Not a hot take but I’m driving across the county rn and there’s so much natural beauty I can’t fully appreciate bc every time I see a god damn fucking billboard I am so enraged. Especially the ones that are just advertising the billboard itself, “if you’re looking at this it means it works! Rent today!” SHUT THE FUCK UP!! I wanna pull over and torch them so much
For anyone who thinks this is hyperbole: check out "Influence" by Robert Cialdini. The whole premise is that people do not make rational choices, and here's how they're irrational, and here's how you can play to that. It's certainly manipulative, even if you want to argue that it can be used in non-harmful ways (e.g., to improve education or communication instead of to get people to buy more Pepsi).
There's also voluminous research on stuff like "The Influence of Color and Shape of Package Design on Consumer Preference". Literally just tweaking the packaging -- without changing anything about the product itself -- to sell more of the underlying product. It's the exact opposite of "look[ing] at a myriad of options and then rationally choos[ing] the best product at the price that works for them."