manipulation

July 28 2025

Let Them Eat Aesthetics

Kredo Marketing Branding, Business Strategy, Marketing, Psychology, Sales luxury, manipulation, storytelling

Hey beauty skeptics—

Let’s kill a sacred cow: the idea that if something costs more, it must be more beautiful.

We’re not just talking luxury handbags or designer chairs.

This illusion creeps into how we see, desire, and validate everything around us.

And yes, there’s science to prove it.

Price messes with your brain

In 2008, Stanford and Caltech ran a sneaky little wine experiment.

People drank the same exact wine twice—once with a $10 label, once with a $90 label. Want to guess which one they raved about?

The expensive one. Their brains even lit up more in the pleasure zone (orbitofrontal cortex, if you’re into that kind of thing).

Same wine. Different story. Because the price wrote the story.

It doesn’t stop at wine. In 2020, researchers in Bologna gave people identical paintings with different price tags. The expensive ones? “More moving,” “more beautiful,” “deeper meaning.” Even art students fell for it.

Turns out your aesthetic judgment might just be a receipt in disguise.

How luxury brands trick your eyes

Luxury isn’t about better stuff. It’s about better theater.

Monochrome branding. Overexposed photography. Cryptic slogans. A logo so minimal it might not even exist. All of it whispers: “We’re expensive, therefore important.”

Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called this symbolic violence. Translation: rich people make the rules of taste, and everyone else plays along.

And it works. A 2021 McKinsey report found that 70% of Gen Z luxury buyers picked “brand legacy and narrative” over actual product quality.

You’re not buying shoes. You’re buying a story where you’re the protagonist—and your shoes prove it.

Real beauty, small price

Some of the most iconic designs ever? Dirt cheap. And proudly so.

Bic Cristal pen: Less than a euro. Transparent barrel, perfectly balanced, and a design so good it’s been copied endlessly—but never bettered. Even MoMA said yes.
Fiat Panda (1980): Designed by Giugiaro as a tool, not a toy. Squared off, no frills, no fantasies. And yet, oddly poetic.
Casio F-91W: A $20 watch that outlived fashion trends, batteries, and even surveillance fears. Functional, loyal, and iconic without trying.
IKEA Billy: The democratic shelf. It doesn’t scream design—because it’s too busy serving it. And it’s probably in every city on Earth.

These objects didn’t ask to be beautiful. They became beautiful by being useful, honest, and real. No champagne-soaked launch parties. No limited editions. Just clever thinking, made accessible.

Why we still fall for price = beauty

Because we hate buyer’s remorse.

You drop €2,000 on something? You better love it. Even if it looks like a beige fungus. That’s post-purchase rationalization at work. Your brain edits the narrative to protect your ego.

And in a world full of design you don’t understand, price becomes your compass. It tells you what to like. What to envy. What to post.

But just because something is expensive doesn’t mean it’s beautiful.

It might just mean you’re scared to question it.

If luxury wants to survive the next generation of consumers, it has to grow up.

That means dropping the smoke and mirrors: no more false scarcity, inflated markups, or storytelling that hides mediocre craftsmanship behind heritage cosplay.

Ethical marketing isn’t a buzzword—it’s a correction.

It means pricing things based on real value: quality of materials, durability, originality of design. It means being transparent about production, not romanticizing sweatshops through sepia filters.

What would that market look like?

One where luxury isn’t about exclusion, but excellence. Where a beautiful object earns its price tag not through aura, but through intent. Where desirability comes from design, not deception.

Luxury can still be aspirational.

But let’s stop pretending mystery is a substitute for meaning.

Stop outsourcing your taste

Here’s a trick: next time you see a €12,000 chair in a showroom, imagine it at a flea market with a handwritten tag: “€70, negotiable.”

Would you still stop and stare?

Would you still call it art?

Because real beauty isn’t fragile.

It doesn’t need context. It doesn’t need a TED Talk or a celebrity endorsement. It just is.

And the moment you stop confusing cost with quality, you start seeing clearly.

Until next time, stay sharp.

Alex

At Kredo, we design brands that earn attention—not just price tags. If you’re building something that matters, we should talk.

July 23 2025

Do Products Really Sell Themselves?

Kredo Marketing Branding, Business Strategy, Economics, Marketing, Psychology, Sales, Social Media manipulation, storytelling, success

Hey demand chasers—

We’ve all heard it. “That product sells itself.” It’s the ultimate compliment—part envy, part resignation. But is it true?

Do some products really defy gravity and move on their own, without the push and pull of marketing? Or are we just blind to the invisible hands doing the selling?

Let’s break the myth apart. And maybe burn it a little.

The Illusion of the Self-Selling Product

There’s a seductive fantasy in business: if something is so good, it doesn’t need marketing.

Think of ChatGPT in late 2022. Ferrari. iPhone. The Birkin bag. Taylor Swift tickets. They all seem to flow through the market by some mysterious inertia. But that’s not absence of marketing. That’s marketing so deeply embedded, so culturally entrenched, that we no longer recognize it as such.

Ferrari doesn’t “sell.” It withholds. No test drives. No discounts. No influencer collabs. It’s scarcity turned into prestige. Every PR release is a masterclass in reverse psychology.

The Birkin bag has zero advertising spend. Yet has a waiting list, resale market, and entire YouTube channels dissecting “how to get one.” It’s the product equivalent of a religious artifact.

Taylor Swift? A billion-dollar tour machine powered by social currency, layered storytelling, Easter eggs, fan communities, media manipulation and a personal brand curated with surgical precision.

None of these are self-selling. They’re just so well-marketed they feel organic.

When Demand Exceeds Supply, Marketing Changes Clothes

Marketing isn’t always persuasion. Sometimes it’s framing. Sometimes it’s restraint.

In economics, when demand consistently exceeds supply, the job of marketing shifts. It’s no longer about pushing product.

It’s about managing desire.

This is what happened with Nintendo’s Wii, where artificial scarcity led to a 50% jump in media coverage and secondhand prices skyrocketing. Or with Glossier, where user-generated content, exclusivity drops, and minimalist branding made fans feel like insiders.

These strategies aren’t passive. They’re calculated. And they work because they understand that human psychology wants what it thinks it can’t have.

The Myth Is Dangerous (Especially for Startups)

Believing that great products sell themselves is a dangerous bias. It leads founders to underinvest in marketing, delay go-to-market planning, or ignore feedback loops.

In a 2023 survey by First Round Capital, 79% of failed startup founders cited “poor marketing execution”as a core reason for collapse.

Not product. Not funding. Marketing.

Stripe had a better developer experience. But it also built a legendary blog, launched on Hacker News, did partnerships with Y Combinator, and crafted elegant documentation.

Airbnb had photos. Craigslist didn’t. And they made sure everyone noticed.

If It Sells Itself, It’s Because Someone Worked for That

If a product seems to sell itself, it’s likely because:

Someone shaped the narrative early.
Someone built a community.
Someone invested in design.
Someone obsessed over product-market fit.
Someone whispered in the right ears.

You just didn’t see it.

The “self-selling” myth is often just post-rationalized success. A product that looks effortless is usually the result of effort so well-deployed you missed it.

So… Does It Exist?

The honest answer? Rarely.

Some products catch a viral wave—timing, network effects, and a bit of luck. But even then, luck is just a name we give to unseen preparation.

Marketing isn’t just ads and copy. It’s product design. It’s timing. It’s distribution. It’s how you’re talked about when you’re not in the room.

So next time someone says, “This sells itself,” smile. And ask them: “Who made it look that way?”

Until next time, stay skeptical.

Alex

f your product’s great but no one knows it, you don’t need better luck. You need better marketing. At Kredo, we help brands design the demand they deserve.

Let’s make your product actually sell itself—by design.

July 14 2025

Bigger Lies, Better Clicks: The Algorithmic Economy of Bullsh*t

Kredo Marketing Business Strategy, Marketing, Psychology, Social Media Algorithms, attention economy, linkedin, manipulation, medium, tik tok

Hey digital skeptics—

Once upon a time, storytelling was a craft. Now it’s a KPI.

We’ve built an online world where the currency isn’t truth, but traction. Where facts have to beg for attention, and outrageous claims ride the algorithm like a golden chariot.

The Attention Economy didn’t just change how we sell—it changed what we say. And more dangerously: it changed what we reward.

We are no longer in the information age. We are in the invention age.

Let’s start with the obvious: social platforms reward content that gets engagement.

And what gets engagement? Outrage. Surprise. Emotion. In other words—distortion.

Facebook has known for years that posts that provoke anger or amazement outperform those that inform. YouTube’s algorithm, according to internal research, gradually pulls users toward more extreme content to boost watch time. TikTok—built entirely on AI curation—learns to feed users whatever keeps their thumb twitching. And that’s rarely nuance.

The result? A feedback loop where creators are incentivized to one-up themselves in absurdity. Headlines scream. Hooks lie. And somewhere in the background, a half-buried truth gasps for breath.

One viral tweet claimed that bees can recognize human faces and vote in groups. Another claimed that reading Shakespeare improves your immune system. Neither was true. Both went viral. Because, of course they did.

We’re living in an arms race of virality. And the arms are inflatable.

The LinkedIn Delusion Machine

Nowhere is this phenomenon more absurd than LinkedIn—the place where fake humility meets strategic fiction.

Every day, the feed is full of CEOs who started as janitors, interns who saved entire product launches, and founders who closed 7-figure deals in sandals at a gas station.

Take, for instance, the infamous “coffee interview” story: a young woman is offered a job because she brought her own reusable cup and impressed the hiring manager with her eco-awareness. The post garnered over 100,000 likes.

It was fiction.

Later traced to a ghostwriting agency that specializes in viral founder content.

LinkedIn has become a stage for career cosplay—an endless stream of moral fables dressed up as work experience. Because the algorithm doesn’t check references. It checks reach.

Medium: Thought Leadership or Thought Inflation?

Medium was born as a haven for thoughtful, long-form writing. But as the platform grew, so did the pressure to perform.

Writers learned that nuance didn’t trend. Bold claims did.

Titles like “Why Waking Up at 4AM Will Make You a Millionaire” or “The One Trick That Made Me Smarter Than 99% of People” started dominating the homepage. These aren’t essays—they’re bait.

A 2023 content audit showed that articles with “shocking” claims in the title (e.g. “X Will Change Your Brain Forever”) got 2.4x more views than balanced, well-researched pieces.

And here’s the real kicker: the internal ranking system favors “clap rate” (how many readers applaud your story) and completion rate. Which means the more you entertain—even if you fabricate—the better your post performs.

Medium’s monetization system reinforces it. Writers are paid based on reading time and engagement. That’s great for the top 1% of creators who can spin attention into gold, but terrible for readers who came for insights and leave with indigestion.

Medium became Medium-sized bullshit. Wrapped in serif fonts and self-help rhetoric.

The Psychology of Believability

But why do we fall for it?

Cognitive psychology offers a clue: the illusory truth effect. Repetition increases believability. If you see something multiple times, in different formats, from different angles—you’re more likely to believe it. Even if it’s false.

Add to this the fluency effect: information that’s easy to process (short, bold, emotionally charged) feels more true.

Now feed both of these into a system designed to maximize screen time, and you’ve got a perfect storm: bullshit that feels like gospel.

This isn’t just annoying. It’s dangerous.

It erodes trust. It numbs critical thinking. And in business, it creates a generation of founders, marketers, and creators who think storytelling is about whatever works.

Morning Brew vs Clickbait Bros

Let’s contrast.

Morning Brew, a business newsletter with over 4 million subscribers, grew fast by writing with clarity, not hype. Their editorial strategy is grounded in data, brevity, and (crucially) trust. They don’t need to pretend Jeff Bezos learned leadership from mushrooms.

Meanwhile, dozens of clone newsletters now churn out fake trends, imaginary productivity hacks, and stories about crypto-zillionaires who allegedly bought a llama farm to learn mindfulness.

Guess which ones get more shares on Twitter?

Yeah. The llama farm wins.

Because lies are more clickable than logic.

What Can You Do About It?

Let’s not pretend we’re immune. But we can resist.

Here’s your BHT toolkit:

Slow your scroll — If it sounds insane, pause before you share.
Reward nuance — Clap for the posts that don’t scream for it.
Build trust capital — In your own content, make truth your brand.
Audit your feed — Who are you amplifying? And why?
Call out performative lies — Especially on professional platforms.

You don’t need to be the loudest voice in the room.

You need to be the clearest.

The algorithm won’t save us. It was never designed to.

It’s not broken. It’s working perfectly. Optimizing for engagement. Prioritizing performance over provenance. And turning every creator into a carnival barker shouting across a digital midway.

But here’s the thing: people are getting tired. Of fake gurus. Of overhyped headlines. Of being manipulated.

And tired is good. Tired people change things.

The future won’t belong to the loudest. It’ll belong to the most credible.

Until next time, stay sharp.

Alex

If your brand is tired of screaming louder and ready to build lasting credibility, let’s talk. Kredo Marketing helps you craft strategies built on trust—not tricks.

July 9 2025

Future Beauty Is Unreal — And Marketing Made It That Way

Kredo Marketing AI, Branding, Business Strategy, Marketing, Psychology, Social Media beauty, future, manipulation

Hey beauty hackers —

We didn’t just photoshop faces. We photoshopped reality. Then we called it aspiration.

And now, after decades of airbrushed perfection and Instagram-filtered lives, we’re entering the next stage: bioprinted skin, AI-optimized symmetry, and synthetic hormones that can boost your face for the algorithm.

It sounds like science fiction. But it’s happening. And worse: it feels normal.

Welcome to the era where beauty isn’t just unattainable.

It’s post-human.

Let’s get one thing straight: marketing didn’t invent beauty standards. But it industrialized them. Turned them into KPIs.

When I started out in the industry, I remember working with a skincare brand where we tested thirty shades of “natural” skin tones — and the more unrealistic, the better they performed. The final ads looked like portraits of aliens: smooth, glowing, uncanny.

“It pops on feed,” the creative director said.

It popped, alright. It also helped create the visual grammar of the uncanny beautiful — a style that now dominates TikTok, Instagram, and your cousin’s wedding reel.

We taught algorithms what beauty looked like. And now they’re teaching us back.

Neuroaesthetics and the Rise of AI-Optimized Beauty

Let’s talk science.

Neuroaesthetics shows that humans respond to certain proportions, color balances, and symmetry patterns in deeply emotional ways. We’re wired to crave beauty that calms us, excites us, or signals health.

But here’s the twist: AI can now generate faces that hit those neural sweet spots better than real faces do. Not idealized.

Optimized.

So what happens when beauty is no longer human, but computational? When filters become surgical? When influencers look like digital clones?

Answer: people start to feel like defects.

You see it in the data: rising demand for cosmetic tweaks in teenagers. TikTok filters with 700 million uses in two days. Clinics offering “AI face scans” to suggest enhancements.

Marketing doesn’t need to sell a product. It sells an improved self. And when that self is a neural composite of data, emotion, and fantasy — you get a generation chasing perfection against a non-human benchmark.

Case Study: Dove’s Real Beauty Commitment (2024)

Let’s look at a brand that chose to go radically against the trend.

In 2024, Dove celebrated 20 years of its Real Beauty campaign with a clear message: no AI-generated faces, no post-human perfection. Just real people. Their campaign featured portraits of women of all ages and backgrounds — pores, wrinkles, freckles and all — shot in natural light, with zero filters.

One of the key visuals featured a 53-year-old community teacher from Lisbon, wearing no makeup, laughing openly in front of a classroom of teenagers. The image went viral across Europe, with the hashtag #NoDigitalDistortion trending for days. Unilever, Dove’s parent company, reported a 24% increase in engagement across German and Scandinavian markets.

But the real victory? Gen Z’s reaction. Thousands of young users reposted the campaign with captions like “this is what my mom looks like” or “finally someone who looks like my aunt.”

It wasn’t nostalgia. It was relief.

Dove didn’t just promote a product — it reclaimed the visual language of beauty. And it proved that in a market saturated by synthetic aesthetics, authenticity doesn’t just break through. It leads.

The Psychology of Beauty Fatigue

Psychologists call it “aesthetic numbness.”

It’s what happens when your brain is pummeled with flawless faces, perfect product shots, and algorithmically curated feeds for too long. Like a song on repeat, beauty — when too consistent — becomes background noise. The first time you saw a filter that smoothed the skin and added sparkles, you probably noticed. By the hundredth time? You scroll right past it.

Years ago, I sat in a meeting with a creative director who insisted we use the same retouched lighting, soft-focus filters, and pastel palette across every campaign image. “Consistency sells,” he said. But by the end of the quarter, engagement was down 18%. People weren’t angry. They were just… gone. Eyes glazed over. Comments stopped. We’d optimized the life out of it.

The human brain is bored by perfection. It craves micro-tension — like a crooked smile, a surprising color palette, a wrinkle that says this person has lived. Neuromarketing studies have shown that the amygdala, our emotional processing center, responds more intensely to unpredictable or slightly asymmetric visual inputs than to sterile balance.

Simply put: we feel more when things aren’t quite right.

That’s why brands embracing imperfection aren’t just doing it for ethics or aesthetics. They’re doing it for engagement. A freckled model, an out-of-place strand of hair, even the reflection of a photographer in the mirror — these “errors” draw us in because they break the loop of visual monotony. They remind us there’s a human behind the lens.

And in a marketplace where attention is currency, disruption is value.

So What Do We Do?

Here’s the tiplist:

Make realness visible — not as a campaign stunt, but as a long-term narrative.
Audit your aesthetic defaults — are you choosing visuals that reflect reality or just reflect the algorithm?
Champion narrative beauty — faces with stories last longer in memory.
Design for trust, not just attention — beauty that looks good but feels fake is a liability.
Reclaim the uncanny — if you use AI, make it surreal, not synthetic. Art, not lie.

and in the End…

The future of beauty is up for grabs.

We can either keep chasing the ultra-optimized self, defined by pixels and predictions. Or we can rehumanize beauty — one imperfection at a time.

The market is already shifting. What was once edgy now feels hollow. And what once felt raw now feels rare. That’s your cue.

Beauty isn’t disappearing. It’s mutating.

Let’s make sure it doesn’t lose its soul.

Until next time, stay uncanny.

Alex

Want to craft campaigns that stand out without selling out?

Kredo Marketing helps brands rediscover their truth — in strategy, in design, in storytelling.

Let’s make marketing feel human again.

July 7 2025

The Instagramification of Everything

Kredo Marketing Branding, Marketing, Psychology, Social Media business Strategy, future, manipulation

Hey feed-surfers—

Have you noticed how everything looks like it’s trying to be… liked?

Coffee shops. Book covers. Packaging. Logos. Even cities.

We’re living in the golden age of “Instagramification”—a culture where every object, product, and experience is filtered through the logic of the grid: sharp lines, muted colors, sans-serif fonts, and photogenic shadows. Aesthetics optimized for scrolling. Not for meaning.

And that’s a problem.

When Form Devours Function

Go to any newly opened café in Paris, Milan, or Düsseldorf. Chances are it features terrazzo countertops, arched mirrors, plants in clay pots, and just the right hue of beige. It’s not that it’s ugly—it’s that you’ve seen it a hundred times.

What used to be local flair has turned into global sameness. A kind of aesthetic monoculture. Architecture, once contextual and expressive, is now often guided by how good it looks in a reel. Just like food, furniture, hotel lobbies, and even churches.

The logic is clear: if it photographs well, it spreads well. If it spreads well, it converts.

But what are we losing in the process?

The Instagram Brain

Psychologically, this shift has deeper consequences than we think. Studies in cognitive neuroscience suggest that our brains are increasingly wired to favor pattern recognition over substance digestion.

That is: we scroll faster, we judge quicker, and we remember less.

This is especially problematic in marketing. When visual branding relies too heavily on surface trends, brands begin to blur. They become pretty but forgettable. Studies show that the average brand impression lasts less than 2 secondsin a social scroll.

If your brand looks like the last ten your user saw, congratulations—you don’t exist.

And there’s more.

A 2022 paper from the Journal of Consumer Psychology notes that overly aestheticized product design creates what researchers call “cognitive friction”—when form overshadows function, users feel confused, even anxious. They hesitate. They churn.

But… Who’s It For, Really?

This aesthetic obsession is also an economic paradox. A company spends months designing a new app interface, storefront, or brand campaign. It wins awards. It gets reposted. But it doesn’t sell more. Or worse, it alienates the audience that actually pays.

Because here’s the catch:not every user is on Instagram. And even among those who are, not everyone values the same visual codes. In trying to please the algorithm, many brands stop speaking to their core audience.

They start designing for designers.

This disconnect is not just theoretical. Look at the countless rebrands that backfire because they swapped character for “modernity.” Think Tropicana’s infamous packaging redesign in 2009, which led to a 20% drop in sales—roughly $30 million lost in a few weeks.

Why? Because the new design looked cleaner… but felt generic. Customers didn’t recognize it. So they didn’t buy it.

A Counter-Example: Vitsœ in Germany

Let’s stay in Europe.

Vitsœ , the German-British company that produces Dieter Rams’ modular shelving system, has resisted this aesthetic contagion. Their branding is borderline anti-Instagram: minimal but not trendy, calm but not sterile. Their website feels more like a personal letter than a showroom.

Yet they have a cult following. Not because they shout louder—but because they whisper consistently. Their whole ethos is long-term thinking: sustainability, timeless design, slow consumption. And customers respond. They don’t just buy a product—they buy into a philosophy.

This is key: when everyone else is screaming visuals, a clear voice cuts through.

So what’s the cost of aesthetic conformity?

In economic terms:wasted budget. High design costs, low return.

In psychological terms: decision fatigue, shallow engagement, short-lived loyalty. In strategic terms: a brand that can’t differentiate itself.

Brands need to stop designing for screenshots and start designing for resonance.

Because in the end, likes don’t equal loyalty.

Tips for De-Instagramifying Your Brand

Audit your visuals — Does your website, packaging, or content look like a Pinterest board from 2021? Be honest.
Reclaim your voice — What does your brand sound like? If you took away all visuals, could someone still recognize you?
Design for use, not likes — Ask: does this asset help my user do something better? Or just look good?
Stay rooted in your story — Before choosing a style, revisit your why. Aesthetics should express it, not replace it.
Test with outsiders — Get feedback from people who aren’t designers or marketers. If they “get it,” you’re doing it right.

There’s nothing wrong with beauty.

But when everything is optimized for optics, we risk building a world of brands that look alive but feel empty.

So here’s a better goal: design things that matter in feeds and in minds.

Because your job isn’t to go viral. Your job is to be remembered.

Until next time, stay sharp.

Alex

Want to escape the scroll-driven marketing trap?

Let’s design strategies that actually stick. 👉 www.kredo-marketing.com

June 13 2025

Control or Freedom? What Digital Marketing Learned from Secret Police

Kredo Marketing Marketing, Politics, Psychology, Social Media AI, future, manipulation

Hey attention hackers—

Here’s a thought that should make you squirm: some of the most powerful digital marketing strategies today didn’t come from Madison Avenue. They came from intelligence agencies.

Sounds extreme? Let’s unpack it.

Control or freedom?

This isn’t a dystopian rant. It’s a mirror.

The tools we built to connect, inform, and entertain have also become tools of subtle control. The difference is intent. And transparency. And consent.

Because manipulation without consent isn’t marketing. It’s coercion.

As marketers, designers, and technologists, we need to ask better questions:

Who benefits from this design?
What behavior are we shaping?
Is it in the user’s interest — or just the shareholder’s?

Until next time, stay aware.
Alex

June 13 2025

The Risks and Realities of Personalization in Marketing

Kredo Marketing Business Strategy, Marketing, Psychology, Social Media behavioral economics, manipulation, storytelling

Hey there, Business Hackers!

If you enjoyed my last article, “Late Bloomers – The Power of Achieving Success Later in Life” get ready because this time we’re diving into a fascinating exploration of the limits of personalization in marketing. In this article, we’ll cover:

The allure and benefits of personalization.
Examples of personalization by major tech companies.
The challenges and failures of personalization.
Critical opinions on why personalization might fail.
Negative implications of unethical personalization.
Practical tips to protect yourself from online tracking and unwanted personalization.

The Allure of Personalization

Sometimes you could receive an email that seems to have been written just for you, with product suggestions that perfectly match your tastes. Magical, right?

Well, not always.

Personalization in marketing promises to create tailored experiences that satisfy individual consumer preferences, increasing their satisfaction and loyalty.

But behind the magic, there are shadows we need to explore.

The Bright Side:

Engagement and Sales: According to McKinsey, companies excelling in personalization generate 40% more revenue than average (McKinsey & Company).
Customer Loyalty: 78% of consumers say that personalized communications make them more likely to repurchase (McKinsey & Company).

Before diving into specific examples, let’s set the stage for how some of the biggest players in the tech industry are leveraging personalization to enhance user experience and drive engagement. These companies use advanced algorithms and data analytics to tailor content, ads, and recommendations, creating a highly customized interaction for each user. While these strategies can significantly boost engagement and loyalty, they also raise important questions about privacy, data security, and ethical implications.

Here’s a closer look at how personalization is implemented by some major tech companies:

Amazon:Uses recommendation algorithms to suggest products based on purchase history and browsing behavior. This boosts sales and encourages impulsive purchases. Imagine browsing Amazon for a book, and suddenly, five more books that seem equally interesting pop up. Irresistible, right?

Netflix: Offers content recommendations based on past viewing preferences. If you’ve spent a whole week watching crime documentaries, don’t be surprised if Netflix suggests yet another thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. This strategy keeps users glued to the screen, reducing subscription cancellations.

Google and Facebook: Personalize ads based on browsing data and online interactions. Have you ever noticed how a shoe ad magically appears after searching for “best running shoes” on Google? Coincidence? Absolutely not. It’s the power of personalization in action.

Spotify: Recommends music based on listening habits. If you’ve listened to “Bohemian Rhapsody” a hundred times, Spotify might suggest an entire classic rock playlist. This not only enhances user experience but also increases platform engagement and loyalty.

The Shadows of Personalization

While personalization in marketing has its bright spots, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. The approach comes with numerous challenges that can compromise its effectiveness and create unintended consequences. Inaccurate or incomplete data can ruin the user experience and alienate customers, as seen with emails that incorrectly address recipients, showcasing personalization gone wrong. Additionally, the pressure to produce personalized content can overwhelm marketers, leading to lower quality and less effective marketing messages. In fact, 65% of marketers feel swamped by the need to generate enough content to support personalization efforts. Consumers also have high expectations for personalized interactions, with 71% expecting companiesto provide these experiences and 76% getting frustrated when their expectations are not met.

Privacy concerns add another layer of complexity, as consumers are increasingly worried about data misuse. The Cambridge Analytica scandal highlighted the massive loss of trust that can result from data privacy breaches. Implementing advanced personalization technologies can also be challenging and expensive, which many companies struggle to integrate effectively. These issues underscore that while personalization offers many potential benefits, it also brings significant challenges that businesses must navigate carefully to avoid its pitfalls.

Critical Opinions on Personalization

Several experts believe that personalization might be destined to fail for various reasons. One major issue is data quality: if the data used for personalization is inaccurate or incomplete, the entire strategy can fail. Additionally, the pressure to show quick results can lead to mistakes that damage the brand’s reputation and alienate consumers.

Another critical aspect is psychological manipulation: personalization can be used to create artificial needs and influence consumer purchasing decisions, often to their economic disadvantage.

Unethical personalization can have serious consequences that extend beyond immediate marketing gains. By using personalization to manipulate consumers into making unnecessary or harmful purchases, companies exploit consumer vulnerabilities and create psychological manipulation. This strategy can induce consumers to spend more through targeted offers that create a sense of urgency or artificial need, leading to significant economic impacts. Additionally, personalization can create social disparities and dependencies on certain products and services, increasing the influence of specific companies over consumer behavior. This raises ethical concerns about the broader social implications of such practices.

How to Do Personalization the Right Way

To implement effective and ethical personalization, companies should take several critical steps. First, they should use first-party and zero-party data, collecting information directly from consumers to ensure greater accuracy and transparency, thus avoiding data misuse (Ninetailed). Investing in the right technologies and training staff properly to manage personalization strategies is also crucial for success (McKinsey & Company). Lastly, maintaining an ethical approach is essential; companies must ensure that their personalization practices respect consumer privacy and are not manipulative, thereby building trust and long-term loyalty with their customers.

How to Protect Yourself from Online Tracking and Unwanted Personalization

For those who don’t want to be tracked or personalized, here are some practical tips:

Use Privacy-Focused Browsers: Browsers like Firefox, Brave, or DuckDuckGo offer advanced privacy features and block trackers.
Privacy Extensions: Install extensions like uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, or Ghostery to block trackers and invasive ads.
Browser Privacy Settings: Configure your browser settings to block third-party cookies and regularly clear cookies and cache.
VPNs: Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to encrypt your internet traffic and hide your IP address.
Anonymous Search Engines: Use privacy-focused search engines like DuckDuckGo that don’t track user searches.
Social Media Privacy Settings: Adjust privacy settings on social media platforms to limit data sharing and control who can see your personal information.
Opt-Out of Ad Personalization: Many platforms allow you to opt-out of personalized ads in the privacy settings.

Wrap-Up

Personalization in marketing presents numerous challenges and risks, but with a responsible and transparent approach, companies can harness its potential without compromising consumer trust and integrity. The promise of personalization lies in its ability to create tailored experiences that resonate deeply with consumers, driving engagement and loyalty. However, this promise is fraught with pitfalls, from data inaccuracies and content overload to unrealistic consumer expectations and significant privacy concerns. Balancing these strategies with ethical considerations is essential to ensure these practices are sustainable and beneficial for all parties involved.

Businesses must strive to collect and use data ethically, respecting consumer privacy and avoiding manipulative tactics. Investing in the right technologies and training staff adequately to handle these advanced systems is crucial for the successful implementation of personalization strategies. Companies that focus on transparency and build trust with their consumers will likely see long-term loyalty and positive brand perception.

As we navigate the complexities of the digital marketing landscape, it is imperative to remember that ethical personalization is not just about boosting sales or engagement—it’s about fostering a respectful and trustworthy relationship with consumers. By prioritizing ethical considerations, companies can create a more inclusive and respectful marketing environment that benefits both businesses and consumers.

Stay savvy, and see you in the next issue!

Alex

mental health support concept background design

June 9 2025

The Anti-Scroll Manifesto: Why the Future of Design Might Be Slower Than You Think

Kredo Marketing Branding, Business Strategy, Marketing, Psychology, Social Media behavioral economics, future, manipulation, storytelling

Hey restless minds—

Let me guess: your screen time is a horror story.

So is mine.

Between Slack pings, Instagram scrolls, LinkedIn carousels, and twenty open tabs that scream “just one more click,” it’s easy to feel like we’re drowning in design made to seduce us—fast.

Speed has become the default setting for everything digital. Quick reads. Snappy CTAs. UX patterns optimized not for meaning, but for momentum.

We don’t consume information anymore.

We skim, swipe, discard.

And we call it efficiency.

But what if we’ve confused urgency with value? What if slowing down was the real power move?

Design as dopamine trap

Let’s be honest.

Most digital design today is behavioral manipulation in a fancy outfit. Infinite scroll, autoplay, microinteractions tuned to your nervous system. Interfaces are built like casinos:

frictionless, irresistible, and forgettable.

We’ve optimized everything for the click — and almost nothing for the consequence.

You get faster feedback, faster bounce rates, and faster burnout. Good design should feel like a conversation.

Instead, it’s become a slot machine.

But a quiet revolution is coming.

Some brands are flipping the script. They’re rejecting speed as the main KPI and embracing a radical idea: Design that slows you down.

Not because it’s clunky. Not because it’s inefficient. But because it’s intentional.

Let’s take a look at some of the rebels:

Aesop — Their website is famously quiet, elegant, even contemplative. No sticky navbars. No auto-play. Just space to breathe. The layout invites reflection. It’s UX as ritual.
Kinfolk & The Gentlewoman — These editorial brands embrace friction. Long scrolls, slow fades, unexpected compositions. Their visual language resists skimming. The experience demands attention — and rewards it with intimacy.
Off-White (Virgil Abloh) — In fashion, Abloh was a master of embedding slowness into visual communication. Hidden layers, delayed reveals, texts within texts. He weaponized friction to make people stop. In an industry driven by trends, he created moments.
Amber Case and Calm Technology — Her work advocates for interfaces that stay in the background. Not every notification needs to buzz. Not every UI needs to glow. Calm tech respects attention as a scarce resource, not a commodity to mine.
VK (Russia’s Facebook) — In a bold UX experiment, VK made new users answer a few reflective questions during sign-up. Slower onboarding = higher retention. The friction filtered noise.

These aren’t accidents. They’re signals.

Slowness is not inefficiency. It’s a strategy.

Think about it: when did you last remember a lightning-fast experience? Now think of the ones that made you pause.

Memorability often lives in the resistance.

When everything is instant, delay becomes luxury. When everything is gamified, contemplation becomes rebellion.

When everyone wants your attention, the rarest brands are the ones who don’t beg for it.

The age of anti-anxiety design

Here’s the part nobody talks about:

☞ fast design is making us sick.

It accelerates decision fatigue. It erodes trust. It keeps us in constant pre-reaction mode.

Slow design isn’t just aesthetic. It’s psychological. It restores agency. It whispers instead of shouting.

It offers space instead of stimuli.

It doesn’t just ask “what do you want to do next?” It asks “why are you here?”

What this means for your brand, product, or message.

Don’t slow things down just for the sake of being quirky. But do ask:

Can I remove urgency from this interface?
Can I replace stimulus with substance?
Can I create depth without overwhelming?

Because here’s the real opportunity:

In a market saturated by seamlessness, friction becomes differentiation.

If your audience is drowning in notifications, maybe silence is your brand voice.

If your users are lost in speed, maybe clarity is your anchor.

If your competitors are sprinting, maybe walking is your edge.

Your move.

Design something that doesn’t rush.

Design something that feels like a conversation.

Design something that makes people stop — and maybe even stay.

Until next time, stay deliberate.

Alex

Want to design digital experiences that don’t just convert — but resonate?

At Kredo Marketing, we help brands build interfaces that are intentional, emotional, and unforgettable.

Let’s rethink the way your users interact with your brand.

May 28 2025

The Paradox of Corporate Jargon: How Complicated Language Became a Survival Tool

Kredo Marketing Business Hacks, Business Strategy, Psychology bullshits, business jargon, leadership, manipulation, success

Hey semantic explorers—

I once sat in a meeting where a VP spent 14 minutes explaining that we were “initiating a synergy-driven ecosystemic transition toward scalable operational realignment.”

What he meant was: we’re changing the org chart.

Nobody laughed. A few nodded.

The more complex his words became, the more seriously he was taken. The fewer people understood, the more people agreed.

Welcome to the modern workplace, where using big words has become a survival strategy — and where clarity is not a virtue, but a liability.

Let’s be honest: nobody talks like that at dinner. You don’t tell your partner, “Tonight I’m initiating a caloric intake optimization protocol.” You say, “I’m ordering Thai.”

But in business? Abstraction is armor.

The use of inflated, intellectual-sounding words often signals not intelligence, but insecurity. When clarity might expose a flawed idea, vagueness keeps it afloat.

“People fear being simple because simple is naked. It forces a conversation about substance.”

And substance is risky.

There’s a kind of performative complexity that lets you sound impressive without being understood. And when nobody understands, nobody pushes back. That’s not just communication — that’s strategy.

The Language of Access and Power

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called it linguistic capital. The more you master the “code” of a system, the more access you get.

In corporate culture, that code isn’t poetry — it’s phrases like “scalability roadmap,” “value chain optimization,” “cross-functional integration.”

What’s the difference between saying “Let’s make this simpler” and “Let’s optimize the interface touchpoints”? Nothing. Except the latter sounds like you went to business school. And that’s the point. Language becomes a proxy for competence.

“If I can’t decode you, you must be smarter than me.”

This is how mediocre thinkers rise: they master the code before mastering the craft.

Strategic Vagueness and the Safety of Smoke

The more ambiguous a plan, the harder it is to measure. And the harder it is to measure, the harder it is to criticize.

Take this real example from a Fortune 500 internal memo: “We will deploy a dynamic reframing of our customer-centric paradigm to enable agile ideation.”

What does that even mean? Literally nothing. But it gives the impression of movement while saying nothing specific — which is perfect, if you want to avoid accountability.

This isn’t rare.

Stanford’s behavioral linguistics lab found in a study that the more abstract the language in performance reviews, the less likely negative feedback was to be included. Simplicity, apparently, feels too sharp. Too confrontational.

It’s no surprise, then, that abstraction becomes a shield. The vaguer you are, the safer you stay.

Steve Jobs was known for ruthless simplicity — “Real artists ship,” “It just works,” “1,000 songs in your pocket.”

Yet for every Jobs, there are ten consultants billing €200/hour to design “cross-platform activation frameworks.”

Why? Because clarity is threatening. It eliminates excuses. It closes the door on bluff.

Remember the Theranos pitch decks? Beautifully written, slickly vague. Had they stated clearly what they couldn’t prove, they’d have never raised a cent.

Sometimes, obscurity isn’t just style — it’s survival.

If you’re one of those people who thinks words should meanthings, here’s the bad news:

the game is rigged.

But the good news? Clarity, when used well, can become your signature.

You don’t have to play dumb. You just have to talk real.

Things to try:

Replace three buzzwords in your next presentation with real verbs. Watch the room.
Ask your team what a term really means — then wait.
Write your next strategy in one paragraph. No nouns longer than 10 letters.

Because in a field addicted to linguistic smoke, real words cut through like fire.

What’s the worst example of corporate nonsense-speak you’ve ever heard?

Drop it below. Let’s build the Museum of Jargon! 😉

Until next time, stay sharp.

Alex

At Kredo Marketing, we help brands simplify their message and amplify their difference. No Jargon. Just positioning that cuts through.

May 26 2025

Mediocrity Is the New Currency of Corporate Success

Kredo Marketing Branding, Business Strategy, Marketing, Psychology leadership, manipulation, mediocrity, success

Hey you clever rebels,

Let me tell you about a guy I’ll call Marco — not his real name, obviously. I’ve changed it to protect his privacy, though if you’ve ever worked in a large company, you’ve probably met a Marco or two.

We crossed paths years ago in a consultancy firm that lived and breathed spreadsheets. He was one of those rare voices in the room — a systems thinker, fast on his feet, allergic to clichés. The kind of guy who would raise his hand not to echo, but to question. Always respectful, but always sharp.

One day, after yet another internal strategy session — you know, the kind where the blandest roadmap gets hailed as ‘visionary alignment’ — Marco leaned in and muttered: “You know what this place rewards? Beige.”

Then he sat back and crossed his arms, half-smirking, half-exhausted.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like that. But it was the first time it felt like a diagnosis, not a joke.

That phrase stuck with me. Because beige doesn’t scare anyone. Beige is safe. Beige is exactly what most companies want — even if they post on LinkedIn about disruption, courage, or innovation.

So here’s the uncomfortable thesis of today:

mediocrity isn’t accidental — it’s a strategic advantage in corporate systems that fear originality.

Let’s rip this apart.

Mediocrity Feels Safe (and Safety Sells)

Big organizations aren’t designed for brilliance. They’re designed for continuity.

They don’t want someone who questions the whole process. They want someone who can sit through 8 hours of meetings without raising a hand.

Why?

Because predictability scales. And exceptional minds? They tend to shake foundations.

Mediocrity becomes a performance. A carefully curated blend of consensus, jargon, and non-threatening ambition.

“Great idea, let’s circle back next quarter after we realign with our stakeholders.”

You want proof? Look at the case of Kodak. They literally invented digital photography. But the idea was buried internally for years — too radical, too risky, too disruptive to their existing business model. The engineers who pushed for it were sidelined. The company that played it safe went bankrupt.

Talent Is Often Seen as a Risk, Not a Resource

Ever noticed how the truly insightful person in a meeting is often ignored?

Not because they’re wrong. But because their insight doesn’t fit the pre-approved narrative. It’s easier to approve a “Best Practices 2.0” than someone suggesting a clean slate. Mediocrity doesn’t challenge status. It reinforces it.

Marco? He got sidelined for being “too intense.” Meanwhile, the guy who rephrased his points with more buzzwords got a promotion. I remember when Marco submitted a proposal to overhaul our entire client onboarding system. It was smart, cost-effective, and based on solid data. The response?

“Let’s wait until Q4.”

Two weeks later, his manager presented a watered-down version of the same thing. Guess who got recognition?

Another example: Elizabeth Holmes built an empire on vague promises and charismatic nothingness. Investors bought in not because the science was sound — but because the vision was comfortably packaged. Meanwhile, hundreds of medical innovators with real breakthroughs struggled for funding. Why? Because truth is messy, and mediocrity is easy to brand.

Vagueness Is the New Armor

Corporate-speak is a fortress. People hide behind phrases like “alignment”, “synergy”, and “value-driven execution” to avoid committing to anything measurable.

The more abstract your words, the harder it is to hold you accountable. And guess who masters this? The mediocre. They’re fluent in plausible deniability.

A study by Stanford’s Graduate School of Business found that leaders who use vague language are more likely to be perceived as competent, even if their actual performance lags behind.

Why? Because abstraction feels intellectual — even when it says nothing.

There’s a fast-track, and it doesn’t involve brilliance. It involves:

Learning the language of vague ambition
Avoiding clarity at all costs
Echoing leadership just enough to seem aligned, never disruptive

This isn’t incompetence. It’s adaptive behavior. And it works.

We could name names. But you’ve seen it firsthand. The manager who says “we’re on a transformational journey” without being able to explain what’s actually transforming. The VP of Innovation who hasn’t launched a new idea in years.

And yet — they keep climbing.

So What Now?

If you’re allergic to mediocrity, you have two options:

Blend and Climb: Learn the language, play the game, sell small parts of yourself until you forget where they went.
Build and Resist: Create your own space — whether through content, consulting, side projects, or micro-communities — where clarity and originality are not liabilities.

I’m not saying one is better. I’m saying: know the rules of the board before you play.

And if you still think merit wins by default, remember this: in 2020, research by Gallup showed that only 21% of employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.

Most are just trying to survive the system.

Things You Can Start Doing Today

Write something that actually says something. No fluff. No SEO garbage. Just value.
Ask the one question in a meeting that makes people uncomfortable — respectfully.
Stop reposting safe content. Share something that shows you think.
Talk to other people who feel the same. There are more of us than you think.

Have you ever watched someone rise, not because they were great, but because they were perfectly forgettable?

Let’s dissect the system — together.

Alex