4-6 pages double-spaced Business Ethic Paper!!!

A Framework for Assessing Immorally

Manipulative Marketing Tactics Shlomo Sher

ABSTRACT. A longstanding debate exists in both aca-

demic literature and popular culture about whether non-

informative marketing tactics are manipulative. However,

given that we tend to believe that some marketing tactics

are manipulative and some are not, the question that

marketers, their critics, and consumers need to ask

themselves is that of how to actually determine whether

any particular marketing tactic is manipulative and whe-

ther a given manipulative tactic is, in fact, immoral. This

article proposes to operationalize criteria that can be

used by marketers for making such determinations and

attempts to provide some clarification toward our under-

standing of the concept of manipulation and the conditions

for the moral acceptability of manipulative marketing

practices. It argues that a marketing tactic is manipulative

if it is intended to motivate by undermining what the

marketer believes is his/her audience’s normal decision-

making process either by deception or by playing on a

vulnerability that the marketer believes exists in his/her

audience’s normal decision-making process. Such a tactic

is morally objectionable on several grounds, which make

it morally impermissible unless outweighed by sufficient

‘‘redemptive’’ moral considerations.

KEY WORDS: deception, ethical decision-making,

exploitation, manipulation, marketing ethics, moral

framework

Introduction

The interaction between marketers as persuaders and

consumers as the party they seek to persuade can

involve various types of relationships that allow for

numerous types of moral failures by both parties.

The focus of this article will be with just one such

failure, namely, manipulation. 1

While manipulation

is a wrong, which we are all vaguely familiar with,

most of us cannot easily express what it is or what

may be objectionable about it.

Consider the following: The central challenge

faced by any new online dating website is that po-

tential customers have little incentive to sign up

unless a critical mass of other customers (potential

dates) have already done so, which of course makes

reaching such a critical mass difficult. One common

method such websites use to meet this challenge is

to contrive the appearance of a large user base by

creating fake profiles of attractive potential dates.

Customers are then kept actively present by the fake

flirtations they receive from these contrived per-

sonalities and the financial commitment they have

made to the site. The marketer can do this,

expecting that soon enough a critical mass of real

users will form and the website can begin normal

operations, which will truly benefit its customers.

Is such a marketing tactic manipulative? If so,

why? If so, is that manipulation morally excused by

its particular context? Such questions are difficult

to answer, and it is hardly realistic to expect mar-

keters, which as a group have long been accused

of immorally manipulating consumers through a

remarkably wide range of activities, to successfully

refrain from immorally manipulative behavior with-

out assistance. Manipulation is a complex notion,

and the charges against marketers have been

remarkably abstract. Criticism in this longstanding

debate has largely focused on whether marketing

tactics that attempt to influence consumer decision-

making by ways other than providing straightfor-

ward true information violate the autonomy of

audiences by undermining their capacity to make

conscious rational choices in their interest. A debate

that began with the vague notion that there was

something morally wrong with the growth of

advertising more focused on ‘‘persuasion’’ than

‘‘information’’ and explored whether that distinction

was helpful and what it meant, 2

quickly led to the

Journal of Business Ethics (2011) 102:97–118 � Springer 2011 DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0802-4

profound philosophical questions at the heart of the

current debate – the nature of autonomy, needs,

desires, and personhood (see Arrington, 1982; Crisp,

1987; Cunningham, 2003; Durham, 1984; Ema-

malizadeh, 1985; Hunt, 1976; Santilli, 1983; Sned-

don, 2001; Waide, 1987). Yet, while such serious

questions present an important challenge to the

ethical legitimacy of the modern profession of

marketing, and have likely contributed to the pop-

ular distrust of marketers, it is difficult to see how

they connect with the decisions of ordinary mar-

keters.

Marketers need practical guidance to help them

think about the complex issue of manipulation. Yet,

no such guidance has thus far been advanced in the

discussion of manipulation in marketing. This article

aims to fill that gap by offering a practical normative

ethical framework 3

primarily aimed at assisting

marketers reflectively gain better insight as to whe-

ther their tactics are immorally manipulative, and

second, to provide helpful conceptual clarification to

other parties attempting to determine whether the

marketer had acted in an immorally manipulative

fashion. 4

Its aim, guided by the nature of manipu-

lation as determined by the agent’s intentions and

beliefs, applies to marketing tactics of any kind – and

I draw on examples from public relations, social

media, advertising, and sales. To understand this

framework (its steps and overall process), the rea-

soning that underlies it (why it is structured as it is),

and its appropriateness to the task at hand (why we

ought to think that it fits what we regard as

manipulative action), it is essential that we get a

clearer sense of the meaning of the ethical concepts

that play a key role in our moral judgments about

manipulation – including, of course, ‘‘manipulation’’

itself. Also, in order to determine whether a

manipulative tactic may nevertheless be morally

justified, we need to understand just what is morally

objectionable about manipulation. Toward that end,

the discussion below breaks down the elements of

manipulative action into their conceptual compo-

nent parts, seeking to expand the reader’s under-

standing of these key concepts, as well as the moral

considerations that bear on such actions.

To avoid adding complexity to an already com-

plicated subject matter, I will limit my remarks to

marketing tactics as they relate to audiences with

mature rational competencies, avoiding potential

issues that may arise when marketing to other

audiences (e.g., children). In addition, I will proceed

by presuming that the following two common

assumptions are correct: First, some marketing tactics

are clearly immorally manipulative in quite unsubtle

ways, some are acceptable, and others morally con-

tested. 5

Second, marketers are not excused from the

general responsibility that all people need not have

to act manipulatively by the morally redemptive

magic of caveat emptor. Consumers surely have some

personal responsibilities in their reaction to the ac-

tions of marketers, but these have their limitations.

Intentions and consequences

An advertisement (or any other ‘‘piece’’ of market-

ing) cannot be manipulative, but its use as a part of a

marketing tactic can be. This is because the notion

of manipulation applies to an action and requires a

particular type of intention. Yet, discourse about

manipulation in marketing often focuses on the ef-

fects of marketing messages or tactics on consumers,

rather than on the decision-making process of the

marketer. This is unfortunate because concentrating

on such effects tends to confuse manipulation with

other types of moral wrongs and makes it difficult to

distinguish between the harm caused by manipula-

tion and the wrongs of acting manipulatively. 6

The

reason for the general focus on the consequences of

manipulation is obviously related to our tendency to

consider the matter from the perspective of the

customer – specifically, on a type of change in the

consumer’s beliefs, desires, or preferences (call this

effect, W) and the various harms that are likely to follow W’s occurrence. That W occurs, however, is neither sufficient nor necessary for manipulation. If

W were sufficient, then we would have to accept the existence of anti-intentional manipulation – to hold

that despite the fact that a marketer acts from the

conscious intention not to manipulate the consumer,

his/her action is nevertheless manipulative if W happens to occur. If W was necessary, then we would have to reject the existence of failed manip-

ulative actions (those where the agent attempts, but

fails, to bring W about). Doing either of these would be quite a departure from our normal use of the

concept of manipulation. Whether or not W occurs (and whether the action succeeds or not) is irrelevant

98 Shlomo Sher

for determining whether an action is manipulative –

though it may be important for determining the

action’s overall moral status. 7

This does not mean that the marketer cannot be

morally blameworthy for the occurrence of W unless the marketer consciously intends to bring W about. We often act with little awareness of our intentions –

sometimes even lying to ourselves about them. In

addition, there are cases where W is brought about through culpable negligence or recklessness on the

part of the marketer. The marketer may be morally

blameworthy for these consequences, but the appli-

cable reasons for blame here would be negligence or

recklessness, rather than manipulation.

To make things more complicated, because

marketing tactics usually affect multiple audiences

(intentionally or not), the same tactic can be

manipulative with regard to one audience, but not

another. Consider, for example, a prime time TV

commercial viewed by a large and varied audience.

A marketer may air the commercial as part of a tactic

that attempts to manipulate a specific subset of the

audience (Group A), but the commercial may also

result in a variety of effects on other viewer subsets

(Groups B–D). The tactic could be manipulative to

group A, negligent with regard to its likely effect on

group B, and perfectly permissible with regard to

groups C and D.

Determining whether such a tactic is morally

permissible would, as in all ethical decisions, demand

that all the relevant moral considerations be con-

sidered. The aim of the framework presented in this

article, however, is more modest, seeking to deter-

mine merely whether the tactic is immorally

manipulative – that is, manipulative and not out-

weighed by positive considerations. For that pur-

pose, we need only to concern ourselves with

whether manipulation exists, what is objectionable

about it, and what positive ‘‘redemptive’’ moral

considerations might make that tactic morally accept-

able, as far as manipulation goes. A true all things

considered judgment about the morality of the tac-

tic, would weigh all of the positive and negative

ethical considerations that bear on the action –

including those concerned with other morally

objectionable matters, such as negligence. Keeping

this in mind, the discussion below focuses solely on

determining whether the marketer may be manip-

ulating a specific audience – ignoring possible

wrongs and effects on other audiences for the sake of

presenting a complicated subject matter more simply.

A framework for assessing immoral

manipulation in marketing 8

A good framework for determining whether an ac-

tion is immorally manipulative requires elucidation

of what we mean by ‘‘manipulation’’ (and its

application in marketing contexts) and what we find

morally objectionable about it. The framework of-

fered in this article builds upon Rudinow’s (1978)

definition of manipulation as the attempt to motivate

another’s behavior by altering her complex of goals by

means of deception or by playing on a supposed weakness

she has. To this I make one substantial conceptual

revision – replacing the focus on attempting to

motivate by altering one’s complex of goals with that

of attempting to do so by undermining what the agent

believes is his/her audience’s normal decision-making

process. I do this for several reasons: First, because

I am not convinced by Rudinow’s passing claim that

we do not regard as manipulative acts those that

motivate another person to do what they already aim

to do. It seems to me that we can use manipulation

benignly to motivate others to pursue the goals they

already have and that the attempt to undermine

one’s ability to make a good decision to motivate

her/him to decide a certain way is less controver-

sially at the heart of manipulation. Second, Rudi-

now’s definition requires more difficult theoretical

analysis on the part of the marketer than the revision

I present here – making the revision more practical

for the present purposes. Finally, the revision more

clearly emphasizes the centrality of what the agent

believes about the consumer’s beliefs and normal

decision-making process (in the given conditions),

rather than what the consumer’s beliefs and deci-

sion-making process actually are. As such, it appro-

priately shifts our focus away from the effect W and toward the marketer’s intentions.

Along with some explicit specification of the

concepts involved in the process, the framework

now being offered here boils down to the following:

A marketing tactic is manipulative if it intends to

motivate by undermining what the marketer believes

is the audience’s normal decision-making process

either by deception or by playing on a vulnerability

99A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics

the marketer believes exists in his/her audience’s

normal decision-making process. Since manipulative

action is prima facie wrong, the tactic is immorally

manipulative unless it has sufficient ‘‘redemptive’’

(positive) moral considerations that outweigh what is

morally objectionable about the action. 9

This framework aims to provide practical ethical

guidance to marketers by focusing on the following

three questions:

(1) Is the tactic manipulative?

If I am employing the tactic with the intention of

undermining what I believe is my audience’s normal

decision-making process by either deception or by

playing on a vulnerability that I believe my audience

has, then my tactic is manipulative (see Figure 1).

If I have difficulty answering this question because

of uncertainty about whether or not my tactic is

deceptive, then I ask

(2) Is the tactic deceptive?

Am I presenting what I believe are false claims,

important omissions, or misrepresentations of what

the facts mean to bring about consumer miscon-

ception? If so, my tactic is deceptive (see Figure 2).

Finally, if I have determined that the marketing

tactic I am considering is manipulative, I ask:

(3) Is the tactic immorally manipulative?

Here, I weigh the prima facie wrong of the manip-

ulation against any potential redemptive moral con-

siderations the tactic may have. Without sufficient

redemptive moral value, a manipulative tactic is

immorally manipulative (see Figure 3). Notably,

while concluding that a tactic is immorally manip-

ulative tells me that it is morally impermissible,

concluding that is not immorally manipulative leaves

open the question of its moral permissibility, since it

may be impermissible for other reasons (e.g., coer-

cion, negligence, recklessness, etc.).

In order to elucidate the particulars of the frame-

work and defend its philosophical assumptions, each

of the following sections focuses on one central

component of the framework. In ‘‘Is the tactic

manipulative?’’ section, I will discuss the act of

manipulation in general. Section ‘‘Is the tactic

deceptive?’’ examines deception that enables manip-

ulation. Section ‘‘Playing on a what the marketer

believes is a vulnerability’’ explores manipulation by

playing on a weakness the marketer believes his/her

audience possesses. Section ‘‘Locating the Moral

wrongs in manipulation’’ looks at the various ways

manipulation is morally wrong. Section ‘‘Redemp-

tive moral considerations and moral manipulation’’

looks at the possibility of ‘‘redemptive moral consid-

erations’’ that can make a manipulative practice

morally permissible and dismisses some unfortunately

common justifications for manipulative marketing.

Finally, ‘‘The immoral manipulation assessment

framework: a walk-through’’ section returns to the

larger framework and walks the reader through the

decision procedure using a candidate marketing tactic

as it would be considered by a hypothetical marketing

manager.

Figure 1. A decision procedure for determining whether a marketing tactic is manipulative.

100 Shlomo Sher

Is the tactic manipulative?

In September a folksy new blog called Wal-Marting

Across America pops up on the Internet.

The blog documents the purportedly spontaneous dis-

coveries of RV-traveling megastore megafans Jim and

Laura as they pull over to chat with happy Wal-Mart

employees, like the guy whose company health insur-

ance saved his son’s life, or the woman who worked her

way up from cashier to corporate manager.

Unfortunately, it neglects to mention that Wal-Mart

arranged Jim and Laura’s itinerary, paid for the RV,

and compensated them for the blog entries.

– CnnMoney.com, 101 Dumbest Moments in Business

(2006) 10

At a time when Wal-Mart was coming under heavy

criticism from many quarters about its treatment of

its employees (among other things), it more than

welcomed such positive grassroots publicity. So

much, in fact, that when the would-be bloggers

notified Wal-Mart of their intention, Wal-Mart flew

them to Las Vegas, lent them a RV branded with the

Working Families for Wal-Mart logo (an organiza-

tion to which the writers belonged, created by Wal-

Mart’s public relations firm), gave them an itinerary

to follow, paid for their gas – and for the blog en-

trees. None of this was disclosed in the blog, which

featured remarkably Wal-Mart-friendly interviews

with Wal-Mart employees across the United States. 11

Did Wal-Mart’s role in the blog involve the intention

to undermine its readers’ normal decision-making

Figure 2. A decision procedure for determining whether a marketing tactic is deceptive.

Figure 3. A decision procedure for determining whether a marketing tactic is immorally manipulative.

101A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics

process? Was it deceptive? Was it intended to play

on the vulnerabilities of the blog’s trusting readers?

Did it constitute manipulation?

The framework presented in this article provides

us with a process for determining whether such

tactics are manipulative. We can start by noting that

while Wal-Mart was attempting to help persuade

potential customers (and voters) that it treated its

employees well, clearly not all attempts at persuasion

are manipulative. While persuasion in marketing

typically aims to bring the customer to believe that a

purchase of a product or service would be the right

choice of action at the time, there are more and less

objectionable ways this could be done. The most

morally unobjectionable way we attempt to per-

suade others is through rational discourse – by

offering information and/or rational arguments that

begin from shared assumptions/premises or evidence

that we expect to be rationally incorporated into

such arguments. A marketer, then, might produce an

ad that argues that her/his product is better than that

of her/his main competitor by informing consumers

of the differing properties of these products and

explaining to them why these are the properties that

they should base their decision on. Or, more typi-

cally, s/he could be less explicit and simply provide

the evidence s/he expects the consumer will use in

his/her own rational deliberation about what to

purchase – such as the relative price of her/his

product in comparison to that of its main competi-

tors. While we do not typically regard rational

argument as the only morally acceptable form of

persuasion, it is paradigmatic in what it tends to do

right – respect the interests of the party the marketer

is attempting to persuade by not undermining their

capacity to make a rational decision through

manipulation or deception. 12

On the other end of the spectrum are various

highly objectionable methods of coercion, which

the marketer can use to persuade consumers to

purchase her/his products. In persuading by coer-

cion s/he can give her/his customer ‘‘an offer he

can’t refuse.’’ That is, present him/her with a choice

of either accepting her/his offer or suffering a con-

sequence s/he believes will be so highly unaccept-

able to him/her as to virtually guarantee that her/his

offer will be accepted. Take, for example, the case of

Aguas del Tunari (a consortium led by Western

companies), which contracted exclusive rights to the

water system of Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1999 and

proceeded to double the cost of water to those living

in that region. Locals responded to the company’s

actions with large angry protests accusing the com-

pany of coercion – of acting with the knowledge

that the great majority of locals faced a virtual non-

choice (pay, die of thirst, or abandon their homes)

and the intention of using their lack of real options as

a guarantee that the price increase would prove

lucrative.

As a range of persuasion tactics, manipulation lies

in the vast space between rational persuasion and

coercion. 13

It encompasses a large number of subtly

different practices and includes both verbal and non-

verbal tactics that communicate through emotional

cues (Greenspan, 2003). The line that separates it

from morally permissible persuasion or coercion is

sometimes vague, and perhaps to some degree

unavoidably so. The challenge of a useful practical

framework for determining whether a tactic is

manipulative is both to help make those lines clear

enough for practical application and to give mar-

keters the theoretical tools necessary for thoughtful

consideration of less clear-cut cases.

Disagreements persist in the literature as to what

sort of persuasion amounts to the type of ethical

offense we call manipulation, and how this relates

to marketing practices (see Arrington, 1982; Crisp,

1987; Cunningham, 2003; Sneddon, 2001; Rudi-

now, 1978; Waide, 1987). We need not resolve this

debate, however, to proceed with the general

concern it addresses. Following Rudinow, we can

note that, unlike coercion, manipulation does not

operate by openly giving us just one real choice.

Yet, it does attempt to do something similar to

coercion 14

– to alter the normal decision-making

process of its targets in a way that to some extent

deprives them of the ability to choose for them-

selves.

Given this, a practical way to identify a manipu-

lative marketing tactic is by asking whether it at-

tempts to motivate by undermining what the agent

believes to be the consumer’s normal decision-

making process – for example, by weakening what

the agent believes is the level of rationality of the

decision-making process or by reducing the amount

of what the agent believes is helpful information

available for analysis in that process. The manipu-

lating marketer need not believe the consumers’

102 Shlomo Sher

normal decision-making process is a good one. S/he

may even regard the consumer’s normal process as

quite poor – viewing it as irrational, biased, or the

product of weakness of character (e.g., vanity) or

will. Whether the marketer’s perception of the

consumer’s decision-making process is accurate, is

irrelevant for our purposes. Likewise, whether the

act succeeds in accordance with the marketer’s

standards need not concern us. It is the attempt to

perform an action in accordance with such an

intention that makes the tactic potentially manipu-

lative. 15

Although some intention to motivate by under-

mining the consumer’s decision-making process is

necessary for an action to be manipulative, 16

it

clearly need not be the only, or even the primary

intention involved in a manipulative action. The

primary intention in enacting a manipulative mar-

keting tactic can certainly be to increase sales or

produce profit, but without the addition of an

intention to motivate by undermining the decision-

making process of one’s audience, it is difficult to call

the act manipulative even if, say, it results in audi-

ence misconception about the marketer’s products.

This may seem to let marketers off the hook too

easily, since it is surely rare for marketers to pause

and ask themselves how it is that they can get their

customers to buy more of their products by making

bad decisions. The marketer, for example, may be

unaware of her/his intention to undermine the

decision-making process of her/his audience, be-

cause of organizational norms or strong personal

incentives. As Upton Sinclair pointed out, It is dif-

ficult to get a man to understand something when

his salary depends on his not understanding it. 17

Acting without awareness of one’s intentions

should not, however, be confused with acting

without those intentions. We often act with inten-

tions of which we become aware only upon

reflection. It is quite possible for the agent to

intentionally, yet unconsciously, attempt to undermine

the normal decision-making process of her/his

audience. (Greenspan, 2003) In fact, the general

plausibility (and perhaps likelihood) of this form of

manipulation suggests that it would be negligent of

marketers not to take special care to reflect upon

whether their actions are unconsciously driven by

such intentions. That said, I will restrict the present

discussion to those intentions of which the marketer

is aware upon reflection, since one cannot reflect

upon (specific) unknown intentions as a part of a

decision-making procedure.

Another way the definition of manipulation pre-

sented here may wrongly seem to allow the marketer

to avoid the charge of manipulation is by training

herself/himself to perform actions that will result in

poorer decision-making on the part of her/his

audience, but without the direct intent for this effect

to occur in any particular context. Such a move,

however, would clearly not morally exonerate the

marketer. We can imagine a situation where a man

planning a murder trains himself to either pull the

trigger out of a particular immediate intention other

than the pre-mediated intention to murder, or out of

no particular intention whatsoever (through suffi-

cient training, shooting others has become an

instinctual reflexive action for him). The immediate

intention for the action in these cases is clearly not

the actor’s true intention for performing the action,

and so, not the object of our judgment. It, thus, fails

to deflect the agent’s moral responsibility in any way.

Of course, acting upon such an intention is, itself,

not enough to constitute manipulation. We would

hardly say that a marketer is guilty of manipulation if

s/he believes that the normal decision-making pro-

cess of her/his audience is uninformed and irrational

and attempts to subvert that process by providing

relevant information and rational decision-making

guidance. And so, as Rudinow points out, there are

two ways to act manipulatively: (1) by deceiving

consumers in some way; or (2) by playing off a

weakness that the marketer believes exists in the

consumer’s normal decision-making process. Replac-

ing, ‘‘weakness’’ with ‘‘vulnerability,’’ 18

we have the

following definition of manipulation: An act is

manipulative if it is intended to motivate by under-

mining what the marketers believes is the audience’s 19

normal decision-making process either by deception

or by playing on a vulnerability the marketer believes

exists in his/her audience’s normal decision-making

process.

A marketer considering whether a given tactic is

manipulative can begin with introspection about

her/his intent. If s/he finds herself/himself to lack

such an intention, then s/he is not acting manipu-

latively and can proceed (though of course the

marketing tactic can be immoral for other reasons).

If, however, s/he does find herself motivated by

103A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics

such an intention, it remains to be seen if the actions

s/he is taking are either deceptive or play on a

weakness of her target. I explore these in the next

two sections, respectively.

Is the tactic deceptive? 20

We connect deception with manipulation so strongly

that it is sometimes thought that deception is a nec-

essary aspect of manipulation. The reason for this is

clear – through deception the target of manipulation

can be made to believe something that would steer

their thoughts/choices in the direction the manipu-

lator desires. My focus here, as throughout this arti-

cle, will be on the marketer’s intention to motivate

by undermining his/her audience’s decision-making

process and the beliefs that support that intention,

rather than the actual effects of the marketer’s action

on his/her audience. That is, I will be concerned not

with whether the audience has come to form a

misconception as a consequence of the marketer’s

actions, but rather with whether the marketer’s tactic

is deployed with the intention of bringing about such

an effect. Again, this is not because the effect on

consumers is morally unimportant, but rather be-

cause it is not essential to determining whether an act

is deceptive.

That said, a marketing tactic is deceptive if it in-

tends to bring about consumer misconception by providing

what the marketer believes is false evidence, omitting key

evidence, or misrepresenting what the evidence means. 21

The marketer can be wrong about whether or not

the tactic actually makes false claims, omits impor-

tant facts, or misrepresents their meaning. This may

be due to self-deception, wishful thinking, intellec-

tual laziness, and negligence in considering what the

message communicates, given the background infor-

mation that various consumers need to interpret the

message in the appropriate context, or factual mis-

conceptions. While the marketer may be blamed and

held responsible for such failures, the charge of

deception is distinct from any of these, as attempting

(acting on the intention) to create a misconception.

And because it is distinguished by that attempt, its

wrongness is not effected either by failing to create

the misconception or being wrong about whether

the tactic is likely to bring about consumer mis-

conception (e.g., by having false beliefs about the

background knowledge the consumer uses to

interpret the message).

If a misconception occurs without the marketer’s

intention, a range of other wrongs are more

appropriate grounds for moral condemnation than

deceptiveness: (a) negligence, if the misconception

occurs because the marketer fails to meet his/her

responsibility to recognize certain foreseeable con-

sequences of his/her action; (b) recklessness, if the

marketer recognizes the act is likely to bring about

harm by causing the misconception, but acts any-

way; (c) harm caused, which the marketer might be

responsible for even if it the misconception is not the

product of intention, negligence, or recklessness. As

long as the marketer acts with the intention of

bringing about the misconception, then s/he acts

deceptively whether or not s/he succeeds.

That intention to bring about (to cause) a mis-

conception is key to deceptiveness and can be ob-

served in cases where the marketer acts without the

intention, but with the expectation, that a miscon-

ception will occur. We can see this in the following

cases, which also highlight the role played by the

marketer’s beliefs about consumers’ responsibilities:

(a) Future Fortune Financial (FFF) offers a ser-

vice to customers outlined in a Terms and

Conditions document readers must give

consent to before purchase. If the customers

do not read this document, then they will

most likely form a misconception about the

service that FFF offers. Seeking to avoid

such misconceptions, FFF makes a good-

faith attempt to discourage consumer’s mis-

conception about its terms of service by

strongly urging customers to read and under-

stand the terms described in the document,

clearly notifying them of their responsibility

for doing so, and alerting them that failure to

do so might result in their consent to FFF’s

service on the basis of a misconception. FFF

also attempts to ensure that the document is a

short and simple read – providing enough,

but not an overwhelming amount of infor-

mation to consumers in a way that its market-

ers believe would be very easily understood

by the great majority of customers that take

the time to read it. The marketers believe

that the result of their efforts will be that most

104 Shlomo Sher

consumers consenting to the service will do

so with a correct understanding of its terms

and conditions.

(b) FFF markets their service in the same way,

though its marketing team believes from

past experiences that for all of their good-

faith efforts, customers are still unlikely to

read the document, and so, will probably

sign up to the service with a misconception

about what it is that they are signing up for.

The marketers’ actions do not appear to be deceptive

in (a). In fact, they seem to be quite ethical – at least

in part because the marketers take explicit steps to

ensure that their marketing tactic does not cause

customer’s misconception negligently. The differ-

ence between cases (a) and (b) is that the marketers

in (b) actually expect their tactic to result in con-

sumer misconception – and yet, we typically do not

regard the marketer’s actions in that case as decep-

tive. It seems to me that our reasoning for this is that

if a misconception was to occur, its proximate cause

would be irresponsible behavior on the part of the

consumer, rather than the marketer. If the marketers

proceed with (b) believing that the likely miscon-

ception was caused by consumer’s irresponsibility,

then their actions can still be criticized for the harm

that is likely to result from the misconception they

expect their tactic to generate, but not because they

are deceptive.

The lines of responsibility are often quite difficult

to draw in uncontroversial ways – particularly with

regard to the origin and relevance of misconception.

Yet, focusing solely on the beliefs of the marketer

about these responsibilities, simplifies the issue with

regard to deception (though it complicates it with

regard to related wrongs). Take the case of a fast

food marketer who finds out that consumers com-

monly have a misconception about the nutritional

value of the product s/he is promoting (that it is

much healthier than it really is), though s/he does

not intend to promote this misconception. As a

responsible marketer, s/he inquires as to the reason

for this misconception and discovers that the prob-

lem is not the positive content of his/her message,

but something it omits – that unbeknownst to most

customers, many of the ingredients that go into the

product have subtly changed over time, making the

product far less healthy (e.g., sugar was replaced by

the much more harmful high-fructose corn syrup).

S/he believes consumers are ultimately responsible

for making their own decisions about the nutritional

value of the food they eat and the relative impor-

tance of that value when weighed against other re-

lated values, such as how convenient it is to obtain

the food. However, s/he also believes that in this

case they cannot be expected to know information

vital to their decision, and so cannot be held

responsible for this important misconception. If

upon this recognition of an important omission and

the belief that it is not the product of irresponsible

consumer behavior, then the marketer allows the

present campaign to continue as is, s/he would be

deceiving his/her audience.

Recognizing his/her responsibility in the matter,

the marketer decides to post the nutritional infor-

mation of all the restaurant’s products in a prominent

display in stores – noting the most important aspects

of nutrition in the menu and explaining these in a

level of detail appropriate to consumer resources for

understanding that information and in a language

s/he believes consumers can easily understand.

Having done this, s/he now believes that s/he has

sufficiently removed the obstacle that made it too

difficult for the consumer to obtain this information

and make responsible choices. Even if the miscon-

ception were to persist, the marketer now believes

that s/he has met his/her share of responsibility to

ensure that it does not, and can continue with his/

her current tactics without being guilty of deception.

Is the marketer’s assessment of how responsibility

is assigned in this situation correct? Perhaps, or

perhaps not. The marketer can be wrong about the

division of responsibility for many reasons – some of

which are themselves moral failures (e.g., negligence

or self-deception). Yet, whether or not the marketer

is right or wrong is irrelevant to determining

deception as long as we accept that an important

moral distinction exists between merely bringing

about misconception and doing so deceptively. Of

course, this does not give marketers moral license to

believe anything they want about the responsibilities

of their consumers. Like everyone else, marketers

surely tend to be too generous to their own interests

in their assessment of the responsibilities of con-

sumers. The nature of their relationship with con-

sumers may, in fact, make them particularly prone to a

biased comparison of their consumers’ responsibilities

105A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics

with their own. And so, an important part of moral

marketing is the attempt to arrive at an unbiased view

of the knowledge and responsibilities consumers

possess. Marketers who fail to make such an attempt

as part of their deliberations about whether or not to

employ a tactic are probably acting negligently – just

as they would if they failed to consider the harm their

tactic may possibly cause to consumers.

While beliefs marketers have about the responsi-

bilities of their audience at least sometimes limit their

own related responsibilities, failure by consumers to

meet their responsibilities clearly does not license

marketers to manipulate them by exploiting that

failure. Consider the following variation of the FFF

case above:

(c) FFF’s marketers believe that, despite their

good-faith efforts, their audience will not

live up to their responsibility to read the

terms and conditions document. Conse-

quently, the marketers decide to take the

further step of intentionally placing a clause

in the terms document that changes the

terms of the agreement from what their cus-

tomers are likely to believe if they do not

read the document, to something more

favorable to the company’s interests.

The tactic appears plainly manipulative – at the very

least because it attempts to undermine the con-

sumer’s decision-making process by playing on a

weakness (see ‘‘Playing on a what the marketer be-

lieves is a vulnerability’’ section). But is it also

deceptive? Does the marketers’ belief that the con-

sumer is not meeting her/his responsibilities allow

the marketers to non-deceptively, but intentionally,

cause their audience to form a misconception? The

reason it is not deceptive of the marketer to act with

the expectation that consumer irresponsibility will

lead to misconception in (a) and (b) is that the

proximate cause of that misconception can be traced

to irresponsible action on the part of the consumer,

instead of the marketers’ own actions. Here, on the

other hand, the marketer is acting in hope of causing

the misconception himself/herself. It is difficult,

then, to see how the consumer’s failure can excuse

that of the marketer, and more generally, how

intentionally attempting to cause a misconception

could ever not be deceptive.

With this understanding of deception at hand, I

now briefly examine the conceptually distinct ways

consumer-marketing tactics can be deceptive, before

turning to discuss manipulation without deception:

The tactic presents false evidence

Knowingly presenting false evidence is most para-

digmatically what we think of as deception. Take,

for instance, the 2003 KFC advertising campaign

that claimed that eating its fried chicken was com-

patible with ‘‘low carbohydrate’’ weight-loss pro-

grams, though such programs specifically warned

against eating such breaded fried foods. 22

If KFC’s

marketers knew about this warning and believed that

they did not have evidence to the contrary, then

they knowingly presented a falsehood. If they did

this intentionally to create a consumer misconcep-

tion, then they did so deceptively.

Notably, KFC’s tactic may have been deceptive

even without strictly believing that they were pre-

senting false evidence. They may have been unsure

whether or not their claims were false, or merely

suspected that they were. And while they may have

acted negligently if unintentionally presenting such

information as factual, doing so intentionally in the

hope of creating consumer’s misrepresentation ap-

pears to be no less deceptive than an attempt

involving claims that the marketers know are false.

This may have been the case with the marketers for

the popular herbal supplement, Airborne, which for

years was advertised as capable of warding off colds –

until settling a false advertising claim out of court.

The claim to treating colds was backed up only by a

single small self-sponsored study, the results of which

its makers refused to ever make public – presumably

because its results were inconclusive. 23

The tactic omits important facts

Presenting evidence that is made to appear to pro-

vide the consumer with sufficient information for a

good decision, though the marketer intentionally

leaves out information s/he believes to be central to

an informed decision, likewise deceives the con-

sumer into making a decision they otherwise might

not make. If I am approached by a friendly couple

106 Shlomo Sher

that appear to be on vacation, asked to take their

photo, and told in excited tones about how fantastic

their new Sony Ericsson camera-phone is – but not

that they are telling me this because Sony is paying

them to do so – then I am being misled through the

omission of a fact important to how I should inter-

pret the information I have been given. 24

If the

phone’s marketers omitted this fact with the inten-

tion that I arrive at a misconception about the

context in question – and believed that context to

affect my interpretation of the value of the product –

then they acted deceptively.

The tactic misrepresents what the evidence means 25

The same set of facts allows for different possible

interpretations of how those facts are connected and

what can be concluded from them. This allows a

marketer to present a set of facts to consumers in a

way s/he believes will promote a poor interpretation

of what those facts mean. For our purposes, call

such a form of deception ‘‘misrepresentation.’’

Misrepresentation is more difficult to identify than

falsification or omission because of the degree of

vagueness in what constitutes misrepresentation. In

addition, it is not as obvious a moral transgression as

the other types of deception, since we typically

consider some degree of positive spin to the pre-

sentation and interpretation of facts to be morally

permissible. Spin, however, is morally limited by

how the marketer believes the consumer is likely to

interpret the message.

Consider one of the most common uses of mis-

representation – relying on a key phrase that the

marketer believes the consumer will use to interpret

the message poorly. The phrase’s meaning can be

ambiguous so as to allow for what the marketer

knows is the correct interpretation of the message,

while also leading consumers to adopt what s/he

believes is a poor interpretation of the facts. This

ambiguity can allow for deception that technically

avoids outright lying. Microsoft was accused in a

class action lawsuit of this sort of deception when it

added to the specs of new PCs the label ‘‘Windows

Vista Capable’’ prior to its release of Windows Vista.

Many consumers purchasing these PCs understood

the labels to mean that PCs with these specs were

capable of running the new Vista operating system.

Moreover, they believed that this was precisely the

interpretation Microsoft’s marketers thought they

would have in reaction to the label. As it happened,

the PCs were capable of running only the most basic

aspects of Vista – excluding most of the bells and

whistles that Microsoft touted when marketing the

operating system. Although the PCs could be seen as

‘‘capable’’ under one interpretation of the phrase,

and Microsoft did not present false information to

consumers, many consumers were furious at what

they saw as an attempt to deceive them about the

PC’s abilities. They saw the interpretation presented

to them as clearly stating something other than those

familiar with the product (i.e., the marketers) be-

lieved was true. If Microsoft’s marketers did indeed

intentionally misrepresent the capacities of the PCs

in this way, then they acted deceptively. 26

Playing on a what the marketer believes

is a vulnerability 27

Despite the strong connection between deceptive

tactics and manipulation, there are situations where

manipulation can be accomplished in another way –

by playing on a decision-making vulnerability the mar-

keter believes the consumer has, through which the

consumer’s normal decision-making process (as the

marketer sees it) can be undermined. And there are

plenty of types of potential vulnerabilities marketers

might play on:

• Emotional vulnerabilities, many of them near universal, such as fears of social embarrassments

and inadequacies, worries about physical harm,

insecurities about physical appearances, and the

deep need to feel appreciated and loved.

• Perceptual vulnerabilities that distort how we view objects or situations, such as optical

illusions that make things seem bigger than

they are. 28

• Cognitive vulnerabilities that affect the way we think and remember, such as our use of

heuristic generalizations.

• Ethical failings/character flaws, such as van- ity, greed, and unhealthy obsessions.

These may not be weaknesses or failings, per se.

Companies, in fact, can take beliefs about such

107A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics

vulnerabilities into consideration when designing

products in ways that increase the pleasure con-

sumers get from their product. And the possibility of

attempting to use perceived vulnerabilities manipu-

latively tells us nothing about the moral permissi-

bility of marketing products that aim to fulfill desires

generated by vulnerabilities (real or merely per-

ceived) – though it may indirectly impact the

morality of creating products to fulfill new desires

generated by the manipulation of such vulnerabili-

ties. 29

What is at issue, for the same reasons it has

been so throughout the framework I am offering, is

not whether an actual vulnerability is being acted

upon, but rather whether the marketer is attempting

to use whatever s/he perceives as a vulnerability to

undercut her/his audience’s ability to make good

decisions. 30

Consider how situations, such as the following,

make for attractive targets as vulnerabilities easily

exploitable by marketers seeking to manipulate

consumers:

• When someone gives you something (a gift, attention, time, etc.), you instinctively feel

that it is only fair that we give them some-

thing in return. This reciprocating effect has

long been appreciated by salespeople – the

longer the salesperson can get you to spend

with him or her, the likelier you are to feel

moved to make a purchase to reciprocate

the time that has been invested in you. The

desire to reciprocate in such conditions is

instinctual, rather than rational.

• Using a well-regarded spokesperson typically makes for an effective marketing tactic be-

cause we heuristically place great value in

the opinions of people we admire – regard-

less of whether they have any actual exper-

tise about, or experience with, the product

in question (even assuming that their feelings

about the product are genuine).

• A department store might utilize a signature designer fragrance that they are told will not

merely make its stores smell better, but is de-

signed to subconsciously affect consumers in

a way that psycho-chemically puts them in a

‘‘buying mood.’’ Consumers, the fragrance’s

producer claims, are calmed by the fragrance

in such a way that makes them more com-

fortable spending more money than they

would if they had not inhaled the scent.

This last example highlights the (not always clear-

cut) distinction between merely trying to make

customers happy for the purpose of generating sales,

and playing on their vulnerabilities for the same

purpose. Most businesses view policies of treating

customers nicely and providing them with a pleasant

shopping experience primarily as a means to an

economic end. Does the account of playing off a

perceived vulnerability presented here reject the

great majority of consumer interactions – most of

which seem quite innocent to us in our daily

interactions? I see no reason why it should. A brief

glance at how the basic emotional effect the mar-

keter attempts to elicit in the consumer through

niceness shows a variety of interactions, most of

which do not appear to include the exploitation of a

perceived vulnerability. For starters, consumers

typically have good reasons to prefer that their

relationships (business relations included) be with

people who are nice to them. Being nice to potential

or existing customers might be a necessary condition

to establishing the business relationships by showing

one is willing to conduct that relationship in such a

cordial manner, and marketers can treat consumers

nicely for that reason. Marketing tactics can also use

niceness to overcome a flaw in one’s normal decision-

making process – such as an over-allegiance to the

already familiar. And then there’s the most common

of the bunch – niceness from an economic motive

that does not attempt to reach that end manipula-

tively. Finally, let us not forget the pleasant possi-

bility that a marketer can be nice just because s/he

believes that the world is a better place when people

are pleasant to one another. There are clearly

important differences (outlined in the definition

offered earlier) between the above uses of niceness

and usage that takes abusive advantage of our trust in

the well-intentioned niceness of others to reduce the

quality of our decisions.

While deception is often utilized when playing on

a perceived vulnerability, the account of manipula-

tion presented here separates the two as conceptually

different types of manipulation techniques. A prac-

tical distinction exists between them as well. Playing

on a vulnerability can be such an effective manipulation

108 Shlomo Sher

technique that it can sometimes be expected to

succeed even when the target audience is actually

aware of the manipulation attempt. This is a truth

obvious to anyone who has ever found herself un-

able to resist what he or she knew to be sexual

seduction, and it extends to many of our other

vulnerabilities. Of particular note here is the com-

mon practice of pharmaceutical companies that

market their drugs directly to doctors. These com-

panies use sales reps that are usually very attractive,

give them token gifts (e.g., pens), and take them out

to expensive meals where they can give them

information about their products. The doctors typ-

ically know that the sales reps are, among other

things, chosen for their good looks, and that the

pharmaceutical companies are trying to manipulate

their prescription decisions through this marketing

tactic. The doctors, however, also believe that their

knowledge of the tactic protects them from being

influenced by the tactic and allows them to take

advantage of the gifts they are being offered. Pre-

sumably, it is the doctors that are mistaken here,

since pharmaceutical marketers are well aware of

doctor’s attitudes about this tactic, yet continue to

find it profitable to spend large sums of resources on

these tactics. That manipulation can occur even with

the awareness that one is a target, if true, is quite

alarming. It suggests that consumers are defenseless

against some psychologically sophisticated attempts

to manipulate them, highlighting the dangers of

manipulative marketing, and increasing the need for

vigilance on the part of marketers. 31

Locating the moral wrongs

in manipulation 32

Sections third to sixth above described manipulative

action and prescribed a framework for its detection.

They assume manipulative action is morally objec-

tionable (presumably this is the motivation one

would have to use such a framework), but do not

explain why it is so. The present section tackles that

task and prepares us for the framework’s final step

(‘‘Redemptive moral considerations and moral

manipulation’’ section) – evaluating whether the

moral considerations that bear on the manipulative

act (including those that may ‘‘redeem’’ that act)

make it morally impermissible.

Manipulative action is morally objectionable both

because of the distinctive wrong of manipulation and

the additional wrong of the way one attempts to

manipulate (deception and/or the exploitation

involved in playing on a weakness). The action may

also be objectionable if it is likely to harm various

parties. I will address these in turn.

The distinctive wrong of manipulation lies in two

types of violations. First, as the metaphorical use of

the word indicates, manipulation attempts to use per-

sons. Or as the philosopher Immanuel Kant put it, it

involves treating people merely as means to an end.

Doing so violates our duty to respect their personal

autonomy – to treat them with the dignity deserved

by those that are capable of making their own

decisions and pursuing their own ends. And as Kant

points out, to do this is to disregard one’s existence

as a person (being someone who is capable of

making one’s own choices), and thus, is profoundly

disrespectful. This is particularly the case if the

manipulation is committed by playing on a weak-

ness. Wood (1995) puts it well when he says in his

discussion of exploitation, ‘‘It is degrading to have

your weaknesses taken advantage of, and dishonor-

able to use the weaknesses of others for your ends.’’

Second, unless the consumer has no trust in the

veracity of the marketer’s message to him/her

(something which is rarely the case in the marketer-

consumer relationship), manipulating him/her con-

stitutes a dangerous violation of the trust taken for

granted in the interpersonal relationship between

two parties and underwrites the stability of that

relationship. If the marketer manipulates the cus-

tomer, then s/he has likely taken advantage of that

customer in a way he or she trusted s/he would not.

Such a violation of trust is, of course, particularly

significant from the marketer’s economic perspec-

tive. In a case of trust violation, the manipulator

needs the manipulated, but if the manipulated party

loses trust in the manipulator, s/he can end that

relationship (Greenspan, 2003). Consumer backlash

against the marketer can and does occur. This is not

the only reason trust is of key importance when it

come to manipulation in marketing. Insofar as being

a good professional entails adhering to behavior

consistent with society’s implicit understanding of

the appropriate activities of one’s profession, the

marketer has an obligation qua marketer to ensure,

or at least to not undermine, society’s trust in his

109A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics

profession (Shaver, 2003). It is also worth noting

here that in the case of the marketing profession, for

which the public maintains a significant level of

distrust, this obligation to the profession may be

particularly strong.

In addition to the wrongs common to all

manipulative actions, there are also wrongs specific

to the way the agent acts manipulatively – whether

deception and/or playing on a vulnerability is used.

The wrongs of deception – primarily the intentional

reduction of another’s ability to exercise their

autonomy by making informed decisions and the

violation of trust often involved in doing so – are

familiar to everyone. 33

I will assume that the reader

does not need an explanation of them. What is

wrong with playing on a vulnerability in the context

of manipulation is less obvious – particularly in the

case of marketing where playing on a vulnerability

can present a marketer with the opportunity to

persuade legally and without deception.

Not surprisingly, what is morally offensive about

playing on a vulnerability is the exploitation it is used

for. Valdman (2009) offers us this paradigmatic

example of exploitation:

Person B is bitten by a rare poisonous snake while

hiking in a remote forest. His death is imminent.

Fortunately, another hiker, A, happens by and offers to

sell B the antidote. … Though it retails for $10, A insists that he will accept no less than $20,000. Since B

would rather lose his money than his life, he accepts

A’s offer. Here A wrongly exploited B.

It is worth noting that the example presents us with

two consenting parties, both of whom benefit from

the actions taken. This is very rarely the case when

one is playing on a weakness as a part of a manip-

ulative tactic in consumer marketing. However, as

the example shows, even transactions that are con-

sensual and mutually beneficial can be clearly and

wrongly 34

exploitative. 35

One way to explain that

wrong is by suggesting that we ought not to take

advantage of the vulnerabilities of others for personal

benefit (Wood, 1995). A more complex and

attractive explanation is offered by Mikhail Valdman

(2009), who points out that some ways of benefiting

from the vulnerabilities of others are worse than

others. Valdman suggests that an exploitative act is

wrong, rather than merely indecent, when it is the

exploitation itself that harms the victim, as opposed

to instrumentally leading to harm befalling its victim.

And he locates the moral wrong of such exploitation

in the extraction of excessive benefits from someone

unable to reasonably refuse one’s offer. This can be

seen in the case above, where in addition to his

snakebite problem, B is being financially harmed by

having to pay A’s price – and this seems to be so

because that price is so wildly excessive as to be

accepted only by someone for whom refusal is not a

real option. 36

Valdman’s account of exploitation can be directly

applied to manipulative tactics in consumer market-

ing, which play on a weakness. Take the case of an

insurance company that markets fire insurance to

consumers through tactics that play on the fears that

these consumers have of losing their home so that at a

point of peak concern these consumers are willing to

pay ten times more for the insurance policy than they

would if the risks and terms of that policy were spelled

out to them in a calm and rational fashion by that

company along with the price it was willing to extend

to its customers. 37

We can view this tactic through

the lens of Valdman’s account of exploitation easily

enough: The consumer’s vulnerabilities (the fear of

losing his home) are clearly being preyed upon.

Moreover, they are preyed upon to an excessive de-

gree. Next, the consumer is harmed by this excess

when s/he parts ways with the large sum money

unnecessarily spent. This is not to say that the product

may not benefit him/her in any way – in fact, s/he

may need, and perhaps should, purchase fire insur-

ance. Still, insofar as the marketer is exploiting the

vulnerabilities of the consumer in an excessive fashion

and harming him/her in doing so, her/him exploi-

tation appears to be wronging him/her.

Finally, performing an action one believes may

harm either the party being manipulated or other

parties, violates one’s general obligation not to harm

others. Since manipulation usually aims to benefit

the marketer, rather than consumer, a manipulative

tactic may be highly likely to harm the consumer in

some way. For example, if I manipulate a consumer

to purchase a product I believe is probably a waste of

her/his money, I am acting in a way that is likely to

result in harm (lost money and all that entails) to that

customer and to her/his dependents – harm I would

be at least partially morally responsible for.

110 Shlomo Sher

Redemptive moral considerations

and moral manipulation

The term ‘‘immorally manipulative’’ may seem

redundant. After all, the previous section describes

just what is morally wrong about manipulation.

However, the moral wrongs of manipulative actions

do not automatically exclude the possibility that the

manipulation might be justified, nor that the action

be morally permissible, all-things-considered. Par-

ents often manipulate their children in ways they

believe are justified by the benefit they bring to these

children. And some degree of playing on their

audience’s sense of compassion may be justified by

social marketers attempting to increase charitable

donations by showing emotionally charged images

of suffering children, though a similar tactic for non-

charitable purposes might be morally despicable. In

such cases, we might say that the wrong of the

manipulation is outweighed by other considerations

with positive moral value related to the interests of

consumers, society in general, or the marketer her-

self. I will call these ‘‘redemptive moral consider-

ation’’ to highlight their potential capacity to

morally redeem the action.

What, if any, redemptive moral consideration

might suffice to make manipulation permissible in a

consumer-marketing context? The candidate con-

siderations for redemption are the familiar: those

having to do with the beneficial consequences

which the act of manipulation is expected to make

to the general good, and those pertaining to other,

stronger or more numerous, obligations.

Before naming some potential factors that may

possibly provide a manipulative marketing tactic

with redemptive value, note that the following far-

too-common excuses clearly do not actually rest

upon redemptive moral considerations for rather

obvious reasons 38

:

(a) ‘‘No harm, no foul’’ – the manipulative ac-

tion is not immoral if it results in no actual

harm. (Lack of harm done by agent is the

redemptive moral consideration)

We have the strong intuition that it is possible to do

wrong even if no harmful consequences occur. This

is the case particularly if the action involved fore-

seeable likely harmful consequences or if the wrong

in question was the sort of wrong that did not de-

pend on consequences (e.g., a violation of trust).

While any benefits the action can be expected to

bring to the general good may amount to redemp-

tive moral consideration for that action, it is difficult

to see how the same can be said of a lack of harm.

While ‘‘more harm’’ may mean ‘‘more foul,’’ a failed

attempted violation is not morally excused on the

basis of its failure.

(b) The invasive nature of aggressive marketing

makes it morally impermissible, therefore

marketing that is not aggressive is, by con-

trast, not morally impermissible – even

when it is manipulative. (Lack of aggressive-

ness is the redemptive moral consideration)

The logical fallacy here is pretty plain: it ignores the

possibility that the manipulative aggressive market-

ing tactic is worse than the manipulative non-

aggressive one, though both are morally bad. Mor-

ally relevant factors other than that of manipulation

matter for the assessment of a marketing tactic’s

morality. As with the previous excuse, however, the

lack of additional negative moral value does not

create positive moral value, and it is the latter that is

needed for redemptive moral consideration.

(c) Remaining within the law ensures a tactic’s

moral permissibility, even if it is manipula-

tive. (Not violating the law is the redemp-

tive moral consideration)

While the law may serve as a general guide to moral

acceptability, the legal status of an action is largely

irrelevant to its moral status in the case of manipu-

lation. Many kinds of manipulation are legal, but

clearly immoral, and even if we have some reason to

think that a manipulative act may be even worse for

violating the law, it is difficult to see how remaining

within the law can redeem it.

What makes these common excuses so absurd

when expressed clearly in terms of redemptive moral

consideration is that they are explicitly focused on

the absence of a moral negative, rather than the

addition of a moral positive. And it is clearly the

latter that is necessary to overcome the wrong of

manipulation. Therefore, are there positive aspects

to consumer marketing tactics that can serve as

111A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics

genuine redemptive moral consideration? Of course.

Every action has the potential of doing some good.

Here are some plausible candidates: 39

(i) The product will benefit the consumer

The consumer is manipulated to purchase health

insurance, which s/he truly needs, but would likely

not purchase if not manipulated into doing so.

(ii) The consumer will not understand why the

product is so good without manipulation

Apple may have manipulated me to buy a Mac in-

stead of a PC by playing on my weakness to want to

see myself as hip. However, only by gaining suffi-

cient familiarity with the Mac could I arrive at a

point where I can understand the benefits that come

with its usage and make a more informed decision

about whether or not to purchase it.

(iii) The marketing tactic (as opposed to the

product) will benefit the consumer. 40

A manipulative, but very funny, ad may provide so

much pleasure to the consumer that it increases their

well-being sufficiently to make up for the wrong of

the manipulation. 41

The tactic can also make the

product itself better for the consumer by providing

the consumer with a sense of confidence, pride, a

sense of community with other product owners, etc.

It is also possible that the manipulation helps the

consumer enjoy the product more – a horribly busy

carpet design might be chosen by a concert hall’s

promoters to push visitors’ gaze away from the floor

and to the superb architecture and cultural delights

straight ahead. Here the designer would be playing

on a perceptual vulnerability to ensure that the

attention is on the hall’s most enjoyable offerings to

improve the visitors’ experience.

(iv) Manipulative marketing can lead to more

purchases, which leads to cheaper products,

which benefits consumers.

This economic benefit would obviously require

substantial factual support to convincingly serve as a

redemptive moral consideration to be weighed

among the other harms and benefits of the action,

but it is at least theoretically possible.

Of course, having a redemptive moral consider-

ation does not automatically remove the substantial

wrong of manipulation, but rather simply weighs

against it. It is possible that any combination of these

may generate sufficient redemptive moral consider-

ations to justify the manipulation – especially in

a parental or military context. It is, however,

much more difficult to envision a marketing context

where this is the case. That said, whether and how

they apply to any particular marketing tactic, I leave

to those evaluating the particular merits of those

tactics.

The immoral manipulation assessment

framework: a walk-through

Consider the following candidate marketing tactic

followed by a brief sample walk-through along the

framework offered. The analysis reserves actual

judgment on the specific case, focusing instead on

how that judgment would be made by a marketing

manager following the framework proposed in this

article.

The marketers of a weight loss system are considering a

contract with The Oprah Winfrey Show that demands

strict controls over when their 60-second ad will show.

The ad would be only run immediately following

segments of the show that focus on weight loss and do

so in a hopeful way. The makers of Oprah have agreed

to the deal and have promised to produce 5 such

segments in the coming month specifically to meet the

marketer’s request.

To check whether this tactic is immorally manipu-

lative using the framework presented in this article,

the marketers would ask themselves the following:

1. Are our intentions in using this tactic to

motivate consumer decision-making by

undermining what we believe to be the nor-

mal decision-making process of the show’s

audience with regard to purchasing products

such as ours?

The specific and unusual nature of the demands

should alert them to this possibility.

If the intentions here are not to motivate by

undermining good decision-making, then the tactic

112 Shlomo Sher

is not immorally manipulative – though it may be

immoral for other reasons. They should take par-

ticular care not to proceed negligently.

2. If we are attempting to motivate by under-

mining what we believe to be the normal

decision-making process of the show’s audi-

ence, then might our tactic be deceptive in

some way? Does it, as far as we know, make

false claims, omit important facts, or misrep-

resent the facts? Alternatively, does it play on

a vulnerability we believe our target consum-

ers have?

There is some reason here to think that the tactic is

deceptive (either by omission or misrepresentation),

plays on a perceived vulnerability, or does both –

which would clearly make it manipulative. In this

case, the fact that the content of the show and its

attitude toward that type of product are themselves

potentially part of the marketing tactic is clearly

key. Viewers of the show likely trust the content of

the program to be items of interest to its producers

whose value is presented under the sincere inter-

pretation of its host. The marketing tactic in

question may involve the belief that this expecta-

tion exists, and if so, knowingly violate that trust to

play on a vulnerability believed to make viewers

more emotionally susceptible to the product fea-

tured in the ads. If the tactic is either deceptive or

plays on a perceived vulnerability, then it is

manipulative and, in addition, what is wrong about

it includes what is wrong about either of these

components.

3. If we do act manipulatively, then we are

likely to wrong our audience in a variety of

ways. Are there redemptive moral consider-

ations that bear on our manipulative tactic

that might nevertheless justify its use?

One obvious candidate would be the sincere belief

that the product will be of such great benefit to these

viewers that it will override the wrong of manipu-

lating them to obtain that benefit. There may be

others. If the tactic is manipulative, but sufficient

redemptive moral considerations do bear on it, it is

not immorally manipulative – though it is still pos-

sible that it is immoral for other reasons.

Conclusion

The practical question that looms large behind a

project like this one is, of course, how can we

motivate marketers to actually begin to engage in a

genuine process of self-reflection about whether their

tactics are immorally manipulative. This article at-

tempts to remove at least one major motivational

roadblock – confusion on how to proceed: What

steps do I take to evaluate my actions? What do the

central concepts in question mean? How can I feel

confident that my deliberative process will be ethi-

cally sensible or practically applicable? My hope is that

the step-by-step framework presented here can pro-

vide practical guidance for those seeking to detect

immorally manipulative marketing tactics, and that

the philosophical clarification of its elements can help

give marketers the intellectual confidence with which

to apply such a framework more comfortably. 42

Notes

1 For an interesting broader discussion of ethical per-

suasion, see Baker and Martinson (2001). The article’s

treatment of manipulation as a particular type of wrong-

ful persuasion is typical – the term is mentioned

throughout the article, but with no specific description

of what it is or how to identify it. This is precisely the

sort of gap this article is intended to fill. 2

Hunt (1976) attacked the distinction between ‘‘per-

suasive’’ and ‘‘informative’’ advertising, pointing out that

the purpose of all advertising is to persuade. While clear-

ly that is right, the notion that there is some sort of

important moral distinction between ads that merely aim

to provide consumers with information and ads that

overtly seek to persuade consumers in other ways has re-

mained accepted in the debate – though with disagree-

ments on how to draw that distinction. 3

A normative ethical framework is concerned with

how one ought to act ethically. It differs from a

descriptive model of ethical behavior, which describes

how ethical acts are actually performed. For an instruc-

tive version of the latter in the case of marketing prac-

tices, see Hunt and Vitell (2006). 4

I have chosen to focus on the marketer for two

reasons: First, marketers can choose whether or not to

perform the actions in question, and in doing so, most

directly effect the degree to which manipulation exists

in marketing. Second, as I argue later, a key component

113A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics

of manipulative action is a particular type of intention

and the beliefs such intention is based on – including

those that concern the beliefs and responsibilities of the

parties one is attempting to persuade. Like most agents,

marketers typically have greater (though clearly imper-

fect) epistemic access to the true intentions driving their

actions than other parties. This is not to say that others

cannot make good guesses about an agent’s intentions.

We have working laws that distinguish between various

violations on the basis of intentions. Practically speak-

ing, this means that the judge or jury makes an

informed guess about what those intentions were in

accordance with the imperfect evidence they have. 5

Since my aim in this article is to provide marketers

with a general framework for determining whether a

tactic is manipulative, I will not present any claims here

about the morality of particular tactics (e.g., those pre-

senting associative subjective goods). That said, I do

present various tactics that may be manipulative if per-

formed with the relevant beliefs and intent. 6

My inquiry can be contrasted with Gardner’s

(1975) investigation of deception in marketing. Gardner

dismisses traditional attempts to define deception as

inappropriate to the task because they focus entirely on

the act of deception as opposed to the fact of deception.

It seems to me that Gardner’s move is part of a practical

attempt to come up with legal policy for deceptive

advertising. While recognizing that manipulation

(or deception) has occurred is critical for any legal pol-

icy seeking to sanction such action, moral guidance

provided to marketers need not be legalistically re-

stricted this way. Hence, my concern is solely and

specifically on how a marketer may assess whether

a marketing tactic she is considering employing is

manipulative. 7

Viewing a moral violation in this manner is not

particularly unusual. Take theft, for example. While our

chief concern with theft tends to be on what has been

taken, we regard the attempt to steal as blameworthy

regardless of whether it succeeds in its aims. We do not

morally regard as stealing accidentally pocketing some-

one else’s identical-looking iPhone believing it is our

own. While the wrongful possession of the phone is a

situation that demands correction, we do not morally

blame the possessor for having stolen the phone – un-

less, that is, s/he realizes the mistake and decides (now

intentionally) to hold on to it. Nor would I be (mor-

ally) innocent of any wrongdoing if I intentionally take

a phone I believe to be yours, though it turns out to

actually belong to me. While success in such cases can

affect how bad the action is, it is acting with the inten-

tion to take (without permission or right) what one be-

lieves belongs to another that we call ‘‘stealing.’’

8 An earlier version of this framework was originally

conceived as part of a 2-h experiential learning exercise

designed to introduce marketing students to the moral

issues of manipulation and deception in marketing. 9

While sufficient redemptive value may make the

tactic morally permissible in an all-things-considered

ethical judgment, this would not eliminate the particular

wrongs of manipulation, nor the marketer’s responsibil-

ity for providing remedies for those wrongs. 10

The tactic earned Wal-Mart a spot on CnnMon-

ey.com’s 101 Dumbest Moments in Business in 2006

(http://157.166.224.108/galleries/2007/biz2/0701/gallery.

101dumbest_walmart/4.html). 11

Gogoi (2006). 12

Baker and Martinson (2001, p. 154). 13

As a form of persuasion, an assessment of whether a

tactic is actually likely to manipulate requires that the

marketer consider how consumers will interpret the

message – the information they have, the heuristics

they use, the bias correction processes they apply, etc.

(Meyers-Levy and Malaviya, 1999). It is distinguished

from other types of persuasion by what it attempts to

do with these. 14

Notably, we despise being coerced and being

manipulated for similar reasons – both deprive us of the

opportunity to choose for ourselves. The relationship to

the more technical (and metaphorical) sense of the

word here applies well – it treats us as objects to con-

trol, rather than as autonomous persons with the right

to choose for ourselves. 15

Lying, like manipulation, is ordinarily taken to be

necessarily intentional. However, this assumption faces

an interesting challenge by the contention that one can

be said to lie without intending to do so, if s/he is

aware that his/her statement is likely to generate a mis-

conception in his/her audience (Carson, 1988; Carson

et al., 1982; for criticism see Jones, 1986). This is a dif-

ferent issue than that of negligent deception, since the

speaker actually foresees his/her action will happen to

generate a misconception in his/her audience, though

s/he does not specifically intend it to. For example,

while I think Carson’s argument is very interesting,

I do not think that it applies to the case of manipulative

marketing, and so that we need to be concerned here

with possibility of manipulation that involves foresee-

able events, rather than intent.

Carson offers the example of a witness to a crime

that falsely states that s/he did not see the accused com-

mitting to crime, for fear of being harmed. The witness

is clearly lying, but without necessarily intending to de-

ceive anyone. To understand how this could be so,

Carson (1988) appeals to the intuition that underlies

the principle of double-effect – that one can morally

114 Shlomo Sher

perform an action with the expectation that it will have

an undesirable, but unintended, side-effect (e.g., gener-

ate a misconception). He presents here a classic just war

theory example of two cases of killing: (a) A city is

bombed, causing widespread killing, to terrorize its citi-

zens into ending the war; and (b) A munitions factory is

bombed, killing those inside, to reduce the capacity of

one’s enemy to wage the war in the hope of ending it.

We tend to view the killing in (b) as more acceptable

than (a) because while the killing in (a) is an intended

consequence playing a central role in the causal chain

toward the fulfillment of one’s goal, the killing in (b) is

not a direct part of that causal chain. In (a) the killing

itself is intended to help bring about the end of the

war, while in (b) it is the destruction of the factory that

is intended to do this. Likewise, our witness can be said

to speak a false statement that s/he expects will generate

a misconception, but as a side effect of his/her goal to

remain unharmed.

Can an analogous case be made for foreseen, but

unintended, manipulation in consumer marketing?

Without excluding the possibility entirely, I can think of

no consumer-marketing tactic that undermines the con-

sumer’s normal decision-making process in a way that is

both foreseeable and not a part of the causal chain be-

tween intention and goal. In the event that I am over-

looking such a class of cases, I will simply note that the

framework offered here does not apply to them. 16

That this is so becomes clearer once we exclude

cases of unconscious manipulation and consider the

alternatives. One might act from the specific intention

to not undermine the normal deliberative-process of

one’s audience. Alternatively, the consequences of one’s

actions might be merely unintended accidents. It seems

unreasonable in either case to hold the agent responsible

for manipulation, though either case may possibly

involve some negligence on his/her part. 17

I would like to thank one of my anonymous

reviewers for bringing this very relevant quote to my

attention. 18

I prefer vulnerability over weakness, because the

factor exploited by the marketer need not, itself, be a

weakness of the person being exploited. It is quite pos-

sible for it to be a strength in other contexts, but a vul-

nerability that can be exploited if one seeks to

undermine that persons’ normal decision-making pro-

cess. Both terms technically allow for this distinction,

but ‘‘weakness,’’ I believe, is more likely to obscure it

in the minds of readers. 19

Though marketers can create a message that reaches

a broad audience, I am using the term here to refer

more specifically to the audience the marketer has in

mind when acting from the intention necessary for

manipulation. As I had discussed in ‘‘Intentions and

consequences’’ section, the marketer’s tactic may be

manipulative toward that particular audience, though

not toward other audiences. 20

Deception is sometime meant to refer to a state of

the world, where A’s actions have resulted in B’s

wrongful view about how things are (or at least how A

believes they are). Such a view of deception allows for

unintentional deception. It seems to me, however, that

what characterizes deception is that the agent intention-

ally performs an action s/he expects will bring about a

particular misconception in his/her target audience. It is

this focused intent that seems to me to distinguish

deceptive action from the related term, ‘‘misrepresenta-

tion’’ that is sometimes used in legal contexts. 21

The account of deception I present here uses a par-

ticular understanding of ‘‘misrepresentation’’ designed to

highlight a certain type of deception. See the discussion

of misrepresentation later. 22

Federal Trade Commission (2004). 23

National Public Radio (2008). 24

The campaign was aptly named ‘‘Fake Tourist’’

(Shin, 2006). 25

The term ‘‘misrepresentation’’ is often used synony-

mously with ‘‘deception.’’ My use of it here, is more

specifically tailored to point the reader to a particular

type of deception. 26

A judge eventually dismissed the class action law-

suit, but many believe that Microsoft profited here

through a deceptive practice. 27

Following Rudinow’s (1978) ‘‘playing on a weak-

ness,’’ I am using this notion in an amoral technical

sense. I do not mean to imply that the vulnerability in

question is something bad that the consumer should not

have, but rather that it is something that can be used

against the consumer. 28

Obviously, playing on perceptual vulnerabilities can

be used to deceive one’s audience as well. 29

Much of the debates about the morality of

non-informative marketing has touched on either of

these issues. Notable among them are: Arrington

(1982), Durham (1984), Crisp (1987), Waide (1987),

Sneddon (2001), and Cunningham (2003). 30

I make the common assumption here that whatever

one’s normal decision-making process, there is some

sense where that process can be improved or made

worse. This presumes the existence of some normative

standard of good decision-making that allows for such

comparisons. Whether or not this is true, however, is

irrelevant for the framework I present in this essay,

which is concerned exclusively with a particular type of

intention the agent may or may not have. That inten-

tion must involve certain beliefs about both the

115A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics

consumer’s normal decision-making process in such

contexts and how vulnerabilities may be exploited to

undermine it. But as argued throughout this article, it is

the existence of such beliefs, rather than the veracity of

their object propositions that matter for determining

whether an act is manipulative. 31

This, however, may seem like a farfetched claim

easily countered: if I know that I’m being manipulated,

can’t I just guard against this manipulation and make up

my own mind? Can’t I just compensate my values or

perception to ‘‘balance things out’’? But my capacity to

do so depends on knowing the precise type/quality and

quantity of manipulation being exerted. Being aware

that I am the target of manipulation might reduce the

effectiveness of the manipulation, but without knowing

precisely what is being manipulated or to what degree,

how can I possibly find the appropriate counter-weight

to the pressures exerted by the marketing tactic to re-

store myself to my own equilibrium of reasons and val-

ues? I could, of course, overreact and choose against the

direction of manipulation. That may result in failure for

the tactic, but the results may not be any better for me

than letting the tactic succeed, since either way my

choice is not based on the merits of the product in

question. 32

Though an in-depth discussion of this topic would

lead us too far astray away our topic, it is worth men-

tioning that there are rare cases of manipulation that are

not wrong at all. Crisp (1987) offers the case of an actor

who must manipulate us emotionally and do it well if

s/he is to entertain us. And Greenspan (2003) points to

cases where manipulation works as an attempt of right-

ing an existing wrong – making unfair situations less

unfair. For example, members of a discriminated social

group may use manipulation justly because they cannot

pursue their ends openly. Greenspan also presents addi-

tional types of contexts where manipulation may not be

inherently wrong, such as when one cannot act openly

because of one’s subordinate position (e.g., tricking

one’s boss to do something you want them to do by

getting her/his to think that it is her/his own idea) and

contextual situations where some forms of manipulation

are an expected and accepted part of the discourse:

‘‘…such as cases in ordinary conversation involving a pattern of broaching topics, giving opinions, or making

requests indirectly – dropping hints, steering the con-

versation around to one’s preferred topic, representing

one’s own view or desires as shared by the other party,

and so forth. That is, there is no objection to manipula-

tion here in the sense of a wrong done to the person

being manipulated in a particular case, assuming that

one can readily identify and resist such suggestions as

part of what is expected of a socially skilled partner in

conversation.’’ I will not discuss the interesting possibil-

ity of such cases here, except to mention that the last

may have some implications for the permissibility of

very minor manipulations in some consumer marketing

contexts. 33

It is sometimes argued that the primary wrong of

deception lies in its conflict with the general social va-

lue of communication, which requires mutual trust.

Arguments on behalf of such a view of the wrong of

deception seem to go to too far. Baker and Martinson

(2001), for example, try to make this point with the

following: ‘‘To wrongfully deceive is morally wrong

because it is an abuse of the natural ability of communi-

cation, because it is contrary to… [an individual’s] social nature, which requires mutual trust, … and because it debases the dignity of the human person, whose mind is

made for truth’’. Such an argument about the nature of

human beings fails for the same reason so many other

naturalist arguments do – truth, deception, and decep-

tion-detection – are all part of our social nature. Some-

what more plausible is the notion that deception has the

potential to undermine the social value of communica-

tion, in general. However, while this may be true with

regard to some set of deceptive (and manipulative) ac-

tions, it is far from obvious that it is the case with all

deceptive acts as particulars – especially when one can

be fairly certain the deception will not be uncovered.

For this reason, I have left it out of the descriptions of

wrongs above, focusing solely on the particular relation-

ship of the parties involved when discussing both

manipulation and deception. 34

As in the case of manipulation, Wood (1995) points

out that exploitation is not always wrong. Some forms

of exploitation can be innocent, such as a player

exploiting her/his opponent’s inattention to win a

game. Also like in the case of manipulation, some forms

of exploitation are just because they right a wrong. 35

This is not to deny the possibility that we may

sometimes have a moral right to engage in such exploi-

tation. Regardless, of whether such a right exists, how-

ever, the action is clearly prima facie wrong insofar that

it is exploitative. This is not so strange in that we have

the right to do many mean and hateful actions that

cause harm to others. Just as in the case with other

rights, having them does not mean that it is always

moral for us to exercise them. 36

I have left open what it is that ‘‘excessive’’ specifi-

cally means. Valdman’s paper includes interesting spe-

cific accounts of what ‘‘excessive’’ and an ‘‘inability to

reasonably refuse’’ amount to in the context of exploi-

tation. 37

This is not to deny that there are times when an

emotional appeal of some kind is quite necessary to

116 Shlomo Sher

make the scenarios vivid enough to overcome the tar-

get’s irrational failure to appreciate the moral or prac-

tical importance of the conditions they must decide

about. This is very likely the case for ads alerting Amer-

ican to the plight of victims of gross poverty. It might

also, to some extent, be necessary to remind an audi-

ence of the consequences an insurance company might

help them prepare against. Clearly, however, it is

possible for an insurance company to emotionally push

consumers above and beyond the emotional acknowl-

edgment necessary to not underestimate the importance

of their product to the point where the consumer is

grossly overestimating its importance. 38

The list is taken from an unpublished study of our

own undergraduate marketing students. These were sur-

prisingly common responses to evaluating the moral

permissibility of manipulative tactics. 39

See Phillips’s (1997) for a discussion of some of

these possibilities. 40

An interesting but less straightforward variation on

the ‘‘benefiting consumer’’ line of justification focuses on

situations where the consumer is already being manipu-

lated in worse ways by other parties. In such cases, my ac-

tion may be harmful to the consumer, but not as harmful

as those of the other party. Although I am directly caus-

ing harm to the consumer, then, I am also preventing

greater harm than that would have come to him/his in an

overall balance that is in the consumer’s favor. Such

tricky cases are interesting and philosophically complex.

In order to avoid the distraction of that complex discus-

sion, and because such cases seem to me to be highly

implausible in the great majority of real marketing situa-

tions, I will simply leave open the possibility of attaining

redemptive value in this fashion. 41

I would not hold up much hope for humor justify-

ing manipulative tactics in most cases. See Shabbir and

Thwaites (2007) on the use of humor to mask decep-

tion in advertising. 42

Given the key role the marketer’s intentions play in

manipulation, and the potential for the marketer to be

unaware of her/his intentions, good introspection is key

for avoiding manipulative action. Introspection, how-

ever, clearly does not deliver ironclad truths. It may be

insufficient, only apparent in hindsight, or even false.

Such imperfect effectiveness should not cause us to des-

pair, but to look for the best methods we can find for

its optimization. One way to do this would be to ex-

pand the framework offered in this article by including

a good methodology for investigating one’s intentions

(any would be compatible). This would likely improve

accuracy, although also it requires additional resources

(time, focus, etc.).

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the USC Marshall School of

Business Experiential Learning Center and its Director,

Gita Govahi, for initiating and guiding the development

of the framework presented here, as well as Paul Adler,

Stephen Finlay, Kory DeClark, Gita Govahi, and Alida

Liberman for their helpful commentary on various drafts

of this paper. Finally, a very special thanks to the USC

Levan Institute for the Humanities and Ethics and its

director, Lyn Boyd-Judson, for supporting my research

and making the completion of this paper possible.

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Policy Foundation 12(2), 136–158.

USC Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics,

527 Ahmanson Building, 850 Bloom Walk,

Los Angeles, CA 90089-1481, U.S.A.

E-mail: [email protected]

6016 Franklin Ave. #15,

Los Angeles, CA 90028, U.S.A.

118 Shlomo Sher