How to Sell Ice to Eskimos (aka Marketing Shenanigans)

Right then, let’s have a quiet word about the grubby business of marketing persuasion. As a nation, we pretend to be all about fair play, orderly queues, and a stiff upper lip, but when it comes to the art of flogging things to one another, a rather different, more cunning character emerges. It’s a world where the Marquess of Queensberry Rules have been cheerfully tossed out of the window and replaced by a dog-eared pamphlet of sly tricks, psychological jiggery-pokery, and outright fibs, all delivered with a charming, almost apologetic smile.

What follows is not a list of unfortunate accidents or clumsy mistakes. Oh no.

These are the masterpieces of the trade, the well-honed manœuvres passed down from one generation of cynical marketing executives to the next. They are the dark arts of distraction, deception, and bare-faced cheek, polished to such a grim perfection that they’ve become a sort of marketing pastime, as traditional as complaining about the weather or forming a committee. This is the unwritten rulebook of marketing techniques so utterly, magnificently dreadful, they’re practically a national art form.

The Unofficial Rulebook of Selling Your Soul

or

Mind the Gap: A Guide to Dodgy Marketing

Right, apprentice. Put that down. The customer’s wallet isn’t going to open itself. You’ve had your induction, you know where the fire escape is, now it’s time for the real education. Forget everything you think you know about honesty and integrity in marketing; they are luxuries for the rich and the bankrupt.

You may want to read, in a similar tone, the related post:

Which has the same tip and 2 disclaimers:

You are a wizard, and this is now your book of spells. Pay attention:

The Noble Art of Pulling a Fast One

First, you must understand that reality is a terribly drab affair. It is your sacred duty to embellish it, to paint it in dazzling colours, to transform the mundane into the magnificent. We are not liars; we are enhancers of the truth.

1. The Estate Agent’s Lexicon (aka Deceptive Advertising)

You are not selling a product; you are selling a dream, a lifestyle, an aspiration. The customer doesn’t want the grim, disappointing truth; they want the glossy, beautiful fantasy. Your job is to provide it. You must become a master of the euphemism, a poet of the positive spin. A small, dark room is “intimate and cosy.” A crumbling façade is “bursting with period character”. A view of a brick wall is “a dynamic urban vista”. You must learn to wield the English language not as a tool for communication, but as a weapon of mass distraction. The product photograph is your canvas. It must be lit like a Rembrandt, angled like a supermodel, and digitally altered until any resemblance to the actual, physical object is purely coincidental.

Remember our campaign for ‘Sir Reginald’s Robust English Sausages’? The product itself was a sad, grey tube of rusk and regret. But we didn’t sell that. We sold “A Taste of the True British Breakfast.” The packaging featured a fictional coat of arms and a photo of the sausages sizzling in a sun-drenched country kitchen that we built in a studio in Slough. The copy spoke of a “time-honoured recipe passed down through generations”, which was technically true, as the recipe had been passed down from the previous factory owner in the 1980s.

2. The Phantom of the Offer (aka Bait-and-Switch)

The first step is to craft an offer of such ludicrous generosity that it creates a gravitational pull, drawing customers in from miles around. This is the “bait.” A 60-inch television for the price of a pint, for instance. You must then ensure your actual stock...

Related Readings

• Exploiting the Brain’s Dodgy Wiring (aka Cognitive Biases in Marketing): explores the psychological shortcuts (like FOMO, anchoring, confirmation bias, and the scarcity heuristic) that marketers exploit to influence consumer decisions.
• The 99p Shenanigan and Other Pricing Wizardry (aka The Psychology of Pricing Strategies): a deep dive into why prices like £9.99 work (Charm Pricing), how a decoy option can make another seem better (The Decoy Effect), and how the first price you see influences your perception of value (Price Anchoring).
• The ‘Where’s the Sodding Unsubscribe Button?’ Conundrum (aka Dark Patterns in UX/UI Design): focuses on how deceptive principles are built directly into website and app interfaces to trick users into doing things they didn’t intend to, such as signing up for subscriptions or sharing more data than they want.
• Peeking Inside the Shopper’s Skull (aka Neuromarketing and Consumer Neuroscience): the study of how consumers’ brains respond to advertising and marketing stimuli, using tools like fMRI and EEG to measure engagement and emotional response directly.
  The ‘You Can’t Say That!’ Brigade (aka Advertising Law and Regulatory Bodies): an overview of the laws and organizations (like the FTC in the US or the ASA in the UK) that govern advertising, defining what constitutes false or deceptive practices.
• The Radical Notion of Not Being a Complete Scoundrel (aka Ethical Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility): the counter-argument to deceptive practices, focusing on strategies built around transparency, fairness, value, and a company’s positive social or environmental impact.
• The Digital Curtain-Twitcher’s Charter (aka Data Privacy in the Age of Personalization – GDPR & CCPA): examines the tension between using consumer data to create highly personalized (and effective) marketing and the consumer’s right to privacy and data protection.
• Getting Paid to Love a Face Cream (aka Influencer Marketing: Authenticity vs. Undisclosed Advertising): discusses the ethical lines in the creator economy, including the importance of disclosing paid partnerships and the impact of inauthentic endorsements on brand trust.
• The Scoundrel’s Guide to Cheating Google (aka “Black Hat” vs. “White Hat” SEO Tactics): a direct parallel in the world of digital marketing, contrasting unethical tricks to manipulate search engine rankings (Black Hat) with ethical strategies focused on providing genuine value (White Hat).
• The ‘We’re Terribly Sorry’ Department (aka The Role of Brand Trust and Reputation Management): the long-term business consequences of using deceptive marketing tricks and the strategies companies use to build or repair consumer trust.
• The Novelty of Asking Nicely First (aka Permission Marketing and Inbound Strategies): a marketing philosophy that contrasts with interruptive methods like spam, focusing on earning the customer’s attention and consent by providing valuable content and experiences.
• The Sad Piano and the Lonely Penguin Gambit (aka Emotional Branding and Storytelling): the sophisticated use of narrative and emotion not to exploit, but to build a genuine, lasting connection between a consumer and a brand’s identity and values.
• Which Shade of Blue Makes People Click? A Scientific Inquiry (aka A/B Testing and Conversion Rate Optimization): the scientific methodology marketers use to test and refine their techniques, measuring exactly which headline, color, or offer is most effective at persuading users to act.
• How to Spot a Porky Pie (aka Media Literacy and Consumer Skepticism): the consumer’s side of the equation, focusing on the skills and critical thinking needed to identify, analyze, and resist manipulative marketing techniques in daily life.