Just like to point out something wrong with the world

[AdamH]

Foolery - I disagree and I think your examples are too lofty to be relevant. Of course things can be used for good and bad, but put that aside and there's a very absolute answer to this question in my mind:

Are the techniques less of a concern than the way they're used, or is the art of persuasion to elicit a response (and not just to encourage buying of something) inherently wrong?

As per The Corporation example, large MNC's are dominant in the marketing field in terms of dollars spent and prevalence in society. The techniques they are using are not based in business but in psychology and in science. The promotion techniques...shelf placement, colour schemes and so on..are as valuable to conveying Cocoa Camino's brand identity as it is to their exponentially larger competitor Nestlé. Then there's the wordsmithing, media pitches, online and viral marketing campaigns that benefit whomever chooses to use them. The valuable face-to-face consumer interaction is executed by Greenpeace to solicit donations and by product samplers in Loblaw's to boost sales. Brightly lit stores located in high traffic areas...Starbuck's? Bridgehead?

Does it really matter what the objectives are if the problem is in the steps taken to reach it?

[TomFoolery]

Fair enough P,

I was simply trying to find some very clear examples whereby a technique can be used for differing ends...

Rephrasing your question - you are asking more about a means/ends point rather than means/user (apologies for taking the question literally - it was perfectly obvious what you were asking upon rereading). I will come down clearly on one side of the fence.

I have a problem with the end, and the way in which a means is used - not the means itself.

As illustrated in my examples (lofty or otherwise), most tools can be used for 'good' or 'evil' if you will.

It does matter what the objective is, it is not a problem with the technique alone.

Now, please don't interpret this to mean that I think promoting cocoa camino using technique X is alright, but promoting Nestle by the same technique is a problem. That is not what I'm saying at all.

As with all questions of value/morality/ethics there is a great grey area. We're talking 'degree' here. And, honesty.

I have a big problem with large marketing companies (not because they're large, but because they're the only one's with enough resources to effectively work over a large segment of the population so they tend to be the only ones performing broadcast brainwashing) programming children to hold certain values that will ultimately shape their life-long spending preferences and lifestyle aspirations in favour of a class of product / or consumerism in general.

Shelf placement and colour schemes etc. are non-invasive uses of psychology. I am not under these influences unless I choose to seek them out. This use of psychology can be benign.

Television marketing is invasive - although I realize I could choose not to watch television I am not searching out advertising on television so it is an invasion. Door to door marketing (Greenpeace, World Vision, Jehova's Witnesses) is invasive - some of them are good at what they do, some are not. They are preying on people's natural tendency to say yes if given something (unsolicited - such as pamphlets etc.). This ticks me off.

However, its the deliberate programming. Which takes a long time to be effective which I find insidious.

Without completely blowing a day's work on this I don't think we're going to get to the bottom of this. Perhaps we should have some beers and discuss marketing :-)

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Door to door marketing (Greenpeace, World Vision, Jehova's Witnesses) is invasive - some of them are good at what they do, some are not. They are preying on people's natural tendency to say yes if given something (unsolicited - such as pamphlets etc.). This ticks me off.

Funny you mention those groups in particular. One of my favourite ironies from the summer Deb and I canvassed for Greenpeace in Ottawa (way, way back when) was coming to the homes of Jehovah's Witnesses, who doggedly insisted, and would stand at the doorstep and argue with you forever if you had nowhere else you needed to be, that the environment simply wasn't worth saving, given what was soon to happen in their schema. It gave me a good early handle on the phrase "symmetrical escalation".

I don't know if I could do that sort of invasive work again, but also know that from where I stand, the one sort is of considerably greater importance to me than the other. I like to think part of that is because the one is more basically dialogical - i.e. open to uncoercive dialogue) than the other. However, having known a bunch of Greenpeace canvassers and seen them in action, that can be a useless abstraction.