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Gleb_Tsipursky comments on Improving the Effectiveness of Effective Altruism Outreach - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (13)
I think the broader issue here is that the exact type of outreach that appeals to the masses will repel people who are early adopters of EA. One mental model I use in marketing is that just as people who are driven by emotional appeals seem to have an intense aesthetic aversion to data based arguments, those who are driven by logic seem to have an intense aesthetic aversion to emotional appeals.
There seems to be ways to signal around this (NPR has mostly emotional appeals, but it seems to appeal to people who like data as well), but it's by no means an easy problem. It's a hard tradeoff between attracting the smaller amount of people who seem to be natural fits for the movement, vs. attracting the masses but risking turning off that smaller group of data driven people.
This is definitely a valid point, and that's why I'm encouraging the data-driven people to be oriented toward their goals. Are they in the movement for the purist appeal of the data, or are they there to do the most good? If they are there to do the most good, then logically they must want other people to donate their money to the most effective charities. If they want other people, who are more emotionally driven, to donate their money to the most effective charities, then they need to support efforts that are not appealing to them and not fail at other minds. We still need to have all the data there, of course, but we just optimize the way we present it to make it effective for moving the emotionally oriented people.
The real tradeoff comes with people who aren't in the movement yet, but would be turned off by this.
People within the movement are already bought in to the idea - but would they have still bought in if they got an immediate sense of "this movement is being unethical and trying to appeal to my emotions" - if the answer is no, it's likely that the movement would lose out on others with the same mindset.
My sense is that those types of people who aren't in the movement would not be the readers of the kind of venue where such things are published - i.e. Huffington Post, etc. Besides, I would question whether appealing to emotions is unethical - that's a much longer discussion and I don't want to have it here, just want to say it's much more complicated than "appealing to emotions = unethical"
I've rallied against the "emotions are unethical" thing elsewhere on lesswrong - like you I have experience in marketing, and I don't see it as evil.
But - I think I'm in the minority on LW, and I suspect on that issue LW is representative of the EA early adopter crowd.
In terms of your other point about different advertising mediums, I'm not really sure... it seems like it would be relatively easy to test.
Without using words like "unethical" or "evil", let me point out that deliberate emotional manipulation of your target is a risky move and can backfire. For a certain type of people (well represented on LW, I think), trying to emotionally manipulate them for marketing purposes is unproductive because if they detect it, they will kick you out and never invite you back in (and you'll suffer a severe reputation hit in the process, too).
The emphasis here should be on "deliberate". You'll always be having some emotional effect on your "target", whether you want it or not. But there's nothing ethically wrong with ensuring that this emotional stance is sufficiently aligned with both your express message and your target's broader goals.
Yes, which is why I talk not about effect but about manipulation.
I also agree that this is a spectrum at one end of which is an innocent desire to be nice to a potential customer and make the interaction a pleasant experience.
Manipulation is a loaded word. Instead, we can use the word "marketing" - we know that it works, because we have data from thousands of companies and non-profits, who have tracked the effect that marketing has on their brand. Marketing with an emotional message is almost always more effective than marketing without.
The problem here is with aesthetic preference. What you instinctively label the negatively connoted "manipulation", another demographic labels 'a good message'' or 'human'. What you may label 'evidence based' may be seen as "ignoring the human element' or 'boring'.
I really do think it's an aesthetic preference thing. So basically, I agree with your conclusions - the problem is, how do you deal with it?
I don't think my problems are aesthetic in nature. I think they have to do with my autonomy preferences. I don't like to be manipulated in general, not only by advertising.
How do I deal with it? I arrange things so that I see little advertising and what I see is mostly static and silent images (e.g. on billboards), as well as things like product placement in movies. On the web I... deploy technical countermeasures :-)
How would a marketer deal with it? In the usual way -- by tailoring the message to the intended audience.
Good point EA early adopter crowd, will have to think about that.
Yup, will experiment with different mediums and see.