Messing with minds?

Hey restaurateurs, did you know that you are messing with people's minds?

Oh yes, you are 'manipulating minds'. It says so. What does? Well, a leading newspaper does. And people have been blogging about it - so the grumpy old woman is no exception.

As an intelligent restaurateur, you have naturally spent time, trouble and money on your menu. It has been professionally engineered and designed. But, according to the article, that is messing with people's minds.

Can you believe that???

Your menu is the only piece of advertising material you have which is guaranteed to be read - and you're not supposed take make the most of that, evidently.

Menu engineering is somehow seen, it the article, as being manipulative. What, to use an English phrase, a load of bollocks.

I know that the people who write these things are under pressure from their bosses to write something 'interesting' every day, but that's really no excuse for writing claptrap.  All these years in the marketing business - I never realized that marketing was manipulating minds. Fancy.

The writer sounds like a ten year old who has just discovered that terrible things like 'marketing' and 'advertising' exist - how dare they do that? You mean I didn't buy that pair of jeans because I genuinely like them? It was 'marketing' and advertising' manipulating my mind? How dreadful is that? You know the usual sort of stuff that spotty little oiks come out with when they are about twelve. The stuff we shake our heads at, indulgently, thinking that they'll grow out of it soon.

We expect it from a kid, I suppose, but I really thought that journalists (of all people!!!) understood about marketing. Surely it's the media who do the most mind-manipulating? And as for that journalist, doesn't their newspaper carry advertising? (Yes). Doesn't their website carry advertising? (Yes). Do THEY advertise? (Yes).

But somehow it's wrong when restaurants do it. How bizarre.

The final comment in the article says it all: Knowing more about these strategies definitely makes me lose my appetite...

What??????