Non-Coercive Marketing: A Primer

Conscious marketing is based on the principle that a conscious approach to capitalism and business must prevail.

Trust others fully. Trust them to encounter your truth and be able to evaluate it for themselves. Trust them to make empowered decisions for themselves without an ounce of emotional coercion or manipulation. And trust that ditching the need to control and manage everything can indeed get you more of what you want in both your business, and your lif

Here are the principles.

1. Optimize for aligned, empowered customers




2. Surrender control, and embrace emergence




3. Cede authority




4. Treat people as ends, not means




5. Enough is enough




6. Play long games




7. Tell the truth, even when it's scary




8. Create invitations, not ultimatums




9. Trust fully and unconditionally

As consumers, we have the ultimate power and responsibility in this situation. When we change our consumption habits, businesses will change. When we no longer respond to the false needs and collapsed beliefs conjured by marketing, marketers will change. We are not helpless victims of the system. We are the system.

Non-coercive marketing is about radical honesty. It's about being courageous enough to say what's true, even if it's unpopular, unflattering, or dredges up insecurities. It's about leaning into full authenticity and openness, because that's how you stand out, find the others, and build deep relationships in a world where most marketing is inauthent

The problem with most marketing parlance is that it's dehumanising. The language causes marketers to think of people not as human beings with real human needs, but as a resource of potential consumers to be manipulated into parting with their money. The task of marketing becomes a left-brain, ‘control and numbers' exercise instead of a human exchan