EMO BLACKMAIL AND PITY...THE BEST!

Our group chose emotional blackmail as the most effective method to persuade customers to buy their product.

Blackmail is the act of attempting to gain by threatening to cause loss to others. Hence, emotional blackmail in media would be defined as an attack against consumers' conscience if they fail to suscribe to the particular product or idea that has been craftily associated with things that should be done by a 'good' person. In other words, emotional blackmail is the subliminal threatening of the target audience to persuade them to respond to their product.

The consumer, sometimes even on a subconscious level, now has an additional reason to buy the product and by doing so, will feel the satisfaction of having done 'right'.

However, the normally unquestioned assumption is that by buying the product, the good things that were promised actually happen. It is a fallacy in which people substitute a claim intended to create pity for evidence in an argument.

Why do people repeatedly fall for this emotional blackmail? We believe it is because they feel they're obliged to be "good" people. Moreover, they just cannot help it - it is human nature to respond to guilt and to at least try to uphold values treasured by society.

So people buy the supposedly flawed argument not totally because they want the product, but also for the reason that they do not want to feel guilty for causing something which they were told would happen if they did not buy the product.

Furthermore, empathy, the main emotion evoked through appealling to pity, can be a very strong emotion evoked in people. Crafty salemen, make use of peoples' ability to pity and feel sorry for others to generate a powerful emotive force, urging them to buy the product even though sympathy that is evoked does not necessarily have direct links to the product itself.

In conclusion, the use of both emotional blackmail and empathy appeals strongly to peoples' emotions, creating a powerful emotive force in customers, the consequence being persuading them to purchase the product because they feel obliged to.


done by, STEPH, BNa, ZOE, EDmund, TuGuang SO6H (: