwise wouldn't until after I've done it, or I don't know who will be harmed or who will not be harmed. Uh, many of our actions harm some people and not others. Uh, some people might be immune to scarcity, for example, or some people might be immune to social pressure, but others not. And because we can't really know what is going to happen after it's done, it is very difficult for us to, to have that be the guide for our actions. But we definitely know for sure what we're trying to do and what our intention is. So from a practical perspective, that's the only way that made sense.

Speaker A: No, I think it makes absolute sense and is that sometimes it's also difficult to anticipate what is going to happen. Uh, so you might actually have the best intentions and have, uh, the opposite outcome or have pretty bad intentions, but you can judge that, uh, from this perspective and then have again, positive outcomes. So I think in a way, the way that I took these two philosophical approaches to judging whether something is harmful or not was rather complementary as well, I'm sure, if you would agree with me. But I like your position on, you know, to guide practice, which is, you know, we are dealing with, basically with people that have intentions to change something, then that's a really good practical way also to approach the topic. So, yeah, no, this is, this is, uh, this is very, very interesting. I wonder. There is something, there is something that I was reflecting and maybe this is a little bit like taking a detour, ah, you know, from, from the definition that you're having. But where does, could the consumer agency fall into all this? You know, because I might be a marketer having like the intent to do something manipulative, but maybe me, uh, as a consumer, ah, either fall for it or I am aware of it and then I just do something about it, you know. So is there like any way in which this definition considers also the consumer?

Speaker B: In a sense, yes, um, but also, no. So what I'm trying to say is the definition is meant to be aimed at practitioners. Well, I am judging my own actions. The reality is what we know about the consumers, um, and there's vast literature on that, on whether people notice it, on whether people act on it. And, and actually one of the arguments in terms of harm and trying to take a deontological perspective on this is that there is always harm because if the consumer doesn't notice, then they might be over consuming. There might be all of the bad things. Right? But if they do notice, there is also harm because then the consumer is identifying, as we talked earlier, your brand as manipulative. Or, uh, one thing that I started to notice, um, around the pandemic times was how, you know, how in the 80s, there was always this joke about the lawyers that were the bad guys. And, like, the profession as a whole was painted really poorly. And all these jokes, like a lawyer, the pope, and a rabbi on an airplane with one parachute. And it was like, always the lawyer was the bad guy. And I started seeing kind of shifting. And it's always the marketer who's the bad guy. And it's. It's really harming our profession, the way that we are, um, acting in many

Speaker A: cases more with that. You know, it's like one of the ironies that I think about the marketing discipline. Like, and. And this is something that probably people that are in multiple disciplines feel, uh, and you are, you know, and I am as well, that we work, you know, in different disciplines. But sometimes when I talk about marketing, which I. I mean, I'm a. I'm super deep into marketing. I really like the marketing science, you know, all the concepts that it's produced and everything. But when I talk to people in psychology or marketing, they have a really bad, uh, feeling about marketing. If I go to talk to the people in hci, they feel that, uh, marketing is not actually a great discipline, you know, and that they're doing harm or they just want to sell things to people. And I'm like, no, wait, you know, it's about value creation. It's a little bit different, you know, and stuff. But it's an irony that we being in marketing are supposed to be the ones creating value. We have actually these bad, um, sort of assessments sometimes from disciplines that are not marketing themselves.

Speaker B: Yeah. And from the consumers itself. And I guess that's a way in which our definition and our framework, to return to the question, considers the consumer because we're understanding that harm is being done, whether it's. Whether they caught on to us or whether they didn't. Um, and so that's even like a way to. To circumvent a little bit this duality or how to understand that it is complementary. Right. There is always some kind of harm regardless. Um, right.

Speaker A: And I guess to. To maybe just refine a little bit the question that I was asking. I was also thinking, you know, the consumer agency, in terms of, you know, how they reply to manipulative practices, but also how consumers can sometimes also be manipulative, which is quite interesting. Right. It's kind of like reversing the thing. It's like when you basically claim things without actually having the right to do it. But you kind of like figure out that maybe you can claim something out of, I don't know, maybe a failure in the service or stuff like that. So I don't know, there could be also some intentions I guess on the side of the consumer. But of course the paper was focused on the practitioner side of things. But let me just step back for a second and look again at the definition. There are like these two core mechanisms or processes that you talk about, right? Deception and exploitation. Can you elaborate a little bit more on basically how they operate and how they uh, basically impair uh, uh, consent? And why does this distinction matter?

Speaker B: Yeah, okay. I think the distinction matters mostly academically. I think ultimately for a practitioner, whether this is called uh, exploitation or whether this is called deception, it's not going to be too uh, helpful, uh, in itself. But because part of the paper, obviously this is meant to be an academic contribution and we're trying to build uh, some sort of theoretical scaffold here. We felt it was important to distinguish and eventually taxonomize uh, different practices, for example, as a potential future research. Um, the fact of the matter is that we're seeing these um, two elements of consent. It needs to be free and it needs to be informed. Deception acts or undermines informed, uh, the informed part of the equation. And uh, exploitation undermines the free part of the equation. If people are not able to fully understand what they're saying yes to, what they're buying, what they're booking, what they are um, interacting with, then they've been manipulated. But also if people feel like they don't have a choice, right, if there's only one left of something and this trigger is like a very instinctive response, fear of scarcity, then perhaps they understand that maybe this is not the best. They understand that maybe I haven't had a chance to read everything and uh, to know what I'm buying, but there's no choice, there's no time, I need to buy now or it's going to be gone forever. So these are just two different ways in which you can manipulate people. And um, just to be clear with either of them is sufficient for manipulation according to our framework. You want ultimately to feel that you're acting in a non manipulative way. You want people to have had full opportunity to inform themselves as much as they feel necessary about what is happening. And also the understanding that they can also say no.

Speaker A: Right? No. I think that makes absolute sense. I'm going to push back with one question and I'm going to try to see what you Think about it. But you know, like being, being a psychologist and kind of like studying consumer behavior from a psychological perspective, one of the things that you realize is that people's brain have limited resources for processing stuff, you know. So for example, it's like I always ask in my classes to my students, how many of you read the terms and conditions when you download TikTok. And it's like I usually get like maybe one hand up saying like I scanned through it. So in a way there are several mechanisms I guess that some come from legislation, I guess to regulate how companies interact with customers and so on. But uh, in some cases, ah, customers. I mean it would be incredibly taxing if you were to process everything serially and rationally to get an informed decision. So I guess in one way or another that's one of the reasons why marketers sometimes try to have these more heuristic based kind of like implementations in their communications and in their products and their services so that they facilitate decision making. So how do you see that in this context? Uh, because I feel sometimes that as much as we would like to get this informed consent by people, then would they actually engage with it?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think that's, that's a key element. And having worked also in human computer interaction and knowing the power of these heuristics, uh, for me that's key. Right? Because I think that also having these very lengthy terms and conditions, that's also a way of manipulation, that's a way of obfuscating, you're hiding there the meat of what it is that people might object. But you can use this heuristics to increase transparency.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: Uh, so you can use these interfaces, you can make it very, very simple for the people to understand what the pros and the cons. And sometimes I see it uh, with uh, clients or with uh, websites that I find like in the wild, they say who this is not for, right. Our product is not for you. If you need this or you need that, then I don't have to read through eight pages of legalese to try to understand. Uh, but there are also been some uh, really cool uh, initiatives coming out uh, from consumers themselves. There is this one um, little widget that you can put on your browser that is called um, tosdr, like the uh, TLDR thing. And essentially what they do is that once you go on a website it pops up a little banner that tells you, okay, this is the long story short of what this page is doing.

Speaker A: It simplifies the decision making process and the informed Part, I guess.

Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Uh, but yes, one thing to understand is that often obfuscation can be used as a tool for deception. And then you can kind of wash your hands and say, well, all the information was there. The customer should have known, could have known. Uh, and yeah, it's there, like in the tiny print in page, uh, 7 out of 24. So. So it's not that, like, full, lengthy disclosure is necessary for transparency. It's just how are you making sure that your audience or your consumer has access to everything they need to know? Some people are very impressive and they say, you know what? I. If I get a good vibe, that's enough for me. Some people say I want to sit there for three hours and read and compare everything. So if you make all of those options available so that the customer themselves can say, like, okay, this is a small purchase, uh, there's very little downside, I don't need to know much more, but I could if I wanted and that's sufficient. Everybody can use their resources to their own point of satisfaction. But you're not hiding anything.

Speaker A: I think that makes absolute sense. Now I'm going to switch focus back to the practitioner. Ah. And one of the things that I've been wondering and, you know, like, this is something also, uh, that I do in this class, which I have this session, where I ask my students to kind of like, reflect on their philosophy, their professional philosophy, and their kind of like, philosophy as brand managers in the context of the class that I give, which is brand management. And one of the reasons why I do this is because I think that it happens often, that we go through our professional lives without having time to reflect and ponder how actually we want to be as professionals from an ethical perspective, from a philosophical perspective. And how is that going to color things? One of the things that I have also unfortunately seen in my consulting practice and in my startup projects is that sometimes you have a great employee, you know, a practitioner that is dealing with marketing strategies, and then they get like this KPI that they need to achieve, and, um, they get the pressure to achieve it, and they see that the standard in the industry is using kind of like these borderline dark patterns. Not necessarily dark patterns, but it's kind of like borderline, this gray area. And then they're like, well, I just need to achieve a business aim, you know, so I'm just going to go with whatever is going to help me achieve that business aim. And then they kind of like lose this part. So all this to say, how important do you think it is the process of self reflection and kind of like going through the examined life, I guess, as professionals or practitioners in this field, to be able to color your practice in relationship to manipulation, for example.

Speaker B: I think that's ultimately the one thing that might, uh, make a difference. Uh, we can legislate until we're blue in the face. And there will always be this cat and mouse game, right? We will always find the edge. We, as an industry, we always find the edge of legality where we can still get out. So it's, uh, on that level, I find it borderline pointless. But I think taking the action and because I have taken it myself, because I have stopped and thought, okay, what, what is this doing? How am m I feeling about my work? Does this give me a good gut vibe? Do I, do I want to work with companies, uh, that promote, I don't know, tobacco or uh, fossil fuels? Or is this something that I can step away from? Also understanding that there is a large degree of privilege that comes with being able to make those decisions. And this is a conversation that we keep having both at the ethical move, but also with my students in marketing. Uh, I've had some students come to me after finishing and saying, I don't know, I've got this job offer and I desperately need a job. But also the company, I'm not sure. I mean, I am currently in a position of privilege where I can say, you know what, I will not work with these companies. I will not do these things. I will not, uh, these are my hard lines. But this is not the reality for everybody. And if you're just getting started, if you need to pay rent, if you need to put food on the table, then maybe, um, you need to figure out a way to feel at peace with yourself, to try to kind of bring these issues up, to try to suggest other possibilities. But not everybody is in a position where they can make these hard line decisions. But at least to know for yourself and to know that you want to do better, uh, makes a big difference.

Speaker A: Yeah, I completely agree. It's kind of like sort of having some level of clarity on how you imagine things to be like or how you want them to be. You know, what's the position that you have to, you want to have about them, such that you know at least what the consequences for yourself and for society are when you execute any of your, you know, uh, specific actions in the workplace. But yeah, it's a complex topic. No, like I discuss this one with my, my students, uh, often, and some of them is like, yeah, but you know, it's like I have been without the job for like one year, then what should I do? And I'm like, well at least be in peace with your ethics. You know, if you just know. Because it could potentially outweigh the costs, you know, the returns. Sorry. That you would have by having like a high cost for you.

Speaker B: Also, I think in many cases this, this can bring forward an opportunity. Not to say that it's going to be effective in all cases, but my experience working, uh, with companies and having seen many companies come through like the ethical move is um, there are very few organizations where you have like a villain sitting there, like twirling their mustache saying, hahaha. How are we going to manipulate people today? A lot of this stems from like not knowing, not understanding, uh, not having thought about it as well. So if you as a marketer have a clear philosophy of practice, a clear ethical stance, and are within a company where this is not kind of the guiding principle, it is an opportunity to educate it. It's an opportunity to bring these topics up. What are we doing? Okay, we have this KPI, we have this metric. What does this actually translate to? Can this backfire for us? We get the sale today, but then we lose on brand equity in the long term, uh, and try to actually affect change from where you are. Um, not always will work, but in many cases I've seen companies be very responsive to. Oh crap. We never thought about it that way. We didn't know that this could be a bad thing. Uh, let me rephrase.

Speaker A: Completely agree with you. And sometimes it's just about starting the conversation. Right? And you started and you realize that actually most of the people that you're working with are willing to have the conversation and are actually in line with what you're thinking. They're just like sometimes, you know, in everyday life you can get lost in the tasks that you're developing and maybe you just forget to step back and examine. Right, like what is happening. But I would say that, uh, most people that I have engaged in conversations around ethical implications of marketing practice, including manipulation, you know, uh, they're willing to engage in the conversation. So that's a nice reflection. Okay, let's go back to some of the aspects of the paper that I, that I wanted to explore with you in this podcast. So, uh, there's, there is like these kind of like concepts that are at and near the borders of manipulation that, you know, sometimes, as you said, are used interchangeably or sometimes are used as kind of like ways of influence that are not manipulation. These terms include of course, manipulation, but also persuasion, nudging, coercion. So I don't know, what can you say about uh, these different concepts? Uh, it seems to me that uh, in some cases, you know, like, at least from a naive person that is not completely engaged with the topic, it might be difficult to figure out whether nudging is manipulation or not. So what can you tell us about this differentiation between these concepts that are part of kind of like these influence world?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think the. The conceptual modeling is very old. Uh, actually this debate started around the 60s. Uh, even in the 50s. It was already kind of being hinted at, uh, which was the idea that, well, back then they talked about advertising, but it can be, um, extrapolated to the whole of marketing. There are two types. One is informative and one is persuasive. So one would just give you the facts straight up and one would try to convince you to do stuff. And the view back then was, uh, persuasive is bad, informative is good. And it created this duality. And then all of these other terms started kind of attaching themselves to it. But I think that initial dichotomy, um, lacks nuance, uh, with all the respect to the very fine people in the 50s who thought of it. But um. And one of the things that has been coming up regularly in more recent scholarship is that persuasion in itself is not a negative thing. Trying to tell people why this is a good option for them. And using uh, emotional appeals as well as intellectual appeals is not inherently a bad thing. So long as it's increasing the transparency. So it's increasing people's understanding of what's happening and they're free to walk away. That first thing, uh, that needed to be brought away was, uh, persuasion. Um, giving somebody good arguments to make a decision is not inherently unethical. Then we look at uh, the other terms that are um, essentially non, um, ethical as well as manipulation, that are, um, intimidation and coercion. And those kind of fall in a different basket because they're mostly legal in the majority of um, um, legislations. It's uh, rare that you encounter a country where for example, a contract entered under threat is valid. Right. Um, if you have a gun to your head, then you can pretty much be excused from whatever you sign, whatever you buy, whatever.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So these very kind of extreme situations are often like, mixed with manipulation. And I think that doesn't deserve us because if we're thinking of manipulation only in terms of. Or if we're Modeling it, uh, with, with coercion or with intimidation. Then there's a host of unethical interactions that are kind of swinging by because, well, it's not a gun to your head, so it should be fine. Um, so I think creating these, these divides is only as you were saying earlier, by having that definition and those boundaries, we can agree or disagree, but we can at least start from a common ground of saying like, okay, so does this fit in this basket or that basket? Would this, um, would this hold up in court, for example? That, that would be a, ah, way of thinking about it. Can people, could people actually do something different? Is, is their choice. Right. Sometimes you have, and you encounter that in software quite often, uh, a pop up that says, uh, these are terms of service or do this or that and you only have an okay button. So what else am I supposed to do? Throw my computer out the window? Well, no, but also that does not mean I got a choice. That just means I had to click a button. Um, so when trying to consider the products we're designing or the marketing campaigns we're putting out, uh, it's important to see where, where we land. And obviously we tend to have guardrails to make sure that we are not breaking the law. Um, companies, especially larger ones, are very good at trying to cover their butts from, from potential legislation. So we have checks for defamation, we have checks for misleading, um, advertisement, uh, which is often uh, legislated against. Uh, there are certain things we cannot claim or we cannot show the competitors, uh, product or we cannot show people's faces without having them sign a waiver.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But we don't stop to think about whether this is manipulation or not because it's not illegal to manipulate people. It's just unethical.

Speaker A: And that's the thing that is incredibly tricky. That is like not something that uh, yeah, is like written in the law that we all have to comply with. But it's not necessarily something that is good either. So it's like it does need active engagement and reflection. Uh, otherwise it's just difficult to do something about it.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think the nudging example that you bring up is um, it's a pretty good one because it is a very contested term. So um, in the paper we've chosen to kind of follow uh, what Sunstein uh, says about nudging, given that they are the ones who came up with a concept. But it does tend to become a little bit of a no true Scotsman approach where they say, well, nudges are ethical by definition. So if this is not ethical, then it can't be a nudge. And we're kind of granting them that graze in the paper or that space, uh, in the paper, uh, and then deciding that there are other things. They call them sludges or dark nudges. Ultimately the labels start becoming very complicated. But, um, the way that Sunstein argues about, um, not just being ethical is that he says, well, they're usually affected by governments who are democratically elected. And so we have all kind of consented to this. We all, as a society, for example, have given permission to have these, um, disturbing images put in cigarette packages. Right. That is clear emotional manipulation. I'm meant to buy my cigarette pack, see that, and get put off and start creating, like, a psychological effect against, uh, smoking. But we all, as a society have kind of agreed that, okay, this is something that this is an instance of manipulation we were kind of good with. We can agree with this. We can consent to this. Otherwise we would have written letters or, uh, spoken to officials or held a vote or something.

Speaker A: And would you say that what we agree with there is. With the intention behind it?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think the intention there is I will make you feel sick every time you see this or make you feel upset. I will cause an emotional reaction to deter you from this purchase, uh, any further. Uh, so I will exploit a vulnerability of yours in order to reduce the amount of people who smoke. Are you okay with this? And we have collectively said, yep, that's, that's fine, we can do that. And some of us have said that, um, there was a time back in the day when I would smoke and I would think, oh, yeah, but I'm immune to that. Like, I see it, I think, yuck. And then I don't care. But some people, and eventually, I think without noticing many of us do start creating this, or creating this aversion in our, in our minds. Right. Uh, so that would be an example of a nudge in the, in the very classical, uh, Sunstein definition. Um, then it starts getting tricky, and there's million cases that we could study. Right? So what if the government is not, uh, elected properly and democratic? Is it a paternalistic thing? Uh, are there actual mechanisms where we could have the government listen to the citizens and take this down? Uh, so, uh, and that is kind of why we ended up with this flowchart idea. Because it's almost like every action can, Can. Can flow differently. And these big labels, while they're helpful to see the boundaries, they can't necessarily dictate on a bigger scope. So we have to see each individual action. How does this flow through the, through the, um. And you can have one nudge that is manipulative and one nudge that isn't.

Speaker A: I think this is, this is very interesting and it illustrates the complexity of the topic. You know, it's like I get two things from, from everything that you have said in the, in the past minutes. Uh, the, you know, sometimes judging whether something is good or bad is actually like a multi level analysis where you need to consider the individual, but also what we have agreed in society and probably we can even abstract ourselves more. And it's like, well, that is embedded in a social historical system that is also influencing and coloring what we think is good and bad. And judging what is good or bad. It also needs to be contextual in a way. And therefore m deciding whether or not she's good or bad requires a, um, pretty deep analysis, uh, in terms of all these different levels. But then the other thing that I get is from what you're saying is that we have all these different terms that have been used in the literature, sometimes interchangeably, sometimes trying to separate them and get definitions right. Uh, but there are of course sometimes some uh, discussions of whether the definitions are right or not. And the key, in a way it boils down to we actually need to get some definitions here. And the definitions are going to help us sort of like compartmentalize a little bit what the concepts stand for and allows us to better judge what we're talking about. Because, uh, without the definitions in the first place, it's like we are in this muddy world in a way. I'm not sure if that makes sense what I'm saying.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that was kind of our intention with the paper was to. It's meant to be the beginning of a process, not the end. So we didn't arrive at these definitions and we didn't arrive at these disambiguations as to. And here it is and this is settled now forever. It's more like, okay, let's have this conversation, but then let's make sure that we're kind of on an equal understanding of what we're talking about and what we're calling things. These definitions hopefully will be challenged and will change and will evolve in the literature. Going further, that would be ideal. And there uh, will be cases that bring them up and new technology comes up and everything will start shifting. But at least we have kind of like a common understanding of where we're starting.

Speaker A: I think this is excellent. Um, as I said when I contacted you, I really appreciated that of that paper. I think it just creates a starting, uh, point for a discussion that we need to have, and it needs to happen in multiple different spheres of marketing, I think. Okay, Maria, this has been incredibly interesting so far. I could stay for another, uh, hour just talking with you and discussing these topics. Uh, but of course, our time also needs to come to an end at some point. I'm going to ask you, uh, I just reduced them to three final questions, so if you can briefly comment on them, uh, that would be great. Uh, the first one, I think it's quite an important one, and is that when you're talking about, uh, intentions, you also, uh, include in the intentions part recklessness and negligence as a form of intent. Uh, and I think that's actually quite important because sometimes the manipulation, it's not necessarily by you. Uh, I don't know, let's say you are the supervisor of one of your junior marketers, and, um, then you know that the practice is being manipulative, but then you just look away, right? So you're just basically just looking away. And then, oops, it happened. So there was no manipulation. Wait, wait a second. So I don't know. Can you comment on these two concepts, recklessness and negligence? Why did you include them and what are the implications?

Speaker B: I include them because I think we need to take our profession as seriously as other people take theirs. We don't put out food or cars, uh, without considering what the harms are and, uh, without being held responsible for what we knew and what we did not know. Why should marketing be different? We know that there can be harms to communication. We know that there can be an effect. And if we want to take our profession seriously and come out from this, what we were talking earlier, this kind of impression that marketing is all about KPIs and it's not a serious academic profession or it's not a serious, um, profession in the world. Then we need to start holding ourselves to the same standards that many others hold themselves to, which is, it's our job to know the impact of what we're putting out into the world. And it's our job to stop and know it before we put it out into the world, and then the consequences are in us. So that's. That was my thinking there.

Speaker A: I think that that makes absolute sense. And even if we. Sometimes we cannot anticipate, you know, everything that will happen, but at least we need to reflect on it. And I think that's what we get is like not reflecting, not engaging in, maybe just assessing whether we're going to cause any form of, uh, effect or whether our intentions are good or not in the first place is a form of negligence. And that should be counting as part of this. Okay, the next question that I have is how does manipulation look like in an increasingly technology mediated environment? And I think that's the part where I start getting a little bit more worried because in a way we are, uh, I would say I asked this question in many of my talks. It's like, how long do you spend in front of digital devices? And it's like most people spend about half of their waking lives in front of digital environments. Uh, which means that most of the interactions or at least half of the interactions that we have are digital. And that's data footprints, more data, more models to understand the consumer behavior and so on. And I don't know, this creates some informed way of persuasion. Influence on that is a little bit interesting. So what do you think about that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think now, uh, the technological reality makes two big things. One is that everybody now has access to marketing and has access to produce manipulation at scale. If you have 10 bucks in a Google account, you can put out an ad that is seen by thousands of people without any like stopping to consider what the effects are or whether you're being manipulative or whether you're causing harm or not. But also the fact that it is um, these, these algorithms that are fueled by so much consumer data that are ultimately making the decisions. Right? So back in the day it was you versus the car salesman and it was like a battle of the wits, more or less. They were trying to trick you and you were trying to get your best deal. Now it's you versus a machine that's been trained and a B tested on millions of data points to specifically get you to click that button. It's not a fair battle anymore. Uh, your nervous system cannot compete with an algorithm that has been trained on millions of data points specifically to get you to do an action. And it also creates this possibility of passing off responsibility. I as a marketer have decided that I'm not going to design the campaign. I'm just going to put up two things and let the algorithm decide and do a B testing. And then I'm kind of pawning off the ethical responsibility, um, to the machine because ultimately it's the machine making the decisions of what gets put out there. And the machine has been given the prompt, get people to click the button at Whatever cost.

Speaker A: I think this is a super, super interesting reflection. And, um, there's this thing which basically makes getting the definitions right even more important and urgent. Because if we are not 100% sure the manipulation is, we don't have a clear definition as the one that you are presenting. And then we are basically telling, uh, a generative AI system to basically generate ads to increase our engagement ourselves, stuff like that. How will we operationalize from an AI point of view whether the AI is making manipulation or not? Which makes it even a little bit more complicated knowing that a lot of marketers are actually not experts in AI. They just get an AI system and they use it. So this combination of perhaps not having a, uh, perfectly refined definition within an organization, let's say, of manipulation that is integrated into the AI system that they might be using for different purposes, and not knowing what the AI is doing, then it might m. Just basically create the perfect, uh, kind of mix for chaos, if you ask me.

Speaker B: Yes, for sure.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, okay. No, that is super interesting. And I have one final question, and this is a question that we basically ask to all of our guests and is if you had to leave practitioners, perhaps students as well, with some advice based on your framework, the one that you develop in the paper, what would that be?

Speaker B: I think it would be to stop and reflect. As we were talking earlier, that is the most important thing that we can do. Uh, as an individual practitioner, think, what am I doing? What are the effects? What are my intentions? How am I going about this? And try to shift your practice to something that fits within your own ethical boundaries. I think the lack of reflection cause of so much manipulation out there rather than malice. And I would also say that as a collective of practitioners, we need to come together and truly address this issue. We should have some form of a code of conduct. We should have some sort of. We should take responsibility for our own profession like many other professions do. And I think, uh, we're lacking in that sense as a, as a profession.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for that answer, Maria. I'm sure that our listeners will enjoy a lot this, uh, podcast, uh, and it's incredibly informative and it brings a lot of reflections. So thank you very much for your time and for all your insights. This was great.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me and for a great conversation.

Speaker A: Sam.