A poster on the Warrior Forum asked if using fear in advertising was unethical. Here was my reply…

How is using fear any less ethical than any of the others emotional states we try to induce? How about greed? Or lust? Pride, hunger, thirst, or any other human desire?

What’s unethical about it? You’re writing ad copy or making a video. If they don’t want to continue reading or watching, they can put it down. You’re not putting a gun to their heads.

Your copy isn’t so powerful that they’re going to buy no matter what their foundational beliefs are. You’re not forcing them to do something against their will.

No matter how good you are, you aren’t going to have some kind of magical power over their minds that they haven’t already agreed to.

(When people read copy and are persuaded by it, THEY have done the persuading, not you. They just used your ad as the platform for that persuasion. You really didn’t do anything but put an offer in front of them. They tempted themselves in the final analysis.)

Touching their emotions is your job. If you can’t tap into an emotional state, you may as well go serve tables at a restaurant or go dig ditches. And fear is a legitimate emotion that we should be reaching out to. Why wouldn’t it be? There are fearful things in this life that certain products help defeat and nullify.

And the primary motivator for these areas of life happen to be fear. How else would Broadview sell alarm systems…through greed or pride?

Fear is the motivator with items like alarm systems, firearms, gold coins, conspiracy books, health products, life insurance, and anything else that promises a solution to a fearful situation.

Here’s one example of using fear (of a strong variety for a certain demographic) to sell a continuity product…