TW: Trauma, C-PTSD, emotional abuse

The Past

In my recent relationship I was inundated by past trauma* as I was being re-traumatized in the present. C-PTSD is no joke, but living in a situation that triggers the heck out of you… I do not recommend it 😅 (Obviously a narcissist threatening with WW3 is not helping)

Not only did that create typical symptoms: dissociation, low energy, shame, dizziness; it also kept me conditioned every day.

The woman who talks about confidence and courage and voice …was quiet and in hiding. My personal life was in stark contrast to who I am and how I show up in my work. If I can’t walk the talk, how can I speak about it?

Either I was too dizzy to create or too ashamed.

Fear

My American ex-husband (I just celebrated my 18th divorciversary!) was emotionally abusive, very controlling, and did not let me leave. When I fled to Canada while he was away, he hacked my email account to find me and drove across the country to bring me home.

Sharing my life publicly means I’m exposing myself. He can see me and have that little bit of power over me. So I’ve become a very private person. Even though I love seeing other people’s lives and would love to do the same.

My fear of being exposed kept me from sharing.

Inertia

There are two types of rest. The stuff that you think is good for you, and the nourishing, soul replenishing goodness that actually works.

For a time, my escape into food, sci-fi books, and Netflix was just the ticket for anxiety flareups. But it has outlived its usefulness. Now, all it creates is low-energy inertia and way more screen time.

Instead of creating, I was escaping.

Isolation

Covid hit us all pretty bad; and then there are folks like me who work online, and choose to live in a cabin on an island — an ocean and a continent away from loved ones. I can be alone for weeks if I want to be. From there, it’s easy to sink into oblivion and order takeout.

Solitude can be restful, in doses. But being completely isolated drains energy and leaves us numb. We need to belong on a core level to feel held and inspired.

I was too numb to share, not interested in what I was creating.

Limbo

I used to think I wanted to live out of a bag. Be in flux. A nomad. Live without ties. But NOPE; just my flight response. Now, not having a home is exhausting. Without the big questions answered, the little decisions become impossible. Needing to choose what to eat made me want to go to sleep.

Not knowing where you’re going and where it’s all leading is paralyzing! You can’t build on ground that’s constantly shifting.

How can I create when I don’t even know who I’ll be in a month?

*Yes, all of these themes are classic trauma responses. So really — it’s just my past holding me back 😏 But teasing it out lets me take action. Individual themes I can work with, the big, bad wolf can suddenly be tamed. …I’ve always wanted a wolf as a pet 😁

Your Block is probably different.

Your past might be a teacher telling you you were never going to amount to anything, a terrible boss, a hurtful critique when you were most vulnerable, an ex gaslighting you.

Your fear might be straight up imposter complex; feeling like you don’t have anything to offer, don’t have a life worth sharing, you’re not good enough, beautiful enough, important enough.

Your version of inertia and isolation might be Covid’s fault. It has been rough out there. Maybe your usually mellow anxiety is through the roof now. Maybe you’ve had an existential crisis and can’t see through it.

***Of course there is ability + available spoons to consider. I am speaking to what happens when you have those and you’re still not creating. Which is the only view I can have on the topic.***

If you’re experiencing a Creative Block, I’ve got good news: Here’s the solution to all your problems!! 😂

…or at least…

How I am getting out of my Creative Block

1. Recognizing the past for what it is.

So much of what we’re afraid of is not actually happening anymore, no matter what our flashbacks make us believe. How do we stop it from dragging us back?

It helps me to get really mad at X. (Ex-father, ex-husband, ex-boyfriend, MEN?, the patriarchy, Covid, bullies, etc.) So often I didn’t allow myself to get mad because ‘forgiveness’ + ‘taking responsibility’.

But I say let’s get real mad. Make it their fault, all of it. Just to clear out the cobwebs, not to break things. And then we can choose to let go because we can see it was never ours to carry. It’s so liberating!

2. The fear is not of us.

It was placed there from the outside by something or someone. Let’s identify where the fear gets in and meet it at the door.

Facing our fears can mean checking the facts: Are you actually not good enough? Expert enough? You’re probably overqualified and made wrong for it. Slam the door on that nonsense!

Their power over me today is in not sharing and losing business because of it. I won’t let them have that. So I’m going to have to step out and trust that I have the strength to face my fears (or those men) if they show up.

3. Define what rest actually looks like.

Anything blocking momentum is not rest. Rest is creative.

I love a good movie night with bread and cheese and wine. It can be a celebration for good work done. However, actual rest for me is NOT Netflix. It’s paddling, cooking, gardening, making something, swing dancing, a great friend hangout, walking to the water.

And because I’m an all or nothing gal (it’s how I quit smoking), I’ve decided to go cold turkey and cancel all my streaming services at the end of the month. HA!! I can already feel the withdrawal. You in?!

4. Create community.

I need others in my (virtual or real life) space to get anything done consistently. I have high waves of creativity sometimes, but my bills can’t wait for those to hit. Other people are a wellspring of inspiration and motivation and excitement and endurance.

Because I can’t find a creative community that suits me, I’m building my own co-creation group. Tagline: “Making things alone together” Catchy, right? 😏 If you’d like to join me, I’d be overjoyed! Here’s the link

5. Stop planning, start doing.

Strategizing can become a never ending loop of the same thoughts, never actually fixing anything. I call it The Churn. Or strategic hiding 😂 Making the same decisions over and over again is exhausting and pointless! It’s a sure way to stay in Limbo.

I’m trying something new: Stop questioning my decisions, trust the plan for the year I made in January — and simply put it into action. What a concept! The relief is palpable and I’m already creating more.

In all things…

We can’t wait for motivation/inspiration/creative genius to come find us.

Or in the words of the late Sir Ken Robinson:

“To be creative you actually have to do something.”

…

Find me at alicekarolina.com for more content.

Creating A Standard

We’ve got some pretty big news to share. At first glance, it might look like a setback, but it has opened all the doors for us to move in the direction we’ve been meaning to go all along.

We have realized we are not able to create a measurable certification-type standard similar to Fair Trade, Organic, etc. — even though that was the original plan.

1. We can’t empirically measure whether taking our pledge (or an expanded version of it) makes the difference we want it to. There are clear links between unethical tactics and the harm they cause, but we can’t isolate our pledge from other elements (such as markets, regulations, culture) to prove causality — and that evidence is needed for an ISEAL standard. Maria has been writing a paper on manipulation, and their research led to the conclusion that creating a certification isn’t feasible for us.

And we are so glad it isn’t. Because:

2. Making new rules to replace old ones is a patriarchal approach. We are here to break the system. Creating a standard that companies can use to tick boxes and get ‘85% there’, is not what we’re here for. We want a true shift in consciousness; for businesses to own their actions. Merely ‘passing’ is not enough.

3. Standards are a powerful tool for good — and they can be used to dominate, to manipulate, to deceive. We’re not super into that, obviously. Taking responsibility for the power we have as enterprises (of any size) requires intention, courage, and deep willingness.

That’s what we need.

Yes, I’ve spoken about how rules are sometimes necessary to protect the most vulnerable. How a standard will change things. …And I learned I was wrong about a lot of it. The most vulnerable don’t need ‘our’ protection, they just need us to take the foot off their necks (sound familiar?).

Our New Intention Pledge

As our pledge no longer has to become a measurable certification, we realized it can go much deeper than individual tactics.

⁣So we created a new pledge based on intention.

This new pledge is edgier, simpler and less prescriptive than earlier iterations. It will give more businesses the chance to embrace ethical marketing in a way that suits their unique circumstances — and makes room for more creativity and new ideas.

With the ethical move badge, we pledge to the following:

We put the person before the sale.

We respect you and your privacy. We will help you make the best choice for your needs, not ours.

We communicate inclusively, truthfully, and clearly.

We will not confuse you or hide information from you. We will help all audiences feel welcome.

We take responsibility for our part in changing the marketplace.

We recognize the need to break the cycle of consumerism. We will continuously review our sales and marketing to ensure they benefit the common good.

We count on you to hold us accountable. Please connect with us if you see us not honouring our pledge.

And again, because some of us work alone (and because we love it so much):

I put the person before the sale.

I respect you and your privacy. I will help you make the best choice for your needs, not mine.

I communicate inclusively, truthfully, and clearly.

I will not confuse you or hide information from you. I will help all audiences feel welcome.

I take responsibility for my part in changing the marketplace.

I recognize the need to break the cycle of consumerism. I will continuously review my sales and marketing to ensure they benefit the common good.

I count on you to hold me accountable. Please connect with me if you see me not honouring my pledge.

How we created the new pledge

Some of you may recognize the words as being part of our ‘commitments’ that we put in place to patch the gray areas we weren’t able to cover in our previous pledge. Our commitments mirror the values in the ring around The Ethical Move logo, so it was clear that they were the key to our new pledge. We simplified and made them more actionable.

There are new items such as privacy, inclusivity, and the promise to continuously review our practices — which have been at the heart of our learning over the past year and were clearly missing in our previous iteration.

There is no governing body to check or police us, we are inviting conversation if we are in breach. Owning our actions, aligning them with our words, and being open to learning from others is at the core of this new pledge.

We decided to stay close to our roots in communication and marketing. That’s why the language doesn’t explicitly mention Liberation and environmental justice, even though we care deeply about these issues.

However, we believe our global crisis is the fallout from a broken marketplace. Oppression is profitable. Exploitation is profitable. If we can break consumerism, remove the addictive need for more and fear of not having enough, we have a chance at dislodging the linchpin that is keeping those systems in place.

The list of tactics and how to flip them will now become part of our resources for you to learn and choose how to take a stand and honour your pledge.

We will add the new pledge to Github for open source collaboration and translation, and invite you all to participate!

The best part: There are no new tactics to add to make it ‘work’. Now, we all get to work on the how of our pledge… together.

In essence, this IS our new standard. It is not empirically measurable, but infinitely meaningful.⁣

Make the ethical move.

We needed our old pledge to start the conversation, to put a stake in the ground and say NOPE. It needed to be categorical and specific to make people think.

I am so grateful for the conversations, the questions, the dismissals that came from it. We’ve learned from every one of you.

Making the ethical move is often not popular or easy. It takes work and feels intensely uncomfortable. It creates the need for conversation that we’d rather not have. It makes us afraid of losing out, of not having enough.

We are right there with you.

The ethical move is here to provide conversation and community, the pledge is how we take a stand together, the badge is how we recognize each other.

We can’t wait to see what will come next.

Join the conversation at The Ethical Move. Take the pledge, send us your thoughts, stand with us. It would mean the world to us. Literally.

**Medium by its very nature is not accessible enough for us. We publish our articles on our own website with the proper markups.

A New Pledge for Ethical Marketing was originally published in The Ethical Move on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

All of us need to stop centring white, privileged, western experiences when we talk about ethical marketing.

Yes, this might sting a little.

There has been lots of noise around ethical marketing lately, and like with any noisy topic, being human, we run the risk of following voices we identify with. The ones that keep our bubbles intact.

Ethical marketing is not only about people feeling duped or lied to, although that’s where it hurts us privileged folks the most. It is not about railing against the evils of so-called ‘bro-marketing’, even though it presents itself as a convenient scapegoat. It’s not even about the fear and shame we feel or the debt and trauma it has caused, although — with all my heart — I wish you never had to experience that.

This is not about us white folks. The privileged, the winners of this world. We need to stop centring ourselves and start looking at the bigger picture.

The real issue is a global oppressive system that leaves the bottom of the supply chain absolutely destitute. At the ethical move, we call it consumerism, you can call it capitalism or white supremacy or patriarchy… I really don’t care which name you pick, they all create the same result: inequity, oppression, imbalance, the destruction of our planet and our wellbeing.

And yes, those are big words. Huge concepts. Insurmountable challenges.

Except — they are not. It’s just that our vision is clouded by a global addiction that is keeping us trapped in our own little worlds to maintain a very, very profitable status quo.

The addiction is instant gratification mixed with unsustainable amounts of consumption, which is created by ruthless, insidious, mostly imperceptible psychological manipulation.

By placing shame, fear, and fake needs into our minds every second of every day, psychological tactics are made to bypass our decision-making process — using our brains against us to make a profit.

And that is terrifying. And definitely in need of being called out.

However — as much as I love that we’re finally challenging these tactics and talking about doing it differently —this is where the conversation online seems to end… when it is only the tip of the iceberg.

I don’t want us white folks to inadvertently dilute the message of ethical marketing by making it about us. It is not meant to be a buzzword, a trend that gets people sucked into new variations of the same high-pressure funnels — using it that way harms the cause.

What ethical marketing really is

Psychological manipulation is the start of a chain reaction, the linchpin that keeps us circling round and round, making the same folks richer and richer and leaving destruction in its wake for the other 99%.

With mis- and over-consumption we create cheap production, cheap labour, cheap materials, cheap products, big corporations with strong lobbies that impact policies and inform governments in charge of social justice, our welfare and our environment.

Every person who falls below the poverty line is one more person having to manage basic survival and the safety of their family, not worry about being a ‘conscious consumer’. Every person displaced because of persecution and poverty is one more person that is forced into the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy. And the cycle continues.

Over-consumption manifests in global supply chains that fail all but the top few links. We are losing (and have lost) our grip on basic human rights and the planet.

If this sounds overly dramatic, it’s likely that you are benefiting from the status quo, protected from seeing or experiencing what is the reality for the less privileged.

Ethical marketing is not about feeling better on sales calls. Not even close. Ethical marketing is about breaking the system. It’s about decolonization. Liberation. Intersectionality. Inclusion.

It is about challenging every one of our assumptions about how we’re selling and being sold to, so we can find a way for everyone to thrive. Not just white, privileged people in the West.

Why we need a standard**

The original intent of the law, the reason why we have rules and regulations, is to protect the most vulnerable. I know that rules feel tedious, they are not always handled properly, and often benefit the wrong parties. But right now, most of the world’s population are threatened by our addiction and there is nothing to protect them.

Not wanting to regulate psychological manipulation and the resulting mis- and over-consumption, means not wanting to change the status quo.

We are facing very real ethical problems that we’re seemingly unable to solve. There are brilliant minds at work in amazing organizations all over the world, but they are working within a system that will continuously erode the ground under what they build. We don’t need better ideas, we need to break the addiction and sober up so we can think straight.

A certification process for ethical marketing (think B-Corp or Fair Trade) allows business owners to take ownership of their industry, their corner of the global economic system. It combines a bigger commitment with specific actions and a way to measure impact so we can all learn more about what is actually needed.

We want to create a standard, but do it together.

The ethical move pledge is the first step. It’s a place to rally, to take direct action, and with it spread the word. It is meant to challenge assumptions, to create conversation, to connect us with others who want to break the cycle. It is not meant to stifle creativity, but to make it flourish and grow — keeping under-represented folks at the heart of what we create instead of reinforcing white privilege.

We will shift and adjust the pledge based on our continued conversation until we can create a standard* that works for everyone. Already, it has been an exponential learning curve, one that we will share soon.

*Standards can be problematic as well, the ethical move team often talks about this in the context of woke washing. This will take some time to figure out, but we’re here for it. Even if we find out a standard is not what’s best for ethical marketing.

**We’ve gained a lot of clarity around the creation of a new standard and decided against it! Read more here.

It will take all of us

One thing I have learned from the ethical move is that breaking the cycle is a communal effort. The centring on the individual that is so common in the West keeps us running in circles. We’ve named the ethical move ‘a conversation’ from the start, knowing full well that we have limited knowledge and need to be challenged. We need your thoughts and opinions more than you know! We invite you to be part of this, to follow our moves, make moves yourself and tell us about them.

We’re challenging this global free-for-all, to replace it with global liberation and thriving. And that will take all of us, or it wouldn’t be for everyone.

We are here for the conversation. We will not, however, centre the ethical marketing conversation on the white, western, privileged experience.

That would be reinforcing the status quo, not changing it.

Decolonizing Marketing

Look out for our new content series led by Dimitra Meghawaty to sink deeper into this topic.

One item on the list is how some ethical marketing approaches (such as playing the long game) are really only possible for people of privilege. And how the current ethical conversation centring on the feelings of white people feels ..inauthentic, even narcissistic to folks in the ‘Global South’.

We all need to be aware that within a colonized system, everything already has a default ‘white privilege’ setting — and that’s what we’re here to poke holes into.

I am being schooled in the best possible way. I hope I can count on you to join me in this education.

With love,
Alice

Join the conversation at The Ethical Move. Take the pledge, send us your thoughts, stand with us. It would mean the world to us. Literally.

**Medium by its very nature is not accessible enough for us. We will be publishing our articles on our own website shortly with the proper markups.

The Big Picture Of Ethical Marketing was originally published in The Ethical Move on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The purpose of The Ethical Move is to uncover the grey area of manipulation in marketing through conversation, creating a space for collective learning.

And this publication is at the heart of it.

The Ethical Move is starting a conversation among peers to shed light on psychological manipulation and to find that fine line between a good piece of advertising, straight forward messaging, and dehumanising tactics. This publication intends to highlight a spectrum of opinions that help us answer the question ‘what is ethical marketing?’

Each article is written by writers that are passionate about what they see and how they navigate manipulation and ethics in marketing. This publication is not solely written by members of the ethical move or people who have pledged — nor does the ethical move or the members agree with every opinion published.

Our conversation goes both ways!

This is unfamiliar territory and will require a lot of unpacking, which is why we want you to share what you see. Email hello@theethicalmove.org if you’d like to contribute as a writer to this publication.

Thank you for being in conversation with us!

Welcome to the conversation. was originally published in The Ethical Move on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How we sell matters.

The world is shaped by how we buy and sell: we are trapped in an endless loop of wanting and buying more.

Currently, the weight rests on the shoulders of the buyer to break out of this hamster wheel — to ‘vote with their dollar’, to make the ethical choice.

But we are missing half of the equation.

It’s high time we, as sellers of goods and services, take responsibility for the part we play in the cycle of consumerism. The way we sell right now uses the same rules handed to us by advertising executives of the 1950s — scare tactics and manipulation — and they are keeping our buyers weak and insatiable.

The ethical move is setting out to break this cycle and empower conscious consumers and business owners by creating a new standard for marketing based on trust and honesty.

We are here to shed light on psychological tactics, and to start a conversation on how we can sell ethically.

Our conversation starts with psychological manipulation being unethical. Period.

We are not looking to coddle the topic or try to convince you why we need ethics in marketing. We are challenging the line between a good piece of advertising, straight forward messaging, and dehumanising tactics. We’d rather cross the line than not take a stand.

Going all the way means starting right here.

Our vision for the ethical move is to create a new, collective, ethical market place. And that starts with challenging the status quo.

Right now, the ones calling the shots in our global economy — the ones it was designed for and by — have upset the balance of supply and demand by creating false scarcity to land more profit.

This happens if the seller has no connection to the product, the people making it, or the people buying it.

As a result of this, the system only benefits a small part of the world, and an even smaller fraction within that. We are facing a massive health, social justice, and climate crisis, a growing wealth gap, incredible amounts of waste, exploitation, displacement, fear, ..the list goes on.

And, we have an incredible opportunity.

Small businesses are the largest growing sector of our global economy — we are even called the ‘New Economy’.

We have no need to continue with the same methods used to generate demand. We can create anything — so why not new methods in marketing?

This is our chance to break the rules, to change the status quo, to make the ethical choice for the good of all, not just a select few.

So we are making the first move.

We are calling psychological manipulation unethical.

When we remove manipulation and pressure from our marketing, we create space for trust to emerge between the sellers and buyers. A space where a business owner no longer has to resort to manipulation to get a sale, and their customer is empowered to make purchasing decisions that are in alignment with their needs.

Communication that is clear, direct, honest, and transparent benefits everyone involved. It will require us to think new, be more creative, build real relationships — and keep the global community in mind.

We believe the way we sell can change the world.

What’s your move?

Pledge here and take a stand with us for an ethical marketplace.

Make the ethical move. was originally published in The Ethical Move on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What I am about to say will not sit well with many online entrepreneurs.

I am well-versed in the language of manipulation.

• I know which pair of jeans on a wall of seven will make the most sales.
• I know what colour laundry detergent should be to create that ‘clean’ feeling.
• I know exactly how wide an aisle in a clothing store should be (not too cramped) so you want to walk in to look at clothes, but not linger (not too wide) so you keep buying.
• I know that spraying the right scent in a boutique entices people to buy.
• I know that if you price your product at $297 instead of $300, you will make more sales.
• I know that a cute puppy will make you more likely to click on an article.

There is a science behind how people buy and it has permeated everything we touch, to the point where we can’t tell anymore what is a conscious choice and what we are driven to do subconsciously.

At the same time, buyers are told that if they make the right choices about what they buy, they are creating a more ethical and sustainable society.

Perpetuating sales tactics that are keeping buyers weak, and then placing the burden of ‘making a difference’ on them, is …the kind of thing a bully would do.

It’s time we realize that we — online entrepreneurs — are part of the problem.

Every time we use a psychological sales trick to get our ‘tribe’ to buy our package (for example creating 4 packages so people buy the 3rd) — we are perpetuating the cycle of consumerism. We are part of the problem that keeps poor people poor, natural disasters increasing, and refugees flooding the world.

There is one reason alone that we are doing it this way. The reason is it works. It’s been proven through countless studies (google ‘psychological marketing tactics’ for reference). We have truly honed marketing to become an efficient, hyper-functional tool.

Using these tactics feels like sitting in a grimy motel room with fluorescent lights — but it works.

And we don’t seem to have a way out.

We are all trapped in the same tiny room, vying for the little space at the top by crawling over top of each other, trying to reach the cash prize that’s supposedly dangling from the ceiling. The holy grail of ‘having made it.’

We are so convinced by staggering numbers and ‘proof,’ we would reject the door that leads out of the room.

But tell me that you’re not tired of hearing the words ‘evergreen’ or ‘funnel’ or ‘targeting’. That you don’t think it feels more like a well oiled machine.. and not really human.

It’s like a robot spewing numbers.

Consumerism, the ‘preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods’ is really just an addiction. And we only ‘crave’ it because we were born into it. It permeates our thinking, our actions, our decisions, our core beliefs, it triggers our innermost fears; the ones that say “I won’t have enough.”

So we follow the money path. We use the formulas. We fill the black hole of existential fear with information on how to generate ‘more’.

The thing is, there is never an ‘enough’ that is going to plug the hole completely. And the further we go down the rabbit hole, the more we lose track of what’s really important.

So how can we break the cycle?

I don’t have a solution. That’s the spoon feeding that you’re used to and this article is not about giving you more of the same.

But I’d say start with being brutally honest.

Actually start serving the world

Think about your offerings and what they mean for the bigger picture, not just for your bank account. If they don’t contribute to a larger mission, maybe you aren’t being completely honest when you say you care about the world.

I used to be a brander. Now I build movements, legacies, worlds — in slow motion. I dropped all ‘regular’ branding, because what most people want in a brand is a way to look better so they can sell more, stat. And that goes against what I want for the world.

Get out of the kiddie pool

‘I care about helping people’ is the most nondescript mission I’ve ever come across, because I’d say two thirds of online business owners have the same and it’s not making a difference. I challenge you to find a purpose that has more substance. That can move things. Change things.

Mine is ‘breaking consumerism’. There.

(And if you think you already have a mission that serves everyone — not just you — imagine someone else fulfills on it first. How does that feel? I know that if someone went ahead and broke consumerism tomorrow, I’d say “finally” and go take a nap.)

Pick up the slack

Take responsibility for the New Economy that is being built right under our feet. Honour your craft, don’t set prices that undercut the market, don’t leave others to deal with the bad clients you’ve created, stick to best practices, have integrity and make choices as if you are the New Economy and our industry depends on you.

There are moments when I want to walk away from a difficult conversation (with myself or my clients). But ‘facing the consequences and saying it anyways’ has been nothing short of mind blowing for my work and the relationships I create with it.

Start thinking long term

Don’t get sucked into the rabbit hole of what the cacophony online is preaching this week, think of the legacy you’re leaving behind. Find out what your values would require you to step into and then go match that with your actions. Every. Time. Make your mission your target. And then go align your actions with it. Every. Time.

One of my values is generosity, so I give of my brain juice as much as I can. And of course I’ve gotten clients from those ‘free consultations’. And friends. And help when I needed it.

And for dessert: Stop manipulating your people

Don’t mess with their beautiful minds by charging them $297 instead of $300. The ONLY reason for knocking off those $3 is to get people to buy. If you’re going to say “they save 3 dollars” or “they KNOW it’s not really 297,” “Amazon doesn’t let me” … I call BS.

Let me ask you this: if your product doesn’t sell at $300 …is it worth that? …or… should it even exist at all?

And yes, that is scary.

There is no proof I can give you that honest advertising works. Changing your prices to a round number might feel like you’re cutting into your own flesh. Into your child’s college education. Into your retirement fund.

But what if using psychological tactics was just a thing you’ve done because …that’s how it’s been done? Because everyone does it?

What if it had no impact at all on your livelihood? What if you were tricked into thinking that so you keep buying formulas?

We have no idea what’s possible without manipulation.

Consumers are so used to having to fight our tactics at every turn, it might be like a breath of fresh air to start with honesty.

Maybe you can build a new kind of trust with your people by telling them about the price change. Maybe setting yourself up as a business that markets ethically increases your exposure. Maybe suddenly a new market opens up to you.

I’d say we give it a shot. If we are the ‘New Economy’ — then why don’t we change the rules?

Continuing down the same path will (at its best) perpetuate the status quo; with all of us churning out meaningless, boring sameness to feed the numbers robot, with developing countries trying to keep up with our insatiability and running themselves into the ground doing so.

I’d really rather know what’s outside the door.

If you want to become part of the conversation around ethics in marketing, join us at the ethical move & take the pledge!

It would mean the world to us. Literally.

Could You Sell Without Manipulation? was originally published in The Ethical Move on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.