If you click this link you'll be able to read the story which BBC News carried this week about a direct mail pack sent out by the Reader's Digest which appears to use particularly suggestive phrasing to lead its readers into participating in a prize draw.
The letter includes the intimation that the recipient has been preferentially selected to take part in a potentially valuable draw, but that the Digest is urging them to keep this very quiet in order to avoid invoking the envy of their friends and neighbours.
Now the psychology is obvious and well proven. The suggestion that this is such a special opportunity that you would really be best off keeping it to yourself shifts the unwary reader beyond thinking about whether the offer is of any interest (which the sender does not want them doing) and on to worrying about a whole new problem: how to keep jealous neighbours from snaffling your Reader's Digest Prize Draw mail pack because it's clearly such a great offer that it's been necessary to warn you that this is a serious risk.
Now you may think this is just silly, but keep in mind that the target of any Reader's Digest DM campaign is likely to be older and what used to be called lower middle class (C1C2 for those of you familiar with ABC socioeconomic classifications).
Recipients of this letter might of course be perfectly bright, alert and savvy...but there's also a very good chance that they will be of slightly less keen perception and judgement in these matters, may have less than full contact with the commercial world, and might get little mail and thus take very seriously that which they do receive. They are likely, too, to be of a generation which views anything printed as 'official' and so important to comply with.
Doubtless much to the chagrin of the Digest's PR people Cath Allan, the lady whose daughter has blown the whistle on this particular mail pack, looks like everyone's idea of a lovely old gran.
But the truth is that the skill of the Digest's copywriters has persuaded this lady to part with over £800 in the last 12 months to pay for books which she probably didn't want, but which were necessary in order to move to the next stage of prize draws she'd been led to believe she'd almost won already.
Now the Trading Standards Authority are unhappy about this letter, though it looks as though the Advertising Standards Authority might just about OK it. But my question is where the copywriter stands in this?
I have no idea whether this was written by an in-house writer, or by a freelancer, and of course the Digest's DM people are highly expert, and may well have requested this mechanism from their writer.
But the writer has an obligation, in my view, which cannot be excused by protesting that he or she is simply a hired gun who does whatever is in the best interests of their client.
I believe that to use your skills in a way which your professional experience tells you is likely to cause harm to innocent people, particularly vulnerable people, is morally and ethically wrong.
It cheapens your worth, slights your professionalism and is just, well, bad.
I spent my 18 year ad agency career declining to work on cigarette brands, even though I had the chance to work on several.
Then shortly after I became a freelance writer, I was offered a substantial and regular flow of work on a cigarette brand. I needed the workflow, so I agreed to do it and did it for about a year. To this day I regret it, and my only comfort is that none of the work I did ever ran, anyway.
From time to time we all find ourselves confronted with a business model, strategy or project with which we feel less than comfortable.
It's a great challenge to try and re-engineer it, taking your client with you, so that it avoids causing harm while still achieving its commercial goals.
But it's also a great feeling to say to a client, or even an employer, that you don't feel comfortable with writing something because you feel its purpose runs counter to what you believe is right.
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