4 ms·

A fantasy name like most soft drinks

dcow 5y ago
Fantasy names are a psychologically manipulative marketing tactic deployed to cause you to associate the thing you are consuming with something unrelated to the thing you are consuming so as to divert your attention from the thing you are consuming to some other (presumably more exciting) topic thereby increasing likelihood that you consume the product. Or they're a brand identity entirely divorced from the actual nature of the product which would also require you to look at the label into order to discern the healthiness of said product.
- specialist 5y ago
  > Fantasy names are a psychologically manipulative marketing tactic... "Sprite" is psychologically manipulative but "VitaminWater" isn't? OMG, pick a side.
  - dcow 5y ago
    My side is that it’s absurd to hold Coke responsible for not choosing a name that might be misleading to somebody. And that I find the VitaminWater trial absurd. My point about fantasy names is exactly that they’re not any different from VitaminWater so what gives? It’s rhetorical. Marketing is all manipulative tactics born out of a desire to push more product not help people be healthy. Assuming Coke is somehow responsible for our health is skirting personal responsibility and passing the blame no different than the “fast food makes you fat let’s tell McDonalds what type of oil to use but not the restaurant down the street which is twice as unhealthy” mentality. It’s downright irresponsible to operate under the assumption that a company’s marketing department is going to give you an unbiased wholesome view of reality. I don't see how pretending Coke is some angel of healthy drink knowledge and herald of good diets that fell from grace with vitaminwater because they neglected to mention in the title “oh btw there’s some sugar” so must be punished is anything other than blissful ignorance at best. My visceral reaction to the absurdity of the trial is derived from what I perceive as lazy inconsistency in how we approach the ethics of advertising. Cherry picking VitaminWater, a drink where the facts are spelled out explicitly on the label on every bottle, of all things, feels more like an effort to dodge responsibility by attacking big soda than a true attempt to ask whether we should be allowing corporate propaganda to influence certain aspects of society. I really don't want the courts having an opinion on what makes a healthy diet. And I don’t want companies doing so either. It’s not a disagreement that we shouldn't try to stop manipulative marketing. It’s that I don't want any company anywhere trying to tell me what is healthy and what isn't when there is money to be made based on the message they present. Essentially I believe all marketing is manipulative and we should do away with all of it of we truly want to build a smarter society.
    - neolog 5y ago
      Do you know other people who agree with your last sentence? I'm curious how widespread this view is.
      - convolvatron 5y ago
        it has to be nonzero. we've bought into this notion that capitalism serves us because we choose what to buy. if thats not really true - what game are we playing here?
      - dcow 5y ago
        I knew parents who didn’t let their children consume media with commercials. The internet has certainly made that more difficult and I don’t know how it turned out for them.

dcow 5y ago

Fantasy names are a psychologically manipulative marketing tactic deployed to cause you to associate the thing you are consuming with something unrelated to the thing you are consuming so as to divert your attention from the thing you are consuming to some other (presumably more exciting) topic thereby increasing likelihood that you consume the product. Or they're a brand identity entirely divorced from the actual nature of the product which would also require you to look at the label into order to discern the healthiness of said product.

specialist 5y ago
> Fantasy names are a psychologically manipulative marketing tactic... "Sprite" is psychologically manipulative but "VitaminWater" isn't? OMG, pick a side.
- dcow 5y ago
  My side is that it’s absurd to hold Coke responsible for not choosing a name that might be misleading to somebody. And that I find the VitaminWater trial absurd. My point about fantasy names is exactly that they’re not any different from VitaminWater so what gives? It’s rhetorical. Marketing is all manipulative tactics born out of a desire to push more product not help people be healthy. Assuming Coke is somehow responsible for our health is skirting personal responsibility and passing the blame no different than the “fast food makes you fat let’s tell McDonalds what type of oil to use but not the restaurant down the street which is twice as unhealthy” mentality. It’s downright irresponsible to operate under the assumption that a company’s marketing department is going to give you an unbiased wholesome view of reality. I don't see how pretending Coke is some angel of healthy drink knowledge and herald of good diets that fell from grace with vitaminwater because they neglected to mention in the title “oh btw there’s some sugar” so must be punished is anything other than blissful ignorance at best. My visceral reaction to the absurdity of the trial is derived from what I perceive as lazy inconsistency in how we approach the ethics of advertising. Cherry picking VitaminWater, a drink where the facts are spelled out explicitly on the label on every bottle, of all things, feels more like an effort to dodge responsibility by attacking big soda than a true attempt to ask whether we should be allowing corporate propaganda to influence certain aspects of society. I really don't want the courts having an opinion on what makes a healthy diet. And I don’t want companies doing so either. It’s not a disagreement that we shouldn't try to stop manipulative marketing. It’s that I don't want any company anywhere trying to tell me what is healthy and what isn't when there is money to be made based on the message they present. Essentially I believe all marketing is manipulative and we should do away with all of it of we truly want to build a smarter society.
  - neolog 5y ago
    Do you know other people who agree with your last sentence? I'm curious how widespread this view is.
    - convolvatron 5y ago
      it has to be nonzero. we've bought into this notion that capitalism serves us because we choose what to buy. if thats not really true - what game are we playing here?
    - dcow 5y ago
      I knew parents who didn’t let their children consume media with commercials. The internet has certainly made that more difficult and I don’t know how it turned out for them.