Chapter 5
Challenges to Neo-Tech Marketing
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Who's Delivering Objectivism?
Date: 3 Oct 1995 11:48:51 -0400
Challenge
jwales@MCS.COM (Jimmy Wales) wrote:
I have been very nice here. In particular, I try to restrict my posts about Neo-Tech to this newsgroup and only this newsgroup. One reason is that I don't know enough about Neo-Tech to write about it intelligently in other places. Although my initial evaluation is overwhelmingly negative, I have held off on making proclamations all over the net.
I recently asked a very simple question here. Not long ago, it was said that the Neo-Tech people used misleading advertisements. In particular, recall, it was claimed that they sent out advertisements saying that this was the "second and final" mailing. Some part of this was alleged to be false, and it was further alleged that the company knew it was false, and sent it out anyway. Not through mistakes, but through active misrepresentation.
Now, that's a bold claim. I would like to find out more about it. If it is true, then I don't think that decent people should deal with NTP. It is as simple as that. What did I do? Did I post denunciations all over the net? No, I did not. I posted the facts as I understood them and asked for comments.
The result?
Jungle B. has taken my post without my request that JF comment on the allegations and posted it far and wide on the network. (It was posted -- separately in the manner of spam, not crossposted -- to at least alt.philosophy.objectivism and alt.religion.scientology. This latter is a particularly odd group, since I doubt if more than 1 or 2 people in that newsgroup have ever even heard of me.)
Response #1
Below is the full context you asked for, but omitted from your post. Moreover, the response below from JB7 was completely benevolent - meant to help you and others to wake up and really cash in on what is right under your noses. Nothing is ever meant to hurt you, your feelings, or anyone else. Working with you and others can be a real value. In a week or so, you will see an offer to you and other unknowledgeable critics that will demonstrate the good intentions and benefits that always flow from Neo-Tech. ...Also, please realize, we are always in a hard-nose business mode in creating an Objectivist civilization on our planet. That is our sole purpose
In any sophisticated direct-marketing program, all names mailed are put into a giant killfile. Then for each mailing list subsequently used, those nonbuyers are merge/purged from that and future mailings. If that were not done, the marketing program would deteriorate and eventually go under. Except for mailing-list quirks and errors, names of nonbuyers are not only not remailed, but every effort is made not to remail such names as each nonbuyer is unprofitable and financially draining
We are the ones reaching out, working with and benefiting the working producers of this world, most of whom never heard of Ayn Rand much less Objectivism. We, no one else, are the ones reaching them through hard-nosed business dynamics.
I hope this response will help wake up Mr. Wales and others like him. Neo-Tech, when understood, will really benefit him and everyone else
Response #2
The following post illustrates the common error some Objectivists and some not-so-Objectivists make when evaluating the manner in which Neo-Tech markets its materials.
The underlying reasons for it is that they really have nothing substantive to offer, so to feed their egos, the solution is to jump into the easily manipulated, quick-attention-getting, "Ralph-Nader-mode", whipping up problems where none exist rather than adding anything valuable and substantive.
Evidently, they have some difficulty telling a cognitive claim from advertising "hype." They take Neo-Tech material out of its advertising context.
Advertising shares something with art in this respect. In art works of romantic realism, there are situations and individuals portrayed that are not literally possible in real life (because the description is too perfect). But this slanting is intentional and reflects an attitude of the author towards the subject matter. This is why the skeptical reader who dismisses Atlas Shrugged saying there can't be anybody so perfect in real life (pointing to John Galt), is without basis.
For the same reason, when advertising projects emotions that the advertiser wishes to associate with the product being advertised, any cries of "false advertising" because the literal "hype" in the advertisement can't be exported as-is into cognitive context, is without basis. It is Context Dropping with a new twist.
Those making this kind of demand of advertisers are being unreasonable (who would enjoy watching an ad that showed Santa Claus at the local mall, but was then followed by fast-talking legalese "characters portrayed in this advertising are for promotional purposes only and are not intended to be cognitive?") This is precisely the kind of demand that the likes of Ralph Nader make of heroic businesses. The motive is to make conducting business impossible. It amounts to asserting the guilt of businessmen for the mere act of engaging in an effective advertising campaign.
These Naderites would have the business-world transform advertising from pleasant and entertaining snippets, into a bureaucratic PBS-like "product announcements", listing technical specifications in a dry voice, along with legalese, to bore the audience to tears. Such "marketing-realists" are direct counterparts to the "realists" in art who would portray a beautiful woman with pimples, to emphasize the fact that nobody is perfect.
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