In this blog, we will discuss the moral aspect of persuasion, and the ethic of advertising. Indeed, I will try to answer to several question like “do we need some notion of ‘truth’ in order to understand what persuasion is? If so, does this imply that persuasion is inherently immoral?” or “ Are sincerity and effective persuasion mutually exclusive?”. First of all, it is crucial to define clearly the key term present in the debate.
Simons(2001) define persuasion as “communication designed to influence the autonomous judgements and actions of others but always giving them the power of decision…persuasion predisposes but does not impose ” (p. 20). This very broad definition apply itself in every context, not only in branding but also in politics, science and all public and private sphere of life. It is very important not to confuse it with influencing. The main difference between both concept is the will at the start of the action. It is possible to influence someone passively, without aiming to change his mind. However, persuasion is a choice, a non innocent action that pursued a goal.
The main tool of persuasion is the rhetoric. The moral aspect of persuasion is already debated in Ancient Greece as Plato write Gorgias, a dialogue between Socrates that argue that philosophy is an art whereas rhetoric is only a skill based on merely experience, and a group of sophist that are considering rhetoric as art. Socrates assess that rhetoric cannot exist alone and need philosophy to guide its morality and that without it, rhetoric is only used for private purposed which are immoral. The image of rhetoric considered as a perverted art come from here.
A more modern academic
source, Sonesson, explain that rhetoric method use plenty of communication techniques like argumentation, figure of speech in order to capture the interest of people and convinced them that what they are hearing is the truth (without regarding if it is true or not).Moreover, he highlight that the communication model discussed in his paper is composed by semiotics, rhetoric and hermeneutic. Semiotics is analysing symbols and signifier whereas hermeneutic is focus on the lecture and interpretation of texts. In his paper, Sonesson (2013) take the example of two Swedish companies, Absolute and IKEA. He focus his work on specific advertisement campaigns. For IKEA, the campaign director decided to use the stereotypical idea that people had about Swedish culture to sell it. The manipulation of the perception of the customers about product is a very standard techniques that was also used for Absolute. Sonesson choose “European Series”. The purpose of this campaigns was to personalise the bottle of alcohol for each big city in Europe (for instance the one for Berlin was shaped like a piece of the Berlin wall, the one for Paris was represented the entrance of the well known metro, the one of Rome looked like a Vespa…). The aim of the campaign was to create a link between the Swedish alcohol and several iconic city in Europe and was targeting both the people living in this city, appealing their pride for their city, and foreigners that where intrigued by the mystery of this old continent.
The application of persuasion in politic is quite fascinating as well. I studied the French presidential campaign of the wining candidate Emanuel Macron. The main discourse around its person was that he was young, good looking, embodying the renewal and more important, he was co
nsidering himself as an anti-establishment candidate. Therefore he was arguing that he was new in politic, and that he was not on the left neither on the right of the political spectrum. I do believe that it is through this image that he won the heart of the French people. However, the reality is that Macron was formed in the most elite school of France and that his whole career is as classical as any other candidate that where running for presidency.
To answer the question asks at the beginning of this post, I would say that persuasion is about imposing your own conception of the reality, of truth, to someone else in order that your reality became his reality. Discussing the notion of truth is therefore crucial to understand what persuasion is. However, I do not believe that persuasion is necessary bad. As Plato explains it, it depend on the motivation of the people, if they are pursuing a personal goal rather that a broader and by so less selfish achievement. Finally, since I am convinced that the stronger way of persuading people is through feelings and emotion, I do not think that sincerity and effective persuasion are mutually exclusive but on the opposite, are complementary.
Bibliography :
– Simons, H.W.
(2001). The Study of Persuasion. In: H.W. Simons with J. Morreale & B.E. Gronbeck, Persuasion in Society (pp. 3-24), Thousand Oaks: Sage.
-Sonesson, G.
(2013). Two strands of rhetoric in advertising discourse. International Journal of Marketing Semiotics, 1(1), 6-24.