(S)eduction..is...discourse at its most superficial...(turning its back on order and)...substituting the charm and illusion of appearances. These appearances are not in the least frivolous, but occasions for a game and its stakes, and a passion for deviation...(the) real, moreover, has never interested anyone. It is a place of disenchantment, a simulacrum of accumulation against death.

Jean Baudrillard, SEDUCTION

Baudrillard wrote an extremely dense text on Seduction in 1979, which, ironically, captured the essence of seduction itself in its poetic and titillating phrases. He could have just said, "Seduction is the irrational draw to stuff that is bad for you," but that wouldn't have been seductive at all. Reading it years ago, I got lost in the language (um, didn't understand a flippin' word), but it stuck with me.

The other day, I asked a question about Transparency (an ostensibly simple little question), which caused some interesting back-end discussion. Although I never intended to veer that question into the arena of seduction, it did.

What was it about that question that led to discussions on the seductiveness of expensive cars, iPods and bad boys? I truly only intended to raise a discussion on a marketing tactic that seems to have reared its ugly head (originally appearing in the mid-90's - remember the 'Image is Nothing' 7-Up commercials?) again.

But the more I think about it, the more I see the ties between my question and seduction.

On one level, transparency is a seduction killer. In Baudrillard's words, "The real, particularly in the present, is nothing more than the stockpiling of dead matter, dead bodies and dead language." Transparency, as in full disclosure, kills mystery. It may make us feel better to know, but it certainly doesn't excite us.

On the matter of iPod, do you think that I would have been so seduced by the click-wheel if Apple had described, in great detail, its caressability? Probably not.

On another level, the way I worded the question as if one was being seduced. I could have said, "If I told you I was lying to you, would it make the lie any better?" and I would have had very different discussions. By framing it within a discourse of 'things that are bad for you', I pulled it into a conversation on seduction. So, yes, please lie to me if it means I'll gain pleasure.

So, perhaps, then, we can take this discussion further. When it comes to marketing examples, what has seduced you? What have you known is bad for you, but that just makes you want it more and how have the advertisers/marketers successfully exploited that?

[photo courtesy of the 'seductive' Ben Barren]

technorati tags: seduction, marketing, transparency, baudrillard, ipod, linkingtomyself