Marketing in a World of Virtue

Signals
Sources: Dr. Geoffrey Miller (psychologist), Dr. Jonathan Haidt (social psychologist)

Utility Maximization v. Virtue Signaling

Consumer purchases are AS MUCH a means of appearing virtuous to
others as they are tools for maximizing expected utility
Utility maximization only explains why we buy shoes, it
doesnt explain why we buy Toms over Nike or why we buy conflict
free diamonds
Why? Because we choose MATES based on the virtues they
signal
We choose mates based on their moral virtues in
addition to intelligence, creativity, art, music sense of humor, etc. -
The Mating Mind
We advertise general, social, and emotional intelligence
to others in order to appeal to mates - Mating Intelligence
We broadcast our intelligence and the big five
personality traits through the goods and services that they buy -
Spent
Women want kind and virtuous men with a strong moral
compass - What Women Want

The need to send and receive virtue signals is integral to our most
fundamental impulse: reproduction

What is Virtue Signaling?

Virtue Signaling means: to broadcast one's moral values to others

Consumers Virtue Signal

They signal their virtues to everyone they can (friend, mates, rivals,
co-workers, relatives, neighbors) through the goods and services they
buy/use/display/discuss/review THEREFORE good consumer research MUST
systematically analyze people's virtue signaling strategies
WHAT they buy, HOW they use it, and what they SAY about it to others
e.g. where they go on vacation, what kind of toothpaste
they use, what t-shirts they wear
 e.g. a reusable bag that says, "My reusable bag makes me better than
you"

Companies Also Virtue Signal

e.g. "Good Virtues" (quite on the nose) that sells facial cleanser
APPLE is the king of virtue signalers
Apples marketing has positioned itself such that owning
their products signals to others that, "I'm an open-minded,
cosmopolitan, multicultural, future oriented person with a certain set of
values and I'm willing to pay a price premium to broadcast those
values."
broadcast to consumers and employees (in order to recruit good
workers)
broadcast to investors, potentially "ethical" investors
e.g. "We're willing to enter into a co-branding
arrangement."
broadcast your virtues to government regulators
e.g. If they interpret the message as a threat to either
their constituencies or their power, they will respond accordingly. If the
company does not signal to them that they are a threat they will not
respond
How?
Company Name: Good Virtues
Company Slogan: Don't be evil
Vision Statement, policies, publicity, advertising,
promotions, product design, product features
Only question is: Are you consciously building virtue
signaling into all of those company elements or not? Most do not

The Real Question: What Are Humans Trying to

Show Off?
In animals (which we are) it's good genes and health
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind
6 Key Moral Values: cross-cultural/universal
Care: reduce harm, promote well-being
Justice: fairness, proportionality
Liberty: freedom, sovereignty
Loyalty: solidarity, local community
Sanctity: purity, holiness (not being sexually
and morally disgusting)
Authority: respect for power and traditions
Liberals: Prioritize Care and Justice over all others
Conservatives: Value all roughly equally
Therefore: if marketing only involves Care and Justice it
will not resonate with a major demographic (conservatives)
 e.g. The Clinton campaign
The Big Five personality traits (FAR more scientific than
Myers-Briggs)
stable across life/situations/cultures/reliably
and easily measurable/heritable/predict behavior in humans and
other great apes
Openness: open-mindedness, curiosity,
tolerance
Low openness = "conservative"
in-group loyalty,
nationalism, censorship, monogamy, high sexual
and moral disgust
Brands: Trump,
Hobby Lobby, Chik-fil-a, Coca Cola (an example of
how this can occur arbitrarily)
High openness = "liberal"
multiculturalism,
globalism, free speech (unless it's speech against
liberals), kinky polyamory, low disgust
Brands: Gary
Jonson, Apple, Starbucks (race together), Pepsi,
Beneton, Google (recently doubled down on liberal
values)
It's FINE to go after one
demographic, but it WILL turn off the other
Conscientiousness: self-control, willpower,
reliability
Agreeableness: warmth, kindness, trust
Low: tough-minded, protective,
masculine, self-oriented
Sex difference:
men are on average less agreeable
Built Ford Tough,
Beef It's What's For Dinner, Because You're Worth It
High: tender-hearted (warm),
nurturing, feminine, other-oriented
Vegan Certified,
Subaru: It's Not a Choice, Cruelty Free cosmetics,
Miley Cyrus' animal welfare support
Clinton Motto: I
Believe In Love and Kindness-->weak and wimpy to
people with low agreeableness
Extraversion: leadership, ambition, courage
Stability/(Neuroticism): stoicism,
resilience, calmness
 opposite of neuroticism: being
worried and anxious all the time
They are morally valianced: people view
some as good/bad with"good" ones being the ones that resonate
with themselves, and "bad" ones being those that do not

What About Censorship?

Unfortunately one of Steemits strongest selling points is currently in
an abnormal socio-political state, though this can be leveraged to its
advantage
Conservatives are typically PRO-censorship, i.e. being anti-censorship
is typically a liberal virtue because they tend to prefer openness
Libertarians are the conservative exception to this rule,
They are conservatives who score highly on
Liberty
They are a small group
They are a divisive group (both conservatives
and liberals view them as other)
The problem: Right now everything is flipped
Liberals are going against their nature in an attempt to
silence Conservative voices because they believe that Conservatives
are literally dangerous (e.g. Trump is Hitler and the alt-right are Fascist-
Nazis)
The primacy of Care and Justice allow them to suppress
their desire for openness and therefore temporarily embrace
censorship
In other words, its not so much that liberals are pro-
censorship and conservatives are anti-censorship, its that liberals are
pro-care/justice and conservatives are pro-liberty and their liberty is
being infringed. Unfortunately, its not really about censorship for
either right now
BUT, the longer Conservatives are in power, the more
likely Liberals are to feel their voices are being suppressed at which
point they will rediscover their hatred for censorship and at which point
Conservatives will re-embrace censorship
e.g. Trumps response to Chelsea Manning
who was imprisoned for her speech
again, this isnt about whether I
agree with Trump or whether Trump really cares about
Manning or not. IN FACT, Trumps harsh stance on
whistleblowers may be a purely political decision based
on his constituency: conservatives
No part of this report should be interpreted
as a moral judgment
 As we are well aware on
Steemit, some form of censorship is usually justified,
where people tend to disagree is on WHO does the
censoring (we use the crowd as opposed to bureaucrats)
and HOW the censoring is done (e.g. flags v. prison)
I am merely discussing
psychological research not making personal,
philosophical, or moral claims
The Problem: As of right now, the issue of censorship is
simultaneously divisive and ineffective.
This does not mean that these features cannot be
advertised/signaled
For example, instead of focusing on censorship we could
focus on Free Speech
Unfortunately, this term is currently being
used as a substitute for anti-censorship which creates the
same problems
A better strategy would be to focus on terms
that appeal to ALL the moral values so that they resonate with
everyone
E.g. Everyone has the right to
have their voice heard on steemit and Steemit Inc vows to
never, EVER influence what speech is suppressed or
promoted in any way. We give our users both the tools to
get their message out AND regulate abusive and hateful
speech.
Note that
regulate is a more politically neutral term. It can
scratch the Conservatives itch for Authority
(censorship) while simultaneously scratching the
Liberals itch for Justice
This is
a good example of how to maximize
Confirmation Bias. The goal is to use words,
phrases, and terms that everyone can
interpret positively, even people with
conflicting desires and interests

Summary
Pscyologist Geoffrey Miller: "Does your brand strategy explicitly include
a virtue-signaling strategy? Does your marketing team include truly diverse
political, moral and religious attitudes on top of racial and sexual diversity? If
you don't you've got a problem."
Tech and Marketing teams strongly skew liberal-->This is a MASSIVE
opportunity
 "Most products have a political and ethical side to
them and if there's a mismatch between the distribution of
moral foundations in your marketing team versus those of your
consumers you're going to miss."
When researching market segmentation virtue-signaling analysis is as
important as demographics and preferences
"Think about virtue clusters not just preference clusters."
"Are your company's virtues, brand virtues, and product virtues
aligned? Because consumers will relentlessly punish inconsistencies,
equivocations, and hypocrisies."
"We can harness our virtue signaling instincts to do well with our
companies but also to do good for society and the world."
"Virtue signaling runs deep in biology, we've probably been doing it for
at least a couple hundred thousand years. We can ignore it fight it or use it
for the better. And I think the better we understand it the better we can
design, market, and build communities around our products and the also the
more good we can do in the world."

Psychologist Geoffrey Miller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=PWlK8GvqdIT0&t=367s
author of The Mating Mind