We have heard a lot about data mining. How anyone from politicians to stores can find information about you in order to market to you better. Now data mining is going one step further with something called “Persuasion Profiles”. These profiles will not only be able to tell you what you will buy and from who but more importantly exactly what kind of marketing will appeal to you.
“…"persuasion profiles" differ from the personal recommendations we know and, sometimes love, from Amazon and iTunes, which are based on purchase patterns and behaviour on site, in that they are based on an understanding of our psychology rather than the relevance of a particular book or music track.” Mediacom
These profiles are more invasive then traditional data mining because they are actually much more personal then recommendations from websites that you buy from. All those sites do is simply suggest things that are closely related to what you already bought any computer program can be taught to do that. These profiles are actually assuming they can figure out who you are as a person. Actually getting into your psyche to appeal to the subconscious
The profiles have specific techniques such as aggressive, authority, social proof etc. They need to know what your likely to respond to.” All your friends bought(insert product)” is an example of social proof. If you are the type of person who likes to keep up with your friends, they will figure this out and use this specific technique repeatedly
“most companies that buy and sell your persuasion profiles may not have your well being at heart. Consider what could happen if they knew a consumer bought things compulsively when they are stressed or feeling bad about themselves…in theory it could also enable politicians to make personalized appeals based on voters fears…” Wired.com
I think this is the biggest issue with type of marketing. If politicians or any company can use your own worst fears against you then where does the truth begin and end? They will be able to either to coax you into feeling bad or scared or completely lie to you about a situation. Maybe more people will buy things they do not need or even potentially harmful products that they do not understand how to use.
The movie "Obama 2016" is a great example of this. The film maker tries to tell you that Obama’s father is not the man he says he is. They go on to tell you they do not even know who his real father is and that they have communist ties. These ideas scare a lot of people but are completely unfounded. The people they interview are not even people that know President Obama. Some of the information is from unnamed sources. Questionable? I think so. However the people behind this movie knew exactly what would frighten some people and went for it.
“ marketers are increasingly personalizing their products and services to meet their customers changing needs. But customization used in conjunction with powerful persuasion techniques is arming marketers with new weaponry to boost customer engagement and drive profits” TechCrunch.com
All of this is increasingly scary. There are far too many people who won’t look into what they are being told or sold. People wasting money on products they don’t need will be the least of the problems if politicians get their hands in to these ideas of persuasion more then they already have.