Maybe this is an instance of “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” and maybe it isn’t. When all you’ve got is brand strategy, everything looks like a communication issue. 

Perhaps the most vibrant lesson I’ve learned while working as a brand strategist has been that being negative does not work. You cannot guilt a client or a customer into thinking a certain way, even if they know they’re wrong. People cannot stomach being incorrect, being told they are generally inspires them to double down. 

The path then is positivity, not threat. You should do a thing not because the alternative is bad, but because the thing itself is beautiful. I won’t say I know this to be human psychology, because I don’t. Though I do suspect it to be. 

This applies just as much to why you might want to buy nicer clothes as it does to online shopping and religious conversion. I wonder if this is a uniquely American issue. We have a chip on our shoulders about freedom and if anyone begins to nudge into it, fuck’em, even if they’re right. It’s just rude. 

I find the flipside approach interesting. It’s one thing to approach someone with the cynical mind-game attitude of wanting to change their perspective, and it’s quite another to accidentally change their perspective by just being contagiously passionate. This is the way, I think. Just be honest, enjoy what you enjoy and share it as much as you can stomach. People will like the things that they like. The universe has a way of putting what we ought to get on with in front of us. 
Ain’t that nice.