095: Thank god for that PhD in Classics
[After - Session 2] Life has gotten really busy
I’ve been a fan of Pizzicato Five, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Buffalo Daughter and Cornelius since forever. Now I’m digging Ginger Root. This post was written to a playlist built on “Loretta.”
Happy Friday. Would have shipped this “After” post sooner but life is nutso. How about you?
Freelancing is busy. Teaching doubly so. About 10 days ago I was asked to step in and teach another course at MCAD and said, “sure.” It’s called Persuasion and Marketing.
Here’s the rule I learned about teaching something new: You’re probably going to want to book 3-4 hours outside of class for every hour in, at a minimum. Also, when you’re stepping into someone else’s curriculum, it helps to have a few tricks up your sleeve. But we got the paperwork figured out, and the curriculum tuned appropriately.
Course Description
This course introduces the art and science of persuasion and its relationship to contemporary marketing practices. Students will learn the principles of persuasion, discuss the ethics of overt and subliminal persuasion techniques, and practice the applications of these principles and techniques in a client-based setting. Modern marketing and influencing rely on trust-building, transparency, reputation-building techniques, and the evocation of emotions as well as appeals to reason. Students will explore the creation of persuasive language and visuals in marketing campaigns and apply them in their work with clients.
Persuasion is older and expands beyond human history. Marketing is but one way humans have conceptualized and leveraged persuasion. Understanding how and where persuasion takes root, and has evolved helps us understand and apply its techniques as marketing practitioners. The first half of the semester will focus on persuasion, the second half on marketing and creating a campaign.
The core of this course will be your journal.
Students are required to keep a journal of their notes, inspiration and ideas for the assignments, discussions and virtual tours. Your journal can be bound or loose-leaf. Whatever works for you. However, it must be tangible. We need to see it, to be able to turn the pages and see how your thinking has evolved. Your journal will be a major part of your final grade.
Each session will include videos to watch, guests to engage with, assignments to read, and opportunities to work alone and in groups on different tasks—all of which serve as fodder for your evolving journal.
Course Outcomes
Understand the core principles, histories, and ethics of the science of persuasion
Explain the techniques of persuasion using text and visuals
Apply the techniques of persuasion using text and visuals
Create a journal which documents your comprehension of Persuasion, and culminates in a client marketing campaign based on your knowledge of persuasion techniques
Course Materials
This is Marketing by Seth Godin (Amazon)
Alchemy - The Dark Art of Creating Magic and Curious Science in Brands, Business and Life by Rory Sutherland (Amazon)
To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink (Amazon)
Curriculum until Spring Break
Persuasion in the history of human affairs, Part 1 (Classical Antiquity)
Persuasion in the history of human affairs, Part 2 (The Printing Press - and Religion)
Persuasion in the history of human affairs, Part 3 (Mass Media)
Behavioral Economics
The mechanics and industrialization of persuasion
Lucky for us persuasion junkies it’s a Presidential election year! (Let’s talk politics)
Wait, there’s a goddess of Persuasion?
Let me put it this way: If you need someone to opine on the Greeks and Romans and their take on persuasion and marketing, call my brother Chris Brunelle (LinkedIn). He has a PhD in Classics. Also call him if you need help with limericks.
I mean, we frolicked through Hesiod's “Theogony”, Aphrodite, Eros, Homer’s Odyssey, good old Demosthenes and his rhetorical admonition: "Delivery, Delivery, Delivery,” Homer’s Iliad, Thersites, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, that duo Medea and Jason, Aristophanes, Dionysus and then a whole slew of Romans and their perfect manly male bodies.
As one of the students put it, “I’m just surprised how old so many of these concepts actually are, and how little they’ve changed since way back then.”
The big surprise for me was Peitho, the goddess/personification of Persuasion. You mean to tell me my industry has its own goddess? And she’s most often seen alongside Aphrodite and Eros which might suggest this whole persuasion business is really about falling in love? 😍
We also spent time ruminating on various types of persuasion—rhetoric, propaganda, salesmanship, negotiation, and storytelling. This week’s session set a foundation which we’ll build upon in future classes.
And which means I’ll be incorporating coursework and thinking related to Persuasion & Marketing with all the AI for Artists and Entrepreneurs material from here on out.
AI+Creativity Update (Just Google)
📸 The last big holdout in releasing a text-to-image generator was Google. We’ve had Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-e for over year, and Microsoft incorporated Dall-e into Copilot almost immediately. But this week Google announced Bard now includes its Imagen2 GenAI model. Which means you can ask for drawings, photos and illustrations from Google just like all the others. (TechCrunch and The Verge have solid write ups, as does Gary Marcus who’s written often and well on the challenges these tools present and face regarding copyright.)
Here’s how Google’s output lines up with its competition (prompt: “A photo of the world's most business savvy Otter enjoying an espresso”).
