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I don't see much support for that power hierarchy... Surly, CEOs are high-value targets for any number of people or organisations because, almost by definition,

I don't see much support for that power hierarchy... Surly, CEOs are high-value targets for any number of people or organisations because, almost by definition, they have both power and money. And I can think of an endless number of schemes that are actively used to influence them: asking them to sign pledges, protests, charity dinners, awarding prices and other honours for certain behaviours–these are just for political goals. For marketing, they obviously get bombarded with advertisement as much as anyone else. Airline miles are an example that comes to mind as top-heavy targeting. As to "have a sense of when someone is trying to manipulate me" I am only reminded of all those surveys that fail to find anyone who says "advertisement works on me". In fact, the "nudging" the article talks about isn't really about advertisement. The classic example is the small image of a housefly in a urinal, which vastly improved peoples' aim. Are you sure you can, and want, to escape that sort of messaging?

TeMPOraL 9y ago
I'm not particularly convinced by those surveys you mention, though. My impression is that the advertising industry is more about maintaining the fiction that their efforts work. Especially on-line, where I had the opportunity to see how the sausage is made. The axiom of on-line advertising is that you have metrics that tell you whether or not what you're doing works. Except what I've seen is marketers who lack even most basic understanding of maths convincing customers that this number going up means advertisements are working, and since customers have even less clue, everyone is happy and money changes hands, regardless of actual outcome. Even software made by marketers for marketers is optimized for taking wrong conclusions from the data[0]. But as long as the fiction works, money flows and participants are happy. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873226
- kome 9y ago
  I agree so much. Advertisement it's broken.
  - dageshi 9y ago
    Advertising I think broke once google became good, after that point every consumer knows they can research a topic or even find and reach out to experts on a topic to figure out what they're best off buying.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

I'm not particularly convinced by those surveys you mention, though. My impression is that the advertising industry is more about maintaining the fiction that their efforts work. Especially on-line, where I had the opportunity to see how the sausage is made. The axiom of on-line advertising is that you have metrics that tell you whether or not what you're doing works. Except what I've seen is marketers who lack even most basic understanding of maths convincing customers that this number going up means advertisements are working, and since customers have even less clue, everyone is happy and money changes hands, regardless of actual outcome. Even software made by marketers for marketers is optimized for taking wrong conclusions from the data[0]. But as long as the fiction works, money flows and participants are happy. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873226

kome 9y ago
I agree so much. Advertisement it's broken.
- dageshi 9y ago
  Advertising I think broke once google became good, after that point every consumer knows they can research a topic or even find and reach out to experts on a topic to figure out what they're best off buying.