Thompson Response

Thompson’s article, “The Four-Letter Code to Selling Just About Anything”, discussed the challenge of a marketer to reach an audience. He primarily focused on the introduction of new products and when they were or were not successful. He uses the ideas of neophilia and neophobia, to convey the point that consumers see interest in new ideas that are not too different from old ideas that they like. An example of this would be the iPhone. Everyone wants and likes the iPhone model, but everyone gets bored with it. As a result, Apple makes trillions every year selling practically identical new models of the phone, with a slight variability in the design or functioning. Every few years, an actual significant change is introduced, but for the most part, they are the same, just slightly improved.

Writing follows the same trend. This can easily be exemplified by the most popular and classical pieces in the literary world. For example, when Nathaniel Hawthorne first published, The Scarlet Letter, it was shunned by his society and banned from bookstores. The ideas it presented were much too modern to be accepted in such a traditional and patriarchal society. However, today, now that the ideas he expressed about femininity and independence are accepted and similar to the current values that are preached, his work is seen as a staple for most students even at a high school level.

To get more specific, the theory MAYA applies to public and professional writing as well as any other kind of writing or marketing that takes place. In fact, it especially applies to public and professional writing because that is the most marketable kind of writing there is. Thompson illustrates the idea of MAYA perfectly when describing it as, “a window to a new world [that] can also show you home”. It is human nature to stick with whatever one is used to and familiar with. However, it is also human nature to get bored when they are being offered the same thing continuously. When someone writes for the public, they are trying to get others on board with an idea that they have. Therefore, they have to have a very strategic method in doing so. If the ideas they present are too outrageous, or too redundant, the audience’s attention will not be captured. People do not want to feel like they are being pushed in to something that is too different from what they know; and they also do not want to listen to something that they have heard a dozen times and offers nothing new.

As discussed previously in Bowdon and Scott’s, “A Rhetorical Toolbox for Technical and Professional Communication”, it is vital to appeal to the audience through pathos, logos, and ethos. Even more important is the concept of kairos. Perhaps the ideas discussed in Scarlet Letter were valid and powerful, but they were too revolutionary to appeal to the population reading it at the time. If a writer intends to be heard and listened to, they must start slow because, “this is how culture evolves—in small steps that from afar might seem like giant leaps”. A professional writer who intends to reach a public audience must connect with their audience and display similar thoughts and values that they know their audience has a belief towards. If the audience feels alienated by what they are reading, the author has failed, and their argument is lost.