Yes, there are some ethical ways to manipulate consumer decisions. Let’s start with what is ethical manipulation. According to rumors, manipulation should be bad, scamming, taking all the decision control from consumers right? The answer is, it depends on the level of manipulation!
Manipulation has three level degrees. The first one is, just manipulative, the second one is deceptive, and the third one is immorally manipulative. What does it mean? How can we decide?
When marketers create a marketing strategy, first they need to think about, whether is it manipulative or not. If it is manipulative, they need to decide about their degree. To decide about the degree, marketers need to ask some questions. They are;
Can consumers decide by themselves?
Can consumers reach the correct information?
Is there any missing/hidden information about the strategy?
If the answers are all yes, this is immorally manipulative. So almost all the strategies rely on lies and misleadings. Immorally manipulative, can create many problems for your brand in a short time, and recovery is hard. So do not do it!
For the second level, deceptive, directly I can say that this is so dangerous too. The difference between immorally and deceptive, consumers can be understood later than immorally. So for a short time, brands can see growth, but after consumers notice misleadings, brand identity and reliability might be lost. Mostly this level contains less misleading and less hiding information than immoraly. Shortly, not all the strategies rely on lies, but still, there are some lies and misleadings that customers can notice after they purchase.
We just need to go with the first one, just the manipulative part. The manipulative level only contains consumer behavior methods. It is about understanding consumers' purchase decisions. There is no misleading, no wrong information, and no scamming. It is about using science to raise marketing success and leaving decisions directly to consumers.
And yes, it is safe for brand reliability, brand identity, and customer relationships. There are nine main ethical manipulation methods that well-known brands use every day for success! The funny thing is almost all the big brands have followed these methods for many years, and they are still so effective!
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