On deceptive marketing

Story time: I was testing a transportation application, offering bus, train, and plane connections between European cities.

Sadly, the connection from Berlin, where I live, to my desired city was unavailable by any means in the app. Imagine my surprise when 2 days later I received a push notification: "Hurry up, prices of connection to [my city] are going up!".

No, they are clearly not going up, if there are no connections. At all.

If you are a marketer, do not ever fall into the trap of generating false price pressure, or at least be smart about it. It's a dark pattern of marketing, a deceptive marketing practice.

I would rather receive another notification: "We found a connection to a city near [my city], wanna check the prices?". This way I don't feel cheated, and stay as the customer.

Marketing is a tool to enable communication between us—don't cheat, nor abuse this privilege.