Surely, that is a quantitative difference rather than a qualitative one.

We say that one is brainwashed when (s)he is persuaded to donate the family house to a cult for the greater good of human-alien relations, but only because that's a big, self-evident, out in the open persuasion that goes against the grain of the community at large.

On the other hand, a person might spend during his whole life way more in clothes "brand price" than the value of a house, under the less bold and more socially accpetable belief that those clothes add to his/her appeal or are intrinsicallly better just because of the brand. And we say that's marketing.

There's very little about "making sense" in the strict sense in marketing. It's about finding the hooks in our needs, not many of which are rational, many of which are no longer useful, some of which are actually harmful.

I won't even touch on how we're sold every day to persuasion about political candidates, economic and social needs, religion. It looks to me, though, that the smartest brainwashing is the subtler one :)

Getting back closer to the thread, it's quite obvious that if one defines the value of a product as the naked market one i.e. by its sales, then marketing or any other behiaviour-modifying context (a country's cultural heritage or the user's religion, for example) do make a good product. It's not the prevalent factor in most cases but it's always a factor. You can't have it both way: either go into product analysis and critique and build a scaffolding to indipendently define "quality" and other parameters, or use the all-inclusive sales and accept that the mental conditioning of the buyer is a factor of the product value assessment. Once again, the obvious cases: tie-ins, iconic characters, brand power etc.

You can have trains in a fantasy universe. Its called steam punk...

See Arcanum as a perfect example of how this can be awesome.

How is it quantitative if we can't measure it?

Most of you still don't understand that you are using pursuading and brainwashing interchangeably. They don't not mean the same thing guys and you all have been going back and forth to try and use them in exactly the same way. The example of the shirt made little sense. He buys brand name (not brand price) clothes and now he's brainwashed? Ever consider that marketing did not do that for him. He may just like their clothes all on his own. Does that mean he was brain washed? Of course not. He made his own choice. And that is what is importaint. Pursuading still has you making your decision. It's goal is to sway your decision in whatever way it can. Brainwashing is forcing you to think a certain way, usually though torture.How can no one see the difference between the two.

This is what I find funny. People do not arguwe with Malstrom becuase he is wrong or appears wrong, but just on the basis that he is Malstrom. What he said about Marketing was correct:

I think this is a point of confusion because people confuse marketing with brainwashing (which it isn’t). All marketing does is bring attention to the product. If the product sucks, like Wii Music did, no amount of marketing can sell it.

All of what he ssaid is true. I can actually vouche for it as I have taken a Marketing class, and that's is pretty much what they teach you. Four P: Place, Price (which effects Quantity demaded), Product(If the product sucks, like Wii Music did, no amount of marketing can sell it.) and Promotion (advertising). Again, nothing about brainwashing, unless you want to admit you think pursuading and brainwashing are one in the same.

@Smashchu2:

Malstrom used the word "brainwashing" as an exaggeration and I used it in the same sense Malstrom used it. Why don't you understand this?

I know very well what marketing is and I know very well what brainwashing is and I'm certain WereKitten knows that, too.

It's amazing how you start each post with the words "you don't understand", which again, is rather insulting, while you are the one who doesn't understand what other people are talking about. Why can't we stop this? It's childish.

Everyone knows the difference between brainwashing and persuading or marketing a product and forcing you to buy it. It's just that by categorically seperating between the two (you said it isn't a quantitative difference but a qualitative one which means marketing and manipulating are not connected to each other) you ignore that they are indeed connected to each other, even though this is wildly known and nothing that should come as a surprise to somone who took marketing classes?

Persuading, marketing, brainwashing - whatever, are all part of the big topic that is "manipulation". The reason why people deny this is because they think manipulation is bad and they don't want their work to be bad or ethically unjustifiable. But manipulation isn't "bad" or "evil", it's just a part of human nature and life. What makes manipulation good or bad are your intentions or its result, depending on what your ethical stance is.

And I really don't want to go into any more detail now. This topic would be enough for a whole book.

I don't see why you keep repeating that there's something I - or others - don't understand. The thesis is pretty clear: persuasion is persuasion. Brainwashing is an hyperbole, but the gist of it is not taking your "free will" away, but make so that you want different things.

Cult members don't have their right hand signing away their possessions against the will of a screaming inner person watching helplessly from behind their eyes, or not qualitatively more so than we all have multiple dissonant agents in our minds. They do what they do happily and willingly, there and then, because they've been persuaded that is good for their family, country, race or sect.

Buying a branded shirt and paying it four times what they would pay an identical non branded shirt? No violation of free will here: they are doing it freely and willingly. And still, they've been persuaded somehow that the brand is worth that extra brand price.

Both the cult members and the fashion victims might have been different in the past, or value things differently in the future. People change, for all sort of reasons and external pressures. Once someone has the power to exert pressures to persuade other people (we tend to call brutal and short pressures "brainwashing" but long term and subtler forms would be dominant cultural values, brands, ideologies, religions and other strong memes) we should also question the morality and motivations of their actions. And the attention to those actions should be proportional to the importance of that persuasion on people's lives.

I'll leave that Malstrom quote ("All marketing does is bring attention to the product"), because it sounds incredibly naive to me and I think little can be added to what has been said yet.

BTW, don't you think that what they teach in a marketing class is not the most reputable source to quote when discussing the moral implications of marketing or its affinities with brainwashing :) ?

You learn more about the nature of marketing in a psychology class than you do in a marketing class, I've found. As it so happens, marketing as we know it today was invented by a psychologist who was ostracized by his peers for his controversial views on using the discoveries of his field to help businesses sell products in what was considered an underhanded fashion. It's thanks to him that we have all manner of marketing techniques, some of which (ie. subliminal advertising) are even outlawed in some countries.

Prior to that, marketing was universally less invasive, often relying solely on a simple image or two of the product itself, a pithy catchphrase, and often a long-winded explanation of why the product was so useful or valuable. In other words, marketing relied on the classic model of persuasion: utilizing ethos, logos, and pathos to persuade the buyer to buy the product. It was also generally very ineffective since most people didn't want to sit down and read a four-paragraph essay on why they should switch to a different brand of rubbing alcohol.

Much of modern marketing is in fact playing games with the minds of the consumer. The entire concept of hype is based around the psychological principle of the mind building expectations around perceptions without sufficient evidence to genuinely back up those expectations (there's several levels of this, the most famous example of which in mainstream culture are Pavlov's dog experiments). By contrast to the older method, this one is quick and dirty: no genuine persuasion is utilized, and instead the mind is given associations by which to judge the product, associations that often have little to no actual corollary to what is being offered. The mind is tricked, in other words, made to believe falsehoods on the basis of artificial associations.

There's not much of a middle ground between ponderous-yet-ethical persuasion marketing and fast-and-dirty psychological exploitation marketing, sadly. About the only one there is is the best method you can employ: the try-it-and-see-for-yourself method of marketing. Which, of course, requires that your product demonstrate its worth to the user immediately, something that many products cannot do for one reason or another.

Zelda is not steam punk!!!! Never were, never should be!!!!!

The Zelda universe always was a classic one, and should remain so.

There is already far too little classic fantasy out there as it is.

You said this: And he actually thinks marketing isn't "brainwashing" people? How cute is that! In otherwords, you think marketing is brainwashing.

The thing is neither of you know what the difference between the two becuase if you did we would not be having this conversation. slapping someone and punching someone are in the same category, but they are not the same thing. They are closely related, but they are not synonems. The do not mean the same thing. This is what you miss. Pursuading yoyu would be to convince you to do something. Brainwashing is forcing you to do something (BTW, none of you have tried to attack this claim, just ignore it. Instead, you all make up stuff that doesn't help your argument).

From Wikipedia:Psychological manipulation - a means of gaining control or social influence over others by methods which might be considered unfair. Social advantage may be sought through either manipulative or persuasive rhetorical arguments. It not hard to find the facts. They are indeed not the same thing.

Now, Manipulation and Pursuading do not mean the same thing. Take a look here. To sum it up, manipulation is moving people like pawns. It is forcing them to go a certain way. Pursuading is trying to convince them to go a certain way. In marketing, it might be "Our product taste the best," or "On average, we save drivers the most money." This is pursuading them. Manipulation tried to force them to a certain way of thinking. It is nagative.

These conversations prove one of two things. A)You guys see no difference in any of these words. B)You've never sat in a marketing class. Marketing is not all about advertising. It's a lot of it, but not all of it. From Wikipedia: 

Marketing is the process by which companies determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development.^[1] It is an integrated process through which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.^[1]

I see no talk of manipulation or brainwashing, do you? You can not find "Manipulation," on the page. This conversation would not fill a book. It would be three words in the dictionary. It is ignorance of both marketing and of the word "Brain washing."

Smashchu do you know what the purpose of double quotes is?

I don't think marketing is brainwashing in the sense you use the word brainwashing. Let me put it this way: Marketing can influence people's behaviour. What Malstrom said was that marketing doesn't change people's behaviour at all. He said its only effect is that it tells you the product exists. And it's pretty easy to prove that wrong.

Funny enough - the german Wikipedia entry for "manipulation" proves my point. I just checked it Cultural differences, anyone?

Oh and this could very well fill a book. I was talking about (let me put it that way) media and its influence on people's behaviour. There actually are books about that topic

Sales vs Quality, Sales = Quality, Sales != Quality.

You would actually have to define what quality means before you can argue that sales have nothing to do with quality. If you use quality on its own as a term you would have to consider the net positive benefits of the product because the terms quality can only mean the entirety of all the net positive benefits of the product. Value judgements when talking about overall quality as as irrelevant as a single review score in an aggregate of 1,000,000 other review scores.

The result is even clearer especially when talking about products with greater similarity. Take Mario Kart Vs Uncharted 2 for instance. The former has to have more positive qualities than the latter because the former has both far higher sales in relation to overall video game sales and in relation to potential video game sales assuming that the ultimate attach rate for a game is only 100%. As an aggregate Mario Kart has more qualities which the market deems desirable, this requires no value judgement on my part.

The reason why people talk about quality and then never qualify what they mean is that it gives a sense of empowerment to their opinion. If you give unqualified opinions on the quality of something you are effectively passing off your own value judgement as reflective of the market as a whole. This is a self defense mechanism against a world which doesn't share the same values. So of course the PSP is higher quality than the DS, Of course the PS3 is higher quality than the Wii and of course im not going to define what quality im talking about because that leaves room for other people with dissenting opinions to tear down my own.

The best opinions written about quality are of course the qualified opinions of a reasonable mind. These are the educating voices of reason which educate people about desirable qualities and can change the overall value judgements. If you're able to seperate yourself from yourself and speak from a more objective vantage point which is compatible with the value of others you can make a valuable addition to the discussion. However most opinions about quality simply reflect the basic premise of "I like this, I don't like that, I love this, I hate that and etc". The fact that you like or dislike a product does not effect the quality of the product.