I Was Born to Manipulate

Growing up, my parents were pretty strict. They wanted my siblings and me to exercise independence and to be self-sufficient. If my siblings or I had the gall to complain of boredom, we were abruptly kicked outside to “figure it out.” My most significant entertainment source was my imagination, and my childhood was filled with great adventures and some silly antics as a result.

In the summer of 1992, I was at the ripe age of 6. I had been operating a friendship bracelet business out of our red wagon for a couple of weeks and decided it was time for me to move on. I had learned from this endeavor that I only needed a more extensive consumer base than my three friends who lived on my cul-de-sac.

One day, my far cooler sister had a friend over, and I overheard them talking about the trials and tribulations of their middle school social life. They were talking about how they wanted to be more popular and have more friends. I had just the solution.

I was going to create and sell imaginary friends.

The major selling factor was that I would customize the friends. With every sale, I delivered a drawing of what the invisible friend looked like and a persona to match that listed of their traits, special powers, hobbies, and quirks!

Dana Podgurski.jpg

My target demographic was any of my sister’s friends. My pricing strategy was somewhat simplistic, but very much catered to my objective of affording ice-cream from the ice-cream man. At this point in time, the ice-cream man was charging around $.50 for any frozen delight from his truck. The time it took for me to create and design the invisible friends was also factored in. So I thought it was fair that I charged $1 per friend.

That summer, I felt like the coolest kid on the block because I was able able to get ice-cream whenever the ice-cream truck summoned all the children with its hypnotic music. Even my parents were impressed! To think that I was profiting on something that was entirely made up!

So, is manipulation, influencing, persuading, or nudging unethical? The answer is sometimes. It all comes down to the true intent of the marketer.

It was evident in my sales pitch (that featured a cheeseball grin with missing front teeth) that I was genuinely trying to help solve a real problem. My customers purchased their imaginary companions from me, mostly out of curiosity, to see what I could come up with. But in my mind, I was helping increase the number of friends that people had and, therefore, increasing their popularity at school. If I or someone I attempted the same sale at the age of 20, it would be safe to assume that the intent would have been far less innocent, not to mention strange.

Dana Podgurski

Hi everyone! I'm Dana Podgurski!

I'm a foot in the mouth, tongue in cheek, head in the clouds, and heart on the sleeve kind of gal. I live for new experiences, but am a total sucker for nostalgia at the same time. I'm tough as nails, but am a complete softie for all things kids and animal-related. I fly by the seat of my pants, and live for adventure. But I firmly believe that adventure is a mindset that one's self determines.

For work, I am a marketer through and through. Bringing brands to life, and content marketing are passions of mine. Many would consider what I do as nerdy, but I seriously dig it. I have been doing marketing contract work for years, and appreciate the variety it brings, and the relationships I've developed with my clients. If you're interested in a partnership, click here.

For fun, I love to create - writing/blogging, photography, and painting are my main three mediums of doing so. Feeling good and healthy is also high on my list, as it really lends itself to making everything more enjoyable. So I maintain a very active lifestyle, eat pretty healthy, and am outdoors as much as I can be. And if my blog didn't make it abundantly clear, I absolutely LOVE to travel (near and far) and go on adventures. I spend any extra money I have on tickets and feel so fortunate to have been to several amazing destinations both domestically and internationally. There's nothing more fulfilling than coming home from a trip and adding a been-there-pin to my map.

Cheers!

Dana

http://www.mightygoodpen.com
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