I think "persuading" is "maniplulating" in some extent. As Dr. Simon mentioned in one of the lecture about the fact that when you try to sell something, you try to change the person's mind about it. However, it doesn't mean that manipulation is good or bad in nature. This is one of the topics that I really like (thank you for bringing it up). One of the book that I really like written by Dan Ariely: "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions" talks a lot about how you can easily "manipulate" the outcome of your target's decision and the irrational behaviors/decisions we make such as "why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup" or "why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin". I think that we, maybe subconsciously, also use "manipluations" in everyday life to get what we want but some people are better than others or some people are more well-trained than others. And overall, I believe it comes down to the battle bettwen profits vs ethics ie. "Would you really want a lot of people buying this bad product for a certain amount of money?", "Is it worth it/justified?" and it's very relative.

EI can easily turn into manipulation as the sales pitch has to be tailored to certain demographics. Dr. Simon mentions in his lecture that people may not even know they want something until they heard of it, but I think its also important to consider how the consumer hears about the product since this can affect their investment into product. This is where "manipulation" can come into play since you'll have to alters the sales pitch depending on what audience you're pitching to. If you're pitching to longtime consumers then you may not want to waste much time talking about features that were already in the older products. In this case, you'll want to highlight the newer features and make the consumer feel like they'll be missing out if they don't get the upgraded model; despite the actual degree of the upgrade. This can be seen "exaggerating", but its a strategy used to get consumers emotionally invested in the product you are trying to sell.

I feel that there is a strong negative connotation to the word "manipulation" and that its use in this field is not always appropriate. When the features of a product or the availability of a product convince a consumer that they should purchase it, that is simply persuasion. However, if an individual is coerced into buying a product, either with wrong information or through deceit, that would be closer to manipulation. Techniques that a salesman uses to persuade a consumer is not something I would consider to be manipulative so long as the consumer is not misled by the sales pitch. We are all individuals with irrational desires and interests, exploiting these interests is fair game when it comes to marketing.

There's no fundamental difference between persuasion and manipulation, in my opinion, except for perhaps maliciousness. Under this way of looking at it, companies that offer value propositions to customers and convince them to buy a better product are engaging in persuasion, while companies hiding the weaknesses of a flawed product are engaging in manipulation.

Life is generally not so plain and simple, and so a lot of advertising behavior falls between these two. Companies will exaggerate, as mentioned by Gabe, and upsell the qualities of their products in order to get more buyers. It becomes difficult to tell sometimes, as a result, whether a company is attempting to manipulate its customers. This is an area where personal opinions dominate- how do you think we should decide if a company's actions classify as customer manipulation?

One method, albeit flawed, that I like is checking for customer satisfaction. If customers are happy with their products, even if their features were exaggerated during advertising, I feel that the manipulation was relatively benign.

Advertising manipulation versus persuasion is an interesting topic to look into in terms of product marketing. Advertisements surround us everywhere we go, ranging from social media to televisions. In fact, advertising has become geared towards becoming personal and intimate. Companies like Facebook and Google track their users moves and then provide advertising suitable to their needs. For example, if I was looking at shoes earlier, a lot of the ads that show up on various sites will be shoes based. I believe there is a fine line between manipulation and persuasion. Companies will always try to manipulate their audience to sell their product. However, certain companies will go a certain length to bring substance to their marketing. These companies put thought and effort behind their advertising. But in most cases it is manipulation at occurs.

Manipulation and persuasion both describe the same thing but have different methods of achieving the same result. Manipulation deliberately markets certains aspects of a device or feature to a target audience, leaving out crucial details of the product. On the other hand, persuasion can present a number of facts and “fluff” up the words to make it more appealing, without actually forcing any of the audience to buy their product. I agree with what IbraheemShaikh said above about assessing people’s happiness with the product to determine whether their company used manipulation or persuasion. Usually, when many of the customers end up dissatisfied with the product, then the company most likely used manipulation in order to sell their product. When most of the customers are satisfied, the company most likely used persuasion to sell their product. In marketing, I believe that persuading customers to buy their product is much more common, since companies cannot force customers to buy their product. This allows many more customers to become satisfied with their product and come back buying more objects from their company.

The only way to increase the market share of your company is by showcasing that your product is much more superior or sometimes cheaper than the others. To a certain extent, I would say the companies try to influence your decision rather than manipulation. If marketers employ covert tactics to manipulate customers, then they run the risk of being seen as unethical or may face lawsuits. The more relevant question is to what extent is the company answerable to influence people and monitor their use to target them with specified products.

Source: https://knowledge.insead.edu/customers/manipulating-consumers-is-not-marketing-4662

Privately owned companies are privately held. This means that the company is owned by small group of people, or private investor. On the other hand, in public company, there are shareholders that claim to be a part of the company’s assets. One of the biggest difference between public company and private company is that public company is required to file quarterly earnings reports with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, private companies are not required to disclose any financial information. An advantage of public company is that, it uses the stocks to invest in new projects within the company for growth. In contrast, private companies rely mostly on the profit. An example of successful public company is Amazon and successful private company is Dell Inc. (Computer company).

Manipulation and persuasion differ where manipulation leads the consumer to a decision that they may or may not agree with while persuasion allows the consumer to still decide, however, it is something that they have a choice on. It also happens that people nowadays interpret marketing as a manipulation strategy by companies. It is important to understand that manipulation through false or exaggerated information is only effective if the consumer is unaware of the information being presented to them. It is important to value the importance of our self-control and our ability to make decisions. Despite the manipulative tactics, the decision, in the end, will be in our hands.

I believe that when it comes to marketing, manipulation is the key component to success. Most customers at the time do not know that a product exist, do not know why they should buy the product, or do not know if this is the best product for them. In order to sell something you need to convince the customer that this is the product for them. Even when it comes to a new product where it is the first of its kind in terms of performance, not every individual will invest right away and buy that product. Some people may not need convincing to buy a product, but they had to of heard or found out about the product someway. That marketing, even if it's just a simple picture and caption, captured that viewers attention and manipulated them to listen, to look, and to find out more, leaving them their first impression. Manipulation does not have to be some extreme measure or mind control, it can be subtle hints that marketing leaves for customers that will make them think about a certain product even after a commercial is over or after they exit a company's website. That first time a customer hears about a product, can be the lasting impression they have of a product, and at that moment they have already been manipulated into thinking about it.
I think EI and manipulation go hand in hand. In order to manipulate an individual and sell a product you will need some level of EI in order to do so. If have a poor EI and brand or market your product wrong, then you could have just manipulated the customer into thinking you product is awful and is not what they were looking for. EI can allow a sales representative and marketing agency to develop a certain plan where they know how to grab their viewing audiences attention and then how to display certain facts and examples on why this product is best for them. Leading them to understand more about their customer, and how to give them prime examples of how this product can positively impact their life.

Emotions intelligence should be an important quality of today’s marketing . If their pitch of organizations doesn't hit an emotional high note, their chances making a sale diminish considerably. Emotional intelligence is more important in organization that directly deals with the people. They try to match their product to customer needs,desires. Customer first need to understand what product you represent and why customer should invest in the product ,they should know ultimate purpose of product before they would buy it. All customers are emotional but types of emotion varies from customer to customer so try to identify types of emotion you should focus when dealing with a particular customer example some customer are family focused . Sometime you need to put yourself in customer’s shoe and understand what customer feeling . Customers buy products based on how they feel. And that feeling focuses on how company treat them, the quality of product, and even brand’s culture. Emotional intelligence is a way how to serve customer better.

I don't think that emotional intelligence is used to manipulate consumers to buy products. Manipulation implies that you have control over the consumer if you have emotional intelligence. You never have control over the customer because they can voluntary say no for any reason. It's kind of like the analogy about the horse and water. You can guide the horse to the water, you can make it easy for the horse to drink it, but you can't make him drink it. It's the same idea with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence can be effective in that helps a business representative persuade a consumer to buy what the/she is offering but you can't manipulate the person to do it. Ultimately, the customer has the make the decision to buy it and manipulation has a negative connotation to the interaction between seller and consumer. Emotional intelligence is "icing on the cake," because it's not the most important thing about selling products. It's the product that your consumer has to be satisfied with, not how well you can empathize with him/her. I don't think that using emotional intelligence is the same as manipulation, rather persuasion.

It might be surprising to observe that your wonderings in relation to "how much of marketing is about manipulation" was well placed considering that marketing or sales is not even based on manipulation. Blair Kidwell et al in their study "Emotional Intelligence in Marketing Exchange" try to narrow marketing to be based on some emotion. I personally see this as a very poor interpretation of what they might have observed about human responsiveness to situations about them.

When we are born, we are immediately governed by the instinct to want to live on. To be able to do this we learn to communicate effectively in order to achieve our objectives. We start with our parents, then with our friends and eventually with total strangers we know little about. We market/sell our ideas with only one objective in mind - need to live on.

Sales is the end product of Marketing; Sales is the means to the end - achieve our desire to live on. So whether it is Sales or Marketing we are doing, we are only making a living; we are satisfying that need to live on.

So classmate Sadineni because this was the reality you were seeing subconsciously - something the author of the article you sited above were not seeing as they were immersed in their attempt to interpret human responses - you simply had to run into conflict with them. You saw reality; they didn't.

What I have really been saying is that Marketing is not just our intelligence acting emotionally, it is our instinct - rooted on need to live on - that is directing our actions to be effective in our communication with our customers. It is a means to an end.

Fortunately, some people are born with excellent communication skills. Education then comes along and refines it. To be effective they learn the art of being able to help their customers to see that they need what they are offering (marketing to) them or that it will be the right action to change their minds to buy whatever the salesperson is selling.

In the end the customer feels they made wise decisions (not manipulated into making their decisions - they feel good about themselves). Winners, wise Meanwhile the Market agent or Sales person feels happy to have achieved their objective - successfully made a living.

I don't know if I would use the word "manipulating," but rather influential persuasion. People who work in marketing need to be able to persuade people enough to influence them to buy the product you're trying to sell. A huge part of the way that is done, especially today, is through social media. Now that we have the option to block these ads, this means the ads need to be that much more captivating and influential in order for us to want to buy that product. Part of that engagement is using emotional intelligence to the advantage of the marketers.