Marketing of fear
Rudyard Kipling’s poem IF starts,
“IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, …”
It reminds me of the recent economic crisis and various government officials’ responses. Especially when I hear the ones most responsible are blaming … consumers. Not acknowledging their own responsibility in the crisis.
The use of the Marketing of Fear seems to have exponentially increased recently.
And I don’t like it.
Some years ago a pharmaceutical rep tried to tell me I couldn’t use a particular antibiotic for pneumonia because it wasn’t licensed by the FDA for that purpose. In contrast to her drug, of course. She was wrong. My choice was a better choice than hers under the circumstances, and completely legal.
Escorting her out of my office, I made sure my office staff knew I wouldn’t see her again. In retrospect, I probably could have complained to her boss. But that wasn’t my style. Today I might react differently. Probably more assertively.
Over the past few years, our government has jumped on the Marketing of Fear bandwagon big time. First it was one administration; now it’s another.
During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt reminded Americans in his first inaugural in 1933,
“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”
In most of our wars, the enemy tried to get us to fear.
Today?
It’s our government.
As Walt Kelly in the Pogo comic strip so brilliantly penned,
“We has met the enemy, and he is us!”
I still don’t like the marketing of fear.
For your reference: Rudyard Kipling’s full poem IF and FDR’s First Inaugural Address.
February 28th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Agree completely, Ina.
You really see it in the fundraiser’s email.
Our household gets inundated by junk mail from politicos and other fundraisers. (My mother, alas, thinks the phony petitions are real effort to gather public opinion, and so responds to most of them. And so of course, on the theory that a positive responder of any kind is a more likely contributor later, she gets added to mail-more-often lists.)
And it’s like the only button the politicos know to push is the fear button. I’m a fan of direct mail as a marketing tool — as you know, my original business model was going to emphasize writing DM copy — but this stuff bothers the heck out of me.
It doesn’t surprise me, of course. For-profit-companies using direct mail have to operate under two constraints: occasional regulatory intervention that makes opting out easier, and, more importantly, the market constraint that says “if people don’t buy, the direct mail budget doesn’t have funds.”
The politicos, of course, don’t have either. They write themselves an exception to the opt-out regulation (under a “protecting democracy” fiction), and being funded in large part via non-market methods (e.g. fed election funds), they don’t have to worry about the market.
And so we get, I kid you not, dozens of pieces per week. Often in unique packaging (more likely to open) like boxes, mailing tubes, and, my favorite, clear envelopes with a crisp new dollar bill visible inside. Indeed, our mail inflow is good for about one mailing cent by _certified mail_ a week. This to a woman who, to my knowledge, has never written a contribution to any of them of so much as $50-100.
Though she does write a a number of $5-20 checks, alas. And so the inefficiency and obscenity of fearmongering continues.
No, obscene is too mild a term.
This isn’t like pornography. It’s worse.
Pornography may screw its users and producers and their families. Fearmongering screws us all.
Wade
February 28th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Thanks Wade.
While Direct Marketers may not like the option, opting out of unsolicited mailings may be an option. And one you might consider in the future for your mother’s safety. Of course if you are getting ideas for marketing through them, that’s a reason to keep them coming.
I believe we’re now seeing some of the consequences of the marketing of fear. The stock market doesn’t seem to like it, nor does the economy. I heard yesterday an analyst say he thinks people are afraid to spend money. Afraid their jobs will be gone tomorrow or things will get significantly worse before they get better.
Or, maybe it’s the overwhelming feeling of dealing with numbers in the trillions for deficit spending. And the fear that things are spiraling out of control.
And that to me is a real risk marketers take with marketing fear. You never know how
—or when—fear will turn on and attack the marketer.