Phil,
Hi, you raise an interesting point. After having written copy for several years, I can say one thing with clarity: I am almost completely immune to hype and copy online.
If I see it I click away instantly. Anything with large headlines, large fonts, and lots of bullet points and text boxes...promises (even if supposedly true).
The worst offenders? Informational products and sales letters directed towards online marketing. I asked one online marketer recently why on earth people are sucked in by these letters. His response? There are a lot of new people online...also people who are hoping to earn income...so there's always a market for dreams.
The only places I visit online anymore have clear, simple, direct copy (without an exclamation point anywhere in their content; oh why! do!people! think it makes copy better to use them everywhere?)
It makes me wonder myself, if those who write these types of letters believe that the average person is too dumb to realize that bolding commands is meant to make us act now or that most people can't tell the neurolinguist commands cleverly embedded in the copy...close your eyes and imagine a world where writing was intelligent, and web sites were actually stimulating to the cerebral cortex language centers..can you see the picture (just an example of the techniques that make me mad).
I know these techniques work on the naive and new to the Web, but eventually there will be no newbies left. Then what will marketers do?
Just venting after seeing one too many sites like this lately...and having clients ask me to use more of this in my own copy...
Sheri