The art of persuasion, as anyone who has ever (0) SAT through a skilful sales pitch will attest, is considerably more sophisticated than it first The successful persuader does not simply marshal arguments in of a preferred conclusion; she constructs an experience in which the audience feels it is that conclusion for itself. The techniques employed are ancient. Aristotle catalogued them twenty-three centuries ago — ethos, pathos, logos — and they have the test of time with remarkable success. What has changed is the channel and the scale. A modern advertising campaign may thousands of micro-decisions down to a single choice of font or background colour, each calibrated by testing to nudge behaviour in a particular None of this would trouble Aristotle. What might, however, is the degree to which the machinery of persuasion now operates beneath the of conscious awareness. Consumers confident in their rational independence often to appreciate just how carefully their choices have been orchestrated.