Marketing & Calm

24 Apr, 2025

Marketing is a big way to get your product out the door. It’s one thing to build a useful and great product, and another for customers to know about it. One quaint example was the Soviet Union, when no goods had labels. There were no branded goods. You could make the best flour in the world, but if the customer could not distinguish between your flour and the other miller’s flour, then there’s no way for you to benefit from the better work that you were doing. Eventually, the Soviet Union started allowing for brands, which led to greater accountability and quality control. You need marketing to get the value of your products across.¹ Simply having a good and great product does not cut it.

The problem is, marketing can signal that a product is better than it actually is. That is where marketing can get manipulative (and distasteful for some). It comes down to swaying the customer’s purchase decision. If they chose your product, great. (We all have free will and take ownership of our choices. No big deal.) However, if you have been deceptive, you might not feel so great.²

I offer this as my personal takeaway: As a company, maintain vigilance over whether you are holding your customers’ interests at heart. (Are you trying to educate them on your amazing product for their benefit, or manipulating them for your benefit?) For consumers, I share this lovely quote from Design Theory. (It’s calling out manufactured scarcity as a sinister marketing tactic, but the sentiment applies to marketing more broadly):

The best way to combat this is to think to yourself: Do I actually want this thing because it’s rare, or do I just want it for its functional utility? If it’s the latter, you can calm down; if it’s the former, try to assess it more calmly. [emphasis added] ³

Bonus: Design & Marketing Principles

I first came into deceptive marketing as I was learning about design and marketing principles.⁴ Overall, they play into mental shortcuts to help customers like and trust your product more. Here's a summary of the learnings, heavily drawn from Cialdini's The Psychology of Influence:

1. Visual signaling: Use design to signal function, even if the design itself might not be functional. For example, toothpaste has three colors to suggest more benefits, though they do not necessarily correspond to a different benefits. Cars have fake vents to signal more power and greater speeds.
2. Reciprocity: If you put in more effort or give something first, your customer is more likely to yield to get out of the feeling of obligation. For example, solicitation mail in higher quality envelopes, free samples.
3. Social proof: People look to others to guide their behavior, especially in uncertain situations. Relatedly, people also look to others to see what is possible. For example, the four-minute mile.
4. Authority: We tend to obey figures we perceive as authoritative or knowledgeable. For example, doctors.
5. Scarcity: Opportunities seem more valuable when they are limited. For example, limited edition drops.
6. Unity: We’re more influenced by people who share our identity or group membership. For example, a celebrity trying to seem relatable by filming themselves in a messy living room with a phone camera.
7. Liking: We’re more likely to be influenced by people we like, are similar to, or who compliment us. For example, salespeople often use personal flattery or find common ground.
8. Commitment and consistency: Once people commit to something, especially in writing or publicly, they're more likely to follow through. For example, Duolingo's streak commitments.

Social proof, scarcity, and unity get a flywheel effect with social media. Crumbl cookies and Stanley cups are case studies. Both leverage limited edition products like seasonal colors (e.g. a Stanley cup's exclusive Valentine's Day color) and Crumbl's weekly rotations. These create hype and excitement, as well as scarcity. As customers talk about the flavors they want or share their Stanley cups on social media, it builds up social proof and unity. Through influencer marketing, Stanley managed to introduce their cups to new audiences competitors struggled to get. Social media virality serves as social proof, while social media also helps build community. (In fact, both brands have a bit of a cult following.) In the words of marketing professor, Dr. Marcus Collins:

Brands are not owned by the company. They are stewarded by the company, but they are co-created. Their meanings are co-created by the people. And if you invite people in to co-create value, to co-author the narrative, you share the myth with these people. To be part of the mythology and the folklore, they'll do things that you could never do, they'll take you to places you can never be in, they'll provide a level of media credence that you can never buy. Because people trust people more than any form of marketing.