I’m gonna be honest with you all, marketing is manipulation and the sooner you accept it the sooner you will know how to do your job the best you can. We manipulate our customers through marketing into doing what we want them to do, which is make a purchase, and if we aren’t focused on how to make that happen, we won’t meet our goals. Customers are plugged in 24/7 now, and you need to be part of what they’re plugging into or you will lose their attention. People sleep next to their phones and computers and they are your way into their minds, we want people addicted to their phones because then they are constantly exposed to your content.
When Manipulation is Wrong
We’ve all been manipulated before and for some of us we are all too good at identifying when it’s happening or when someone is trying to make it happen. High pressure sales situations such as car dealerships often feature very thinly veiled attempts at manipulation that can leave us feeling frustrated and anxious, which is sometimes the goal (have you never bought something just to stop someone from bothering you?)
However, manipulation is not all aggressive, unsettling, and wrong, every weight loss program on earth requires manipulating your mind into a healthier state for example, and most of us see no issue with this sort of manipulation, even when we do with the more obvious type. Manipulation towards positive change like this is viewed more favorably among consumers than manipulation that is more visibly designed to increase consumerism, but why is one barely viewed as manipulation and the other seen as ONLY manipulation?
The Manipulation Matrix
Blogger and Author Nir Eyal presents in his book “Hooked: How to Build Habit Forming Products” a graphic he refers to as “the manipulation matrix.” This system will not identify whether or not your business is moral, but it will tell you whether or not you should be trying to hook users, rather than if you can. To use the Manipulation Matrix, the maker needs to ask two questions. First, “Will I use the product myself?” and second, “Will the product help users materially improve their lives?” and once they have done so they can find themselves in one of four spots on the matrix, each which I’ll outline below. I’m a fan of this system because it keeps me honest when I am creating content and working with clients, if my new idea places me on a less appealing part of the chart, I know I need to work on what I’m selling in some way.
Facilitator
If you personally believe you will use the product you’ve created and that the product will better the lives of those who use it, you’ve placed yourself in the facilitator section of the matrix and are working to improve the lives of yourself and others with your product. However, only you will actually know if you would use the product and only you are able to define the meaning of “bettering the life of the user,” and it’s important to be honest or you won’t get the true value of the matrix. If you’re forcing yourself to find a way you and others can use the product to improve your lives, you are not in the facilitator segment, you only want to place yourself here if you are personally excited to use this product and can’t wait for it to exist so you can change the lives of yourself and your users. The only exception to this rule that author Nir provides is if you are certain you would have used the product when you were younger (for example in the case of an education related product.)
It is easy to worry if your product is in fact moral if you place it in the facilitator spot only to see people grow dangerously addicted to using it, but if the product is designed with good intentions and you can truly see the benefits of it, you are allowed to think of these few addicts as outliers. With any new product there will be people who use it to extremes, but when this is the opposite of the goal, don’t put it on you, and don’t log it as a failure.
Peddler
Often times however, when answering the question of “would I use it?” the answer turns out to be no, and if you can’t see yourself using it, no matter how lofty and noble your goals, you are going to fall into the category of peddler. It can be appealing to create products that try to make everyday life and healthy habits seem more fun and game like, but this can be an unappealing angle to come at healthy habit building from, because if you don’t think it would make you follow through, how would it do the same for other users?
Most commonly seen in the marketing world, peddling happens when companies try to force themselves into the mindset of their demographic when creating ads for their product, but we all see and know how easily this can go wrong. If a toy salesman can’t see their ten year old self loving their companies new “Dinosaurs on Wheels” (or what have you) toy, then they will go overboard when trying to sell it to an audience they don’t fully understand. it happens because often marketers don’t bother to ask themselves if THEY would use the product they’re selling, because all that’s important is that they believe SOMEONE would, and this is where we commonly come across peddler advertising.
The response to the second question plays well into the first, a peddler does believe that their product has the ability to materially improve its users lives, they simply cannot see themselves using the product, and without the needed insight into your customers wants and needs it will be hard to fully realize the product in a way that it can do the good you’re hoping it will. You need a personal connection to your product in order to make something others will find useful.
The Entertainer
There are also the creators who truly just want to have a good time making. If, as a maker you can see yourself using the product you created but cannot claim it improves the life of its users, what you have created is entertainment, and theres nothing wrong with that!
The creation of entertainment is an art all its own, a critical and age old tradition that I really respect and value. however, it is many times a quick endeavor, a song that gets replaced or a movie that doesn’t blow up at the box office. As a business person, when the product we are creating is entertainment, we have to consider how quickly a piece of it can come and go. marketing entertainment is not a set it and forget it business, you need to create new content and regularly refresh your product if you want to keep the attention of your customers. One amazing flash game for the Iphone is not gonna keep you in bread and meat for long is all i’m trying to say.
The Dealer
The dealer is the corner of the matrix that I think we would all like to avoid if possible. It’s just plain not cool to create a product that you cannot see yourself using and that you don’t believe you will benefit your users, and all I can assume if you’re doing that is trying to make a quick buck on getting someone hooked on your product, whether it be placebo effect health tonics or a game.
Do you want to be the dealer? The person who banks on their customers becoming addicted and makes their money that way? it is not a good spot ion the matrix to be. Take a look at what you’re offering, if it won’t improve your life or the lives of others and has no valuable use in the world, change, do better. Delete your app that makes a sound like a champagne bottle popping and create one to help people track their hydration or something. Just be better, it’s not as hard as you might think, and in the long run it will be better for you, your business, and your brand.
Judging for Yourself
Nir’s morality matrix gives us all a chance to evaluate and look at our business practices and see if we are serving our customers and clients as best we can. In the end, the choice is up to you where you fall on the matrix, but it’s important to be honest with yourself about the value of your product because if you aren’t, you’ll never truly be able to do the best you can to sell it. Don’t force yourself in someone else’s shoes, ask yourself “will i use this?” and “will it materially improve the lives of others?” be honest, find your spot on the matrix, and if you don’t like where you land, do something about it!
