Category: + Fairness

Just Divided over Nike's New Ad

9/9/2018

by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

Nike just aired a new commercial that has quickly become entangled in controversy. The two-minute “Dream Crazy” ad is a well-produced spot that features footage of inspiring amateur athletes, as well as a couple of the brand’s superstar spokespeople. Surprisingly, the source of conflict is the ad’s narrator, who people seem either to admire or revile, which makes marketing analysts ask, “What did Nike just do?”

Marking the 30th anniversary of the company’s iconic “Just Do It” campaign, Nike’s new ad uses narration from NFL-quarterback-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick, who also appears briefly in the spot to urge viewers to, among other things, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.”

If you’re not familiar with Kaepernick, he was one of the first professional football players to choose to kneel during the national anthem as a sign of protest against what many believe has been growing racial injustice in America. The last game he played was in January of 2017, but Kaepernick has since become the face and voice of a movement that extends well beyond professional sports.

Of course, not everyone has appreciated Kaepernick’s activism. Some resent that his example has encouraged others to kneel during the national anthem, which they believe is either unfounded protest or a misplaced act that disrespects the flag and demonstrates a lack of patriotism. Anthem protests have since become a point of contention for many NFL fans, causing some to swear off the league entirely.

In short, whether right or wrong, Nike’s use of Kaepernick has struck a raw nerve in a nation deeply divided.

Before going further, I need to say that I really didn’t want to write about this ad. Maybe it’s my Swiss heritage that makes me lean toward neutrality and dislike discord, especially political. It’s not fun for me to tackle an ad that arouses such strong social division. However, after much debate and several stops and starts, I still felt compelled to address the ad and so decided to “just do it.”

The first step in this Mindful Marketing analysis is ethics: Does Nike’s ad uphold societal values? Given the sometimes-ambiguous nature of “societal values,” that question is inherently hard to answer, but the circumstances surrounding the Nike commercial make this inquiry especially difficult.

The ad’s ‘dream big’ theme is positive and hopeful and probably not something with which many people would take issue. Instead, the debate seems to fall squarely on the company’s use of Kaepernick and whether what he represents is decent, fair, honest, respectful, and responsible (the five core values Mindful Marketing seeks to uphold).

Unfortunately, for those like me trying to make a moral judgment, both sides can make a compelling case based on the same principles. People who oppose Kaepernick can argue, for instance, that his activism unfairly characterizes police officers who are honest and considerate of others. His opponents also may contend that the anthem protests dishonor members of the armed forces who risk their lives to protect the freedoms the flag represents.

On the other hand, those who support Kaepernick can claim that the social justice movement he signifies is fundamentally about showing everyone respect. Similarly, this side shares that its aim is to ensure the fair treatment of all people.

Admittedly, the issues are more complicated than what I am presenting here; however, the point is that both sides have strong countervailing points that are difficult to adjudicate. For sake of argument, therefore, let’s give the ad the benefit of the doubt and assume that it does support societal values.

The second question, then, considers the ad’s effectiveness, which is also very difficult to discern. After the ad was released online this past Monday, several of the first news reports were of anger. Some consumers vowed to boycott Nike products, while others took more immediate and drastic action by burning their Nike shoes and socks.

Newer reports, however, have been that after the ad was released, Nike’s sales “grew 31% from the Sunday of Labor Day weekend through Tuesday, as compared with a 17% gain recorded for the same period of 2017, according to San Francisco–based Edison Trends.”

On the other hand, Nike’s stock (NKE), which had closed at $82.18 a share on Friday, August 31, closed at $80.30 a share this past Friday, September 7.

So, does Nike really know what it’s doing with the Kaepernick ad? A recent Washington Post article makes a convincing case that Nike does. Columnist Sally Jenkins maintains that the commercial positions Nike well in national and global contexts that are increasingly multicultural. She also argues that young shoppers, who are especially important to sneaker makers, want to buy products from companies that support social causes.

Public opinion is not so clear. This past Friday morning, September 7, Apex Marketing Group reported that the ad had produced $220 million in publicity for Nike: $69 million positive, $67 million negative, and $83 million neutral. Apex also noted that the percentage of positive publicity had fallen by 9 percentage points from Thursday to Friday.

Some may argue that any publicity is good publicity. That assertion, however, seems to be a myth, especially after considering organizational examples like Volkswagen and individual ones like Harvey Weinstein.

Public favor for the ad also might wane as people take more time to process the financial context surrounding Nike’s and Kaepernick’s participation in the promotion. For a few years, Kaepernick was a very good NFL quarterback, who even played in a Super Bowl. Before he began his anthem protest, he had been demoted to backup status.

Kaepernick made a total of $43 million as an NFL quarterback, of which he has donated over $1 million to a variety of social justice causes. It’s difficult to know how much, if any, money he has made as an activist, but sports agents estimate that his new Nike endorsement could be worth “millions of dollars per year.”

For these reasons, some have taken issue with the ad’s suggestion that Kaepernick ‘sacrificed everything,’ especially when compared to individuals who have given their lives in service to their country.

Kaepernick may not be serving as a Nike spokesman for the money, but it’s hard to imagine that Nike’s choice of Kaepernick was without consideration of its bottom-line, given that it’s a for-profit company that must answer to shareholders in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Not surprising, some have accused the company of “commercializing activism,” i.e., profiting from a social cause.

Another concern for Nike should be its relationship with the NFL. This past March, the NFL announced that Nike would continue to be its official supplier of uniforms and sideline gear through 2028. It’s not known how much these rights cost Nike, but it’s likely the company paid more than the $1.1 billion it reportedly invested for similar exclusivity in 2012.

The anthem protests that Kaepernick initiated continue to be a thorn in the side of the NFL. What’s more, Kaepernick has sued the NFL, claiming that the league has colluded to keep him off the field since he last played. All this to say, there are probably few people the NFL would rather not see exalted in a commercial than Kaepernick. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Nevertheless, the league has tried to put on a good face about the ad. NFL executive vice president of communications and public affairs Jocelyn Moore offered the following:

“The National Football League believes in dialogue, understanding and unity. We embrace the role and responsibility of everyone involved with this game to promote meaningful, positive change in our communities.” “The social justice issues that Colin and other professional athletes have raised deserve our attention and action.”

Despite Moore’s conciliatory tone, one has to imagine that the ad places a significant strain on the relationship between the league and Nike that will only be exacerbated if there are further defections of NFL fans. Although her response makes it seem unlikely that the NFL is considering the commercial to be any kind of contractual breach, the ad will at a minimum cause the league to think more carefully about Nike and future sponsorships.

Like the ethical analysis, assessment of the commercial’s likely effectiveness has also been complicated. In the short-term, people may continue to applaud Nike for its social conscience. The ad and Kaepernick’s lawsuit, however, must be straining its relationship with the NFL.

Moreover, the ad’s theme of “sacrificing everything,” coming from a multimillionaire and a Fortune 100 company, will increasingly ring hollow with people, especially those working two jobs to make ends meet, or mourning loved ones who truly sacrificed everything in service to their country or community.

Credible cases can be made for placing Nike’s Kaepernick commercial in any one of the four Mindful Marketing quadrants, particularly given the ad’s multifaceted social implications. The ad’s effectiveness is also debatable. However, given the strained relationship with the NFL and a likely increase in public disaffect, there’s good reason for calling the commercial “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

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Advertising Attacks Domestic Violence

8/24/2018

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

An Ohio State assistant football coach repeatedly beat his wife.

A Colorado man allegedly murdered his pregnant wife and their two daughters.

A week rarely goes by without another disturbing story of domestic violence. In the United States, 20 people are abused by an intimate partner every minute. It’s reasonable to think that such a mass problem requires a mass media solution, but is advertising the answer to decreasing domestic violence?

The United Kingdom’s National Centre for Domestic Violence (NCDV) thought so. The organization that provides “free, fast and effective legal support to survivors of domestic violence and abuse” enlisted the services of world-renown marketing firm J. Walter Thompson (JWT) to produce an anti-abuse ad campaign that ran in Europe during the recent FIFA World Cup.

The “Not-So-Beautiful Game” campaign’s target marketing and timing were insightful: Unbeknown to most of us, there is an unfortunate “correlation between domestic abuse and [soccer].” In England, for instance, domestic violence increases by 26% when its national team plays, and if it loses, incidents rise by 38%.

Such alarming statistics encouraged the NCDV and JWT to unleash a jarring counterattack. The ad campaign featured very graphic images of the results of physical abuse, each with a specific soccer team tie-in. For instance, two bandages resembling a Swiss cross barely covered the large gash on a young woman’s bruised right cheek, while the caption read “If Switzerland gets beaten, so will she.”

Another gruesome image was a straight-on shot of the lower third of a young woman’s face, stained and still dripping bright red blood from her nose and lips. The caption read, “If England gets beaten, so will she." Among other media, the ads appeared on Instagram and billboards.

A few years ago, I did a study of shock advertising and found, among other things, that marketers have long used startling words and images to gain attention for everything from clothing to fast food.

Nonprofit organizations seem especially open to employing shock, probably because they find it easier to rationalize it for what are arguably more noble ends, like alleviating hunger and decreasing smoking. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the NCDV campaign was not the first to use shock in the fight against physical abuse. For instance, a few years ago, the Salvation Army of South Africa invoked social media’s famous “black and blue” dress in an ad that showed a woman covered in bruises, with the caption “Why is it so hard to see black and blue?”

Such ads certainly grab attention, but are they effective in accomplishing the creators’ objectives, e.g., decreasing domestic violence? The results I found were mixed: In some instances the target market responded as intended, but in other cases the shock was ineffective or even counterproductive; for instance, it pushed people further from the purpose of the ad because graphic images and language repulsed viewers or overshadowed the ads’ unique selling proposition.

Regular readers of this blog know that effectiveness is only one of the assessments that Mindful Marketers make. The other involves ethics. In terms of shock, even if it works, should advertisers use it to combat domestic violence? Is shocking people the right thing to do?

I don’t know the results of NCDV’s “Not-So-Beautiful Game” campaign, so I’d like to consider the ads’ efficacy and ethicality by posing four specific questions:

1. Were the ads actually a deterrent? A key assumption of the NCDV ads seemed to be that potential abusers would see close-ups of the blood and gore and resolve not to do that to someone. Maybe that motivation works; I honestly don’t know, but it’s easy to imagine that the gruesome visuals could have the opposite effect, i.e., they set off in people predisposed to such violence a visceral reaction similar to sharks sensing blood in the water.

Whenever marketers develop ads, it’s critical that they understand the target market’s underlying reasons for acting. In the case of domestic violence, maybe it would be more effective to appeal to perpetrators’ fear of arrest, like many drunk driving ads do. Or, perhaps these abusers would be motivated by concern over lower self-esteem (“Don’t be a coward”) or by lost love (“She will leave you”).

2. Did the campaign increase desensitization? Studies have found that the more people are exposed to violence, the more desensitized they become to it. The principle of marginal utility supports these findings: The more we have of something, the less satisfaction we gain from getting one more of that thing.

We should wonder what the impact is of increased shock advertising on all of us. Sixty years ago, a huge bloody billboard would have left most people aghast. Today it takes much more to move us. The scariest part is if shock like that of the NCDV’s ads desensitizes the general public to violence, it’s also desensitizing those who are likely to commit violence against others.

3. Do people deserve to be ambushed? Yes, life is full of surprises, but should someone walking down a city street have to come across a large billboard with a blood-soaked face? Or, should a person innocently surfing the web have to see a close-up of a severely bruised and gashed cheek?

For most people, such graphic images are outside the realm of ordinary life. They should have a say in whether they want to see them or not. It doesn’t seem right for advertisers to confront people with such visuals without fair warning or giving them the ability to opt out.

4. Who else saw the ads? The previous question leads naturally to this final point. Advertising is by definition mass communication, which is inherently hard to control, at least when it uses traditional media. A company can choose a billboard based on a location that the target market frequents, but there’s nothing to stop others outside the target market from being exposed to the same message.

That lack of audience selectivity is inefficient, but the bigger problem pertains to those who could be traumatized by shocking images, namely children. Advertisers also should consider the increasingly large number of people who have been victims of domestic violence. They don’t deserve to be vividly reminded of their experience when walking down a street or browsing online.

Advertising that employs shock, like the “Not-So-Beautiful Game” campaign, often rationalizes that ‘the ends justify the means.’ That line of thinking is highly questionable. It’s also unclear whether such advertising actually produces net benefits. The NCDV’s ads may have been well-intended, but they were most likely “Mindless Marketing.”

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Does Apple Really Care About iPhone Addiction?

6/15/2018

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

Like breathing, our smartphone use has become almost an involuntary action. Whenever we find a spare 60 seconds, we pull them out, sometimes without a specific reason. It’s no wonder research suggests that smartphones are addictive. What’s surprising is who wants to help us resist the urge: Apple.

That’s right, the global technology leader and iconic iPhone maker wants to lessen smartphone use. Such a notion sounds as believable as Dunkin limiting donut sales or Papa John’s restricting pizza purchases, but Apple actually has a strategy for curbing customer consumption.

At its recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Jose, Apple’s Craig Federighi described the plans, which are part of the company’s Digital Health Initiative: “a series of tools to help users monitor how much time they spend on their devices and inside of certain applications.”

More specifically, the new software features will allow users to do things such as:

Monitor and set limits on their screen time
Manage notifications more effectively in order to avoid distracting pings from texts, etc.
Set better parameters for Do Not Disturb, e.g., during meals or bedtime

All of this sounds nice, but let’s be real: Companies want consumers to use their products more, not less. Can you imagine a business meeting in which the CEO says, “We need to see a 15% decrease in sales next quarter”? Such self-limiting action almost never happens; however, it can occur, and there are plausible reasons for Apple to consider it.

First, it’s helpful to recognize Apple’s unique position of influence. With a market cap that’s approaching an unimaginable $1 trillion, Apple is the world’s most valuable company. It’s global share of smartphones is second only to Samsung, and in the fourth quarter of 2017, Apple’s sales surpassed those of its close rival. In the United States, Apple is the leading smartphone OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer).

For these reasons, Apple generates considerable public interest (big understatement), which comes with a higher degree of scrutiny than most companies ever experience. Almost anything Apple does, or doesn’t do, is newsworthy and plays out in the media spotlight.

Second, technology is, for many of us, a mixed blessing. We love the things it does for us, but we’re worried about everything from artificial intelligence taking our jobs to smart speakers co-opting our kids. We’re also concerned how digital devices, despite their benefits, may be adversely affecting our daily lives.

That’s the context in which Apple operates. In sum, the company is ‘the’ culture-tech leader in a world that’s still trying to figure out what’s appropriate use of smartphones and similar devices. By self-regulating, Apple seems to be stepping up and saying that it will be ‘the adult in the room.’

So, maybe Apple’s Digital Health Initiative is socially responsible and perhaps it will generate goodwill, but won’t the program also threaten the firm’s financial health? Probably not. Though rare, there are legitimate reasons why a company might try to decrease use of its own products:

To avoid legal issues: A classic example is a bar refusing to serve a patron who has already had one too many drinks. The pub could see a lawsuit if one of its customers drives drunk and injures another person.

To lessen crowding: No one wants to be packed like sardines into an airplane, train, etc. So, transportation companies often raise prices during peak travel times in order to decrease demand. Some highways have even implemented a similar approach of “dynamic tolls” in order to reduce rush-hour traffic.

To increase customer satisfaction: The law of diminishing marginal utility says that people gain less enjoyment per unit from each additional unit they consume and at some point, the cost of consumption starts to outweigh its benefits. No organization should push its customers beyond that point. Short-run sales may be nice, but customer regret will hurt the company in the long run.

This third reason is likely the one that Apple’s Digital Health Initiative has most squarely in mind. If consumers use their iPhones in excess, they could jeopardize their jobs, their education, their relationships, and more. At any of those points, their attitude toward Apple could change for the worse, which might lead them to drop their smartphones entirely, as some people have done, including a surprising set of A-list celebrities.

For these reasons, we can place some trust in Apple’s self-regulation initiative. Laws aimed at curbing smartphone use are very unlikely to come. Furthermore, the company deserves kudos for getting the jump on any significant social pressure to reform. In this case, less Apple is more “Mindful Marketing.”

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Should Alexa Be a Kid's Best Friend?

5/4/2018

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

When you were a kid, who did you go to for questions? You probably asked mom or dad, or if you were really desperate, you looked something up in an encyclopedia. In an age of artificial intelligence and voice assistants, such queries seem antiquated, but should Amazon be encouraging kids to ‘ask Alexa’?

Children are incredible imitators and adopters of the technology they see adults using. A few weeks ago, I was amazed at the savvy of a one-and-a-half-year-old I know. She isn’t old enough to talk, yet she knows how to swipe through photos on her grandpa’s smartphone.

Amazon introduced its Echo smart speaker with Alexa in November of 2014 to target adults. Since then, Alexa, Siri, and other voice assistants have begun making their way into more homes than Amway and Avon. According to TechCrunch, 16% of Americans, or about 39 million people own a smart speaker.

Voicebot breaks down those statistics further, reporting that nearly one out of every five adults has a smart speaker. It’s hard to believe that the market for such devices is already approaching saturation, which explains why a company like Amazon is looking at a new segment with less contested growth—children.

The ecommerce icon recently announced the addition of a smart speaker specifically made for kids: Echo Dot, Kids Edition. The newest addition to the Echo line will be available for sale May 9, 2018, for $79.99, or about $30 more than a regular Echo.

So, what makes the Echo Dot for tots kid-friendly and worth 37% more than the original? The device’s red, green, and blue color options certainly appeal to kids, but to penetrate the wallets of picky parents, this Echo definitely needs to do some different things, which it does. Here are several of the most notable tasks Alexa accomplishes for kids, all with flexible parental controls:

Answers questions, reads stories, and tells age-appropriate jokes
Plays music, including ad-free radio stations and Amazon music
Plays Audible books
Plays games from Disney, National Geographic, and Nickelodeon
Calls kids for dinner or tells them it’s bedtime via other Amazon Echo devices

It’s worth noting that much of this content comes courtesy of a subscription to FreeTime Unlimited which is included for the first year, then costs $2.99 a month thereafter.

Those are some impressive offerings from a product that’s about the size of a hockey puck. Kids will likely love having their own Echo Dot, partly because they appreciate having ‘their own’ anything, but also because of all that this one does just for them. Meanwhile, parents who buy these Dots will come out looking like heroes, mainly because of the product’s vast capacity to entertain.

So, it seems like a win-win for kids and parents. At the same time, there’s something unsettling about a device doing so much for children. Maybe you’re asking yourself these same kinds of questions about the kids’ Echo Dot:

1. Will it make kids rude? One of the concerns people have had about voice assistants is that by catering so quickly to our demands, they’re turning us into a society of ingrates. Amazon has taken into account that potential by programming politeness recognition into the kids’ Dot. For instance, if children say “please,” the device will thank them for asking nicely.

Such positive reinforcement sounds good, but one has to wonder how long it will take kids to realize that by skipping the pleasantries, they’ll get the same information, more quickly.

2. Will it undermine interpersonal skills? Being polite is important, but even more critical communication skills could be at stake. What happens over time when talking to machines replaces talking to people?

Individuals have had similar concerns about teens texting. Under the age of 12, children are really refining their language, conversation, and social skills, which makes it all the more important that they are learning helpful interpersonal communication habits.

3. Will it present a privacy risk? In the wake of high-profile data breaches and the case of Facebook/Cambridge Analytica, privacy should be a priority for every adult. Keeping our kids safe is an even bigger concern.

BuzzFeed reports that Amazon “does not use data harvested from user actions to compile a back-end profile (often called a ‘shadow profile’) for marketing or other purposes.” Rather, Amazon claims that any such data use is simply to customize and enhance the user’s experience. It has to be getting harder for Amazon to resist the temptation to leverage information gleaned from Alexa to promote its retail sales, but at this point, we probably need to take the company at its word.

However, there are other potential privacy concerns, one of which is hacking. A few years ago, a couple of hackers succeeded in breaking into a Jeep Cherokee’s computer system and controlled a variety of the vehicle’s features from afar. In the Internet of Things, it’s scary to think of a similar breach happening in a five-year-old’s bedroom, with a mic that’s always on and listening.

Another privacy concern might come from a much closer yet less obvious source: the children’s own parents. According to Amazon’s website, parents can “monitor activity from the Amazon parent dashboard,” as well as hear what’s happening in their kids’ rooms via Echo Dots’ mics and speakers. That kind of monitoring may be important for babies or very young children, but as kids get older, they deserve to have some privacy in their personal space.

4. Will it become a parenting substitute? Each of the preceding points are worrying, but in many ways, this last one is the most concerning. Given everything that the kids’ Echo Dot does, will it put parents out of a job?

Of course, that question is an exaggeration, but it’s sad to think that children will soon be asking Alexa, not their parents, to read them stories, play games, and answer questions that often spur important conversations.

On one hand, this isn’t the first time technology has threatened to disrupt parent-child relationships (e.g., television, VCRs, DVD players); however, those earlier examples aren’t quite the same. The artificial intelligence and ‘human-like-ness’ of voice assistants put them on a different plane than any other consumer technology.

Amazon’s latest Echo Dot is in many ways an exciting new product that promises considerable utility in terms of education and convenience. These benefits, however, probably don’t outweigh the risks related to things such as reduced privacy and weakened relationships. For these reasons, we need to tell Alexa that the kids' Echo Dot is “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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A Marketing-Ethics Professor Grades Facebook’s Data Policy

4/21/2018

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

You’ve heard about Cambridge Analytica, data-sharing, the 2016 election, and Mark Zuckerberg’s two trips to Capitol Hill. Rather than add one more opinion of what went wrong and why, I’d like to share something a few of Facebook’s two billion users might find even more helpful: an evaluation of the social media giant’s current data policy.

As an educator, I wasn’t eager to tackle another big ‘grading’ project (I have plenty of others right now), but after pouring over the firm’s privacy-related webpages, I’m glad I did. I learned much in the process, and I believe there are several useful takeaways for others who have an interest in how Facebook manages our data.

Most of my analysis stems from Facebook’s Data Policy page, which describes at length the company’s approach to user privacy. This page also contains links to a variety of other pages that unpack specific components of the policy.

Here’s my evaluation:

Readability: "A"
We’ve all experienced contracts and terms of service that we can tell at a glance will be a ‘bear’ to get through, perhaps because of all capital letters or marathon paragraphs. Facebook’s formatting is much more user-friendly, which may seem like a small thing, but if people avoid reading the policy, what good is it?

The policy features short paragraphs, many with three sentences or less, prefaced by bolded headings, which help readers locate specific information. Likewise, the overall organization of material is clear and logical. For instance, several main headings, set in a larger blue font, delineate sections for answering: “What kinds of information do we collect?” “How do we use this information?” and “How is this information shared?”

Clarity: "A"
Organization and formatting are helpful, but they’re meaningless if we can’t interpret what’s said. Most of us have experienced the mind-numbing legalese that seems as if it were written to confuse and confound. Fortunately, Facebook uses language that’s much more accessible, and if technical terms that some users may not recognize are needed, the company explains the concepts. For example, here’s how the firm describes cookies:

“Cookies are small pieces of text used to store information on web browsers. Cookies are used to store and receive identifiers and other information on computers, phones, and other devices. Other technologies, including data we store on your web browser or device, identifiers associated with your device, and other software, are used for similar purposes. In this policy, we refer to all of these technologies as ‘cookies.’”

Sometimes, however, even a clear explanation is not enough. In those instances, Facebook goes a step further by providing specific examples like the following one to describe how it shares data with third parties:

“We may tell an advertiser how its ads performed, or how many people viewed their ads or installed an app after seeing an ad, or provide non-personally identifying demographic information (such as 25 year old female, in Madrid, who likes software engineering) [emphasis added] to these partners to help them understand their audience or customers, but only after the advertiser has agreed to abide by our advertiser guidelines.”

Ease of Use: "A-"
Given that Facebook’s business model is based almost entirely on managing user-provided information, it’s data policy is inherently complex, which makes it all-the-more important that users can easily find the information they want and make changes to fit their personal preferences.

The company facilitates those objectives by making ample use of hyperlinks to other pages, like this one for advertising preferences, which allows users to better understand and manage the ads they see. Facebook also has programmed a decent amount of flexibility into data-related settings. Similar to the previous example, users also can determine the specific information they’d like to keep private vs. make public through means such as managing their Public Profile and using the Activity Log tool.

In addition, Facebook allows users to delete their accounts whenever they wish, or deactivate them temporarily. With those options, however, comes an important caveat from the company: “Keep in mind that information that others have shared about you is not part of your account and will not be deleted when you delete your account.”

Facebook’s ease of use slips somewhat when it comes to reporting others’ objectionable content. On its webpage “Details on Social Reporting,” the company says, “We encourage people on Facebook to use the report buttons located across our site [emphasis added] to let us know if they find content that violates our terms of use so we can take it down.” However, no such buttons are readily visible. Instead, the intended option for such censure appears to lie under each post’s three-dot drop-down menu under the somewhat ambiguous selection “Give feedback about this post.”

Transparency and Thoroughness: "B+"
Brevity is a virtue, but that benefit is lost if there’s not enough information to adequately communicate a message. In many ways, Facebook does a good job detailing its multifaceted data policy. For instance, it identifies each type of third party with which it shares information about its users: advertising, measurement and analytics services, vendors, service providers, and other partners. Facebook also broadly describes the kinds of information these third parties receive and how they use it.

Along the way, the company provides links to other pages that contain more detailed information, such as advertiser guidelines, the kinds of information it collects, and how users can control the types of ads they receive. In addition, Facebook offers in its Help Center a “Security Checkup” and a series of security tips with links to additional resources such as password protection and antivirus software for Mac and Windows operating systems. Unfortunately, the Microsoft link is broken.

How could Facebook be more thorough and transparent? The company states:

“We do not share information that personally identifies you (personally identifiable information is information like name or email address that can by itself be used to contact you or identifies who you are) with advertising, measurement or analytics partners unless you give us permission [emphasis added].”

As a researcher, the notion that Facebook aggregates data and maintains individual users’ anonymity is reassuring. As a Facebook user, however, I’d like more explanation for the final part of the above statement: “unless you give us permission.” How exactly do we give Facebook permission to share “personally identifiable information,” where is it possible to view the permissions we have granted, and how can we rescind such permissions, if we want to do so? Similarly, Facebook’s data policy states:

“We transfer information [emphasis added] to vendors, service providers, and other partners who globally support our business, such as providing technical infrastructure services, analyzing how our Services are used, measuring the effectiveness of ads and services, providing customer service, facilitating payments, or conducting academic research and surveys. These partners must adhere to strict confidentiality obligations [emphasis added] in a way that is consistent with this Data Policy and the agreements we enter into with them.”

“Transfer information” seems like another way of saying ‘share data,’ which is reminiscent of the Cambridge Analytica debacle. Of course, Facebook adds that “these partners must adhere to strict confidentiality obligations,” but how exactly is that third-party confidentiality monitored and enforced? Perhaps the answer is ‘above our pay grade’ as consumers; yet, it would be comforting to know that new and more effective standards for accountability are in place that will help to avoid a similar Cambridge Analytica breakdown.

Conclusion
Along with the preceding assessment, it’s important to note three things:

1. We use Facebook for free. Since users don’t pay for Facebook, the social media platform needs to cover its costs somehow. Like most other media, it does so through advertising revenue. Advertisers aren’t going to foot the bill, however, unless they know who they’re reaching, hence the need to share at least some user data.

2. The purpose of Facebook is to share information. If we posted things on Facebook and no one ever saw them, we’d be upset. The very reason we use the platform is to share information. Granted, we may only want to share things with our friends or certain others, but in keeping with the prior point, ‘beggars can’t be choosers.’

3. Users enjoy a better experience when Facebook utilizes their data. Granted, we don’t want to be taken advantage of, but seeing ads for products we want or content related to topics we like are usually preferable to exposure to things that are of no interest to us. Such customization is possible because of the data we provide.

As the preceding analysis has suggested, Facebook’s data policy isn’t perfect. However, given the information-intensive nature of the company’s operations and the many different stakeholder groups who rely on that data, the company is doing a commendable job—one that warrants recognition as “Mindful Marketing.”

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Should Cars Drive Themselves?

4/6/2018

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

It was around 10 pm on a Sunday evening in March. Elaine Herzberg was walking her bike across N. Mill Avenue in Tempe, AZ, when a Volvo XC90 SUV traveling 40 mph struck and killed her. Tragically, about 6,000 pedestrians a year become traffic fatalities. Herzberg’s death, however, was different. She was the first pedestrian killed by a self-driving car.

While driverless vehicles have been the subjects of dreams and experiments for almost a century, truly autonomous vehicles have been reality for only about a decade. Google began its Waymo self-driving car program in 2009. By 2012, its driverless vehicles had logged over 300,000 miles. In 2015 came the “world’s first fully self-driving ride on public roads,” which truly opened the door for autonomous vehicle accidents.

The first death due to an autonomous car occurred in 2017 when a 40-year-old Tesla driver, who was using the car’s “Autopilot” driver-assist system, crashed into a large truck that turned in front of it. Investigators found that the system failed to distinguish the white truck from the bright sky.

More recently, in March 2018, a 38-year-old man died near Mountain View, CA when his Tesla Model X hit a concrete barrier. The driver was also using the car’s Autopilot system, which “allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel for extended periods under certain conditions.” Similar to the other Tesla crash, the system apparently failed to identify the divider. Two other vehicles also were involved in the accident.

Such tragedies may make us ask: Should cars operate on their own? Driving is a complicated activity that requires sharp mental and physical skills, as well as strong intuition, i.e., a clear sense of how to react, often in an instant. Artificial intelligence and other ‘smart’ technology have gotten very good, but can we really trust computer code and CPUs to protect people from a complex collection of fast-moving metal? Is it safe to hand over our keys to the cars themselves?

According to Business Insider, by the year 2020 there will be more than 10 million self-driving cars on U.S. roads. That’s a significant number of vehicles making their own way, and a good guess is that number will continue to grow. In fact, some predict that by 2030, one out of every four vehicles will be self-driving.

What’s driving the success of self-driving vehicles? Compared to conventional cars, autonomous ones have several advantages, for instance:

More efficient operation, including optimized braking and accelerating
Lower emissions due to better driving and possibly fewer vehicles
More self-time: people can potentially do other things while they ride

There also are millions of people who can’t drive cars for various reasons including physical and cognitive limitations. For such individuals, a self-driving car may be more than a simple convenience; it can be a life-changing tool.

But what about safety? Surely none of these benefits is worth putting more lives at risk of auto accidents. That would be true, except that greater safety is actually an advantage of autonomous cars. According to BI Intelligence: “The biggest benefits of self-driving cars are that they will help to make roads safer and people's lives easier.”

Business Insider cites a KPMG estimate that in the United Kingdom alone, self-driving cars will save 2,500 lives over a period of about 16 years. In the United States, autonomous vehicles could prevent 300,000 traffic fatalities per decade.

Such statistics may be hard to believe in light of the recent tragic headlines that prefaced this piece. There are, however, two important points to consider when assessing autonomous vehicle safety:

1. Self-driving cars are still in their infancy. They’ve only been tested on real roads for a few years. The technology that powers them will keep getting better and as improvements are made, the vehicles will become even safer.

2. In most cases, technology does things much more efficiently and effectively than humans do. Take, for instance, automated food production. Machines make every Oreo, can of Coke, and Reese’s Cup virtually identical to the last one. If we had to produce such items by hand, most of us would be lucky to make any two look similar. Of course, driving occurs in a more open and unpredictable environment, but similar accuracy and reliability have already been applied to autonomous cars, with more advancements to come.

It’s heartbreaking when lives are lost, especially due to accidents. As such, it’s wise to be cautious with new and potentially dangerous technology that’s still being refined. Although a few very unfortunate accidents have understandably garnered media attention, self-driving cars still promise to make our highways safer. Those developing these vehicles responsibly are on the right side of the road, driving forward with “Mindful Marketing.”

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L.L. Bean's Still Happy Returns

2/23/2018

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

There were three certain things in life: death, taxes, and L.L. Bean’s return policy. We’re now back to two. The iconic outdoor retailer’s decision to rescind its legendary product guarantee has ignited a social media firestorm, but who’s really responsible for the return policy retraction?

Leon Leonwood Bean founded L.L. Bean in Freeport, ME in 1912 to provide a single product: a duck boot called the Maine Hunting Shoe. Over the next 100+ years, the company expanded considerably, both in scale and scope. Despite the great growth, the firm maintained an unwavering focus on quality, backed by a virtually unequaled product return policy.

For more than a century, L.L Bean made a practice of “accepting any return, at any time, in any condition, regardless of the origin of the item.” However, that very liberal largesse came to an end just a few weeks ago when the company announced it would rein in its return policy. L.L. Bean now guarantees its products as follows:

“We stand behind all our products and are confident that they will perform as designed. If you are not 100% satisfied with one of our products, you may return it within one year of purchase for a refund. After one year, we will consider any items for return that are defective due to materials or craftsmanship.”

The company adds that it requires proof of purchase for any refund or exchange, but if customers provide their information at checkout, L.L. Bean will usually have record of the purchase. If not, a physical receipt is needed. In the case of gifts or other returns without receipts, the firm will offer merchandise credit in the amount of the last known selling price, provided that the product is “unused and unworn with the original packaging.”

So, why the change of heart after so many years? According to Forbes, abuse of L.L. Bean’s very generous return policy has been happening for decades; however, the exploitation reached a tipping point in recent years thanks to some particularly obnoxious behavior.

Some people, for instance, found that they could pick-up well-used L.L. Bean items at yard sales and second-hand stores and return them to the retailer for a full-price refund. With the expansion of ecommerce, such unscrupulous behavior has only increased as returns now can be made from anywhere without having to “look a company representative in the eye” when making an appeal.

It’s likely that L.L. Bean’s decision also has something to do with the pressure that so many retailers are now under, especially from Amazon, which has led to many Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings and the promise of even more store closings. Regardless of the specific reasons, L.L. Bean finally decided enough was enough.

Not surprising, many consumers have had a hard time swallowing L.L. Bean’s policy change and no problem voicing their displeasure. For example, one disgruntled customer complained, “Your return policy was the only reason I shopped at #LLBean! I shared your amazing service with friends, colleagues, and more. Now, I'll be sure to suggest they avoid like the plague!”

Others are even more adamant in their claim of personal harm, so much so that they’ve decided to pursue legal action. Victor Bondi recently filed a complaint in Chicago federal court seeking class-action status for a lawsuit against L.L. Bean. The suit alleges that the company is now depriving customers of benefits they had been promised by virtue of the long-standing and heavily-promoted warranty, which had ‘no conditions’ and ‘no end date.’

L.L. Bean likely anticipated that revising its return policy would not be popular, but did it anticipate this kind of backlash? Perhaps it should have, and maybe it could have taken a different tact and/or timeline in communicating and implementing the change. However, was the change itself wrong? As with every Mindful Marketing analysis, there are two filters for answering that question: economics and ethics.

According to Bloomberg, L.L. Bean has seen its rate of “abusive” returns double in the past five so that they now account for a full 15% of all returns. Over that timeframe, those abusive returns cost the company about $250 million.

Against annual revenue of around $1.6 billion, $250 million may not seem like much, but successful companies don’t concede hundreds of millions of dollars unnecessarily, especially when their sales have been “flat for a second straight year” and the retail landscape is increasingly competitive. Furthermore, L.L. Bean had to do something to stem the rapid increase of illegitimate returns, lest even more dishonest consumers try to defraud the company.

But doesn’t the new policy penalize honest customers who bought products with a certain understanding, only to have those terms of purchase changed without their consent or compensation? That’s a fair concern; however, two key factors diminish the argument:

First, L.L. Bean’s original guarantee was not a promise of lifetime replenishment. In other words, there was no reasonable way to interpret that the policy meant customers could buy a product, use it for years and years, then ask for a new one.

Every product wears out eventually. No clothing retailer is responsible for keeping its customers outfitted in pants, hiking shoes, or whatever, just because they once bought a pair from them. If people are looking for an “All you can . . .” option, they should go to a buffet. Interestingly, even such restaurants have restrictions, e.g., you can’t stay in the building indefinitely, and you can’t take food with you when you leave.

Secondly, even with the change, L.L. Bean’s policy is still far better than industry standards. Most retailers allow a couple of weeks or maybe a month to make a return. A few graciously give three months. I can’t think of another retailer that allows a full refund for a full year for no more reason than “I’m not completely satisfied.”

Furthermore, even after a year, L.L. Bean will still allow returns of products that “are defective due to materials or craftsmanship.” So, the company continues to have its customers’ back. Of course, this caveat means that consumers also must show good faith and make a compelling case for the return, not just “I wore it out over 15 years, now I want a new one.”

To use an analogy, many consumers have acted like horrible house guests who have taken advantage of their host’s generosity. L.L. Bean gave some special privileges to those guests, but in return they ransacked the refrigerator, beat up the furniture, and long overstayed their welcome. That bad behavior has forced L.L. Bean to enact some more restrictive but still very reasonable boundaries.

Individuals often react negatively to change, especially when it doesn’t seem to be in their favor. Rationale people, however, can understand why L.L. Bean’s policy change was warranted and how it’s still far better than industry standards. As a result, there should be very little loss in long-term business for the retailer.

In this instance, those guilty of single-mindedness are consumers. L.L. Bean’s new approach to returns checks out as “Mindful Marketing.”

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Does 'Amazon Go' Mean Goodbye to Jobs?

1/27/2018

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

Imagine walking into a store, taking whatever you want, and walking out. What sounds like a shoplifter’s fantasy, Amazon has made a reality, of sorts, in its one-of-a-kind Seattle store. Customers still need to pay, but the entire process is automated electronically, which may lead some to ask, ‘Is Amazon’s cashier-less concept endangering employment?’

It may seem strange that the king of ecommerce is bothering at all with old-school, brick-and-mortar retail, let alone a self-checkout store. Many online retailers, however, have found that the secret to long-term success involves a combination of “bricks and clicks,” i.e., both a traditional and a virtual market presence.

Of course, this is not Amazon’s first foray into physical retail. The company already has a handful of retail stores. A main reason for these tangible outlets is that, as convenient as ecommerce may be, there are certain things that people want NOW, and they’re not willing to wait overnight or even a few hours, if same-day delivery happens to be possible. In sum, Amazon doesn’t want to miss out on the market for immediacy.

With its new “Amazon Go” store the company has taken ‘fast’ a big step further by eliminating the checkout line. Here’s how the “Just Walk Out Technology” works. Amazon account holders download the free Amazon Go app and scan their smartphones when entering the store. Every item they choose from store shelves, then, is automatically placed in their virtual shopping cart by means of “the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning.” When customers exit the store, the system charges their Amazon accounts and sends them receipts for their purchases, all without them ever entering a checkout line.

What can people buy at this one-of-a-kind store that claims “The world’s most advanced shopping technology”? At this point, the options are mainly grocery items, including Amazon Meal Kits. It makes sense for Amazon Go to focus on food because edibles are what people most often want to get quickly; they certainly don’t want to wait the days or weeks it takes to receive some goods from Amazon.com.

But, a cashier-less store is a potential cause for concern, for at least a few reasons. First and foremost, it seems like the technology could be taking workers’ jobs. People get paid to run cash registers and otherwise help check others out of stores. Granted, Amazon isn’t a big brick-and-mortar retailer now, but that seems to be changing. After opening its first Amazon Books store in Seattle in November 2015, the company now operates in a dozen more locations scattered throughout the U.S., with plans to open several more soon.

Even if Amazon doesn’t implement cashier-less checkout in its Books stores, or it fails to make its Go stores as ubiquitous as McDonald’s restaurants, the employment impact of the technology will still spread. It’s likely that other retailers and technology companies are already working on their own versions of Just Walk Out Technology that one or more of them will pilot in the near future. Then, after fixing the flaws, the technology will likely penetrate more and more retail sectors, just like self-checkout spread from grocery stores to big box retailers and beyond.

So, there’s potential that not just a few dozen, but thousands, tens of thousands, or more cashiers could be displaced. For instance, there are over 154,000 convenience stores in the United States. If just 10% of those stores adopted something akin to Amazon’s Just Walk Out Technology, and each store employed four cashiers, there would be over 61,000 people out of work.

Such projections make cashier-less shopping or any technology that replaces human labor sound bad, but is it really? Just a century or so ago, many people were employed in basic manual tasks, like digging holes, ditches, etc. If you’ve ever dug a hole of a significant size in solid ground, you know it’s a very strenuous task.

Thankfully, ingenious individuals invented machines like the bulldozer and backhoe that dig far more effectively than even a hoard of humans with shovels. Did that technology take jobs away from people who could dig? Yes. But that displacement was ultimately for their own good, as well as the good of society. Few people want to make a living digging holes by hand. It’s much less strenuous and more stimulating to operate the machinery that does the digging, or to plan where the digging should be done, or to build the homes, highways, etc. that use the holes and help drive the economy.

Of course, being a cashier demands a broader range of skills than digging a hole; yet, most cashiers probably would welcome the opportunity to do work with more variety or challenge, maybe after receiving some additional training or education. Regardless, we all must recognize that technological advancements have changed the way people have worked for millennia, and they will continue to do so. What’s more, that rate of change may be increasing when one considers recent innovations in areas such as robotics, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.

Someone who knows something about technology and job creation is Microsoft founder and philanthropist, Bill Gates. The software that Gates developed decades ago and the advancements it supported, inevitably led to the displacement of workers whose job skills were passé.

However, that technology also created thousands upon thousands of new and more engaging employment opportunities for individuals who learned to leverage that technology. In an interview with Fox Business, Gates suggested that the same cycle of economic growth and job reassignment will continue in the wake of the latest applications of new tech.

Amazon Go is a ‘prime’ example of technological advance sparking job skill evolution and likely economic growth. Although the store doesn’t have cashiers, it employs a variety of other individuals in meaningful work that includes making the retailer’s ready-to-eat food and offering customers product recommendations. What's more, people are needed to build, install, and maintain the Just Walk Out systems.

Amazon isn’t guilty of eliminating jobs; rather it’s created new and more interesting opportunities for individuals, particularly for ones who embrace technology and invest in their own professional development. In sum, Amazon Go checks out as “Mindful Marketing.”

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Apple Slows iPhones

12/29/2017

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

This fast-paced world leaves many of us longing for a simpler life with a more relaxed pace. Slower does seem better, until we realize it’s our smartphone that’s slowing. When that reality hits of millions of consumers at the same time, there’s bound to be a backlash, which is what Apple recently experienced after stating that some of its iPhones may not be as speedy as they could be.

You probably noticed the recent rash of news stories, all with a similar headline: Apple intentionally slows iPhones! Such pieces resonated with you personally if you own an older iPhone and experienced the frustration of waiting for apps to activate or data to download.

What sparked the media firestorm? Two specific posts on the social media site Reddit were the main impetus. Through a set of before-and-after Geekbench tests to measure his iPhone 6’s processor speed, a user named “TeckFire” found that his phone became much faster after replacing the phone’s battery. His conclusion from the experience was that “Apple slows down phones when their battery gets too low, so you can still have a full days charge.”

He followed up his original post by later sharing what he said was “Apple’s official statement on the matter”:

“Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.”

Apple continued its explanation:

“Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.”

So, that sounds like Apple admitting it sometimes slows its smartphones. Such a controversial confession from the world’s most valuable company doesn’t happen every day, which is why news media like CNN, Forbes, and The New York Times, quickly picked up the story.

Not surprising, Apple’s revelation has upset many consumers frustrated by the notion that their phones are not as fast as they could be. One such customer who apparently has decided to turn his irritation into legal action is Stefan Bogdanovich of Los Angeles. According to TMZ, he is suing Apple, claiming that the slowdown diminishes the phone’s value, as well as encourages users to needlessly abandon their older iPhones in favor of the latest models. Others have filed similar complaints.

Bogdanovich’s lawsuit certainly doesn’t represent the first time a firm has been accused of planned obsolescence. Indeed, some companies have resorted to the unethical approach, believing that the best way to build business was to impair their own products so customers would be more inclined to buy newer models, even though the ones they already owned were still very useable.

Besides being morally unacceptable, planned obsolescence is also a very risky business strategy. Disappointing one’s own customers can easily drive them to competitors while causing serious self-inflicted damage to one’s own brand. Why, then, would a market leader like Apple risk such a desperate scheme?

The most likely answer is it wouldn’t try planned obsolescence, which means something else probably explains Apple’s decision to slow its iPhone. Brian X. Chen, the lead consumer technology writer for The New York Times, provides an excellent analysis of the company’s approach:

“What Apple is acknowledging is a power management technique in which the iPhone scales back processing power to keep the device running for longer when its battery health is low. Lithium ion batteries have a limited number of charge “cycles” before they can no longer be recharged properly. Apple’s website says the battery loses about 20 percent of its original capacity after 500 charge cycles.”

Chen summarizes: “if your iPhone is beginning to run out of battery capacity, these slowdowns might kick in to keep it running for longer or prevent it from shutting down unexpectedly.” His expert opinion supports Apple’s assertion to TeckFire that slowdowns are ultimately in customers’ best interests: “Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices.”

If people have a choice between their smartphones running faster or slower, of course they’ll choose ‘faster.’ But, if the options are ‘going a little slower’ or ‘shutting down,’ most people will admit they can wait. The trade-off is analogous to other experiences in life, like when driving. While we almost always want to get to our destinations faster, most of us would rather slow down a little than have an accident.

So, it seems like the adage, “speed kills” also rings true for iPhones, which means Apple did its customers a favor by slowing their devices in order to avoid crashes. Yes, in an ideal world battery life wouldn’t diminish over time and hardware would be completely stable, but even the world’s most valuable company must operate within current technology constraints.

Apple has since apologized for not informing consumers about its actions, and it has lowered the price of battery replacement on the affected iPhones from $79 to $29. Perhaps more transparency sooner would have helped, but Apple really didn’t need to tell others what it was doing because its actions were in consumers’ best interests. Although not an ideal example, Apple’s iPhone slowdown ultimately was “Mindful Marketing.”

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The Gift of Work

12/14/2017

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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

What’s the nicest gift anyone has ever given you? Maybe it was a special toy when you were a child, or a critical gift of cash when you were in great need. There’s another very important gift that many of us take for granted—work. Thankfully, one caring company gives that opportunity to a special group of people who otherwise may never enjoy it.

“Really? How is work a gift?” you may be wondering. That claim understandably draws skepticism. After all, work can be unpleasant, difficult, and even dangerous. Some people spend the better part of their day, and their lives, trying to avoid work. So, why call work a gift?

First, work is a source of livelihood for most of us. We’re able to put food on the table and pay bills because we work. Even more, however, meaningful work provides a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. When we’re fortunate enough to do work that we’re good at and enjoy, work isn’t a curse, it’s a blessing.

Unfortunately, however, some people, don’t get the opportunity to work, through no fault of their own. Because they have a disability, others assume they can’t do certain jobs and, therefore, regard them as unemployable. Such is the situation for many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs).

In 2016, Amy and Ben Wright opened Bitty & Beau's Coffee Shop in Wilmington, NC because they wanted to make the world a more welcoming place for those living with IDDs. Some organizations might advance such a mission by donating a portion of their profits to a worthy cause. The Wrights, however, act out their convictions in an even more direct way—they employ about 40 wonderful people who happen to have IDDs.

Why would the Wrights want to take on such a unique and likely challenging task? For one thing, the owners have a direct connection to their special employee base. Bitty and Beau, the shop’s namesakes and the Wright’s two youngest children, both have Down syndrome. So, parental compassion is understandable at play.

What’s more, the Wrights are moved by the fact that “70 percent of adults with intellectual and physical disabilities do not have jobs.” But, do people with IDDs need to work? Certainly, someone will provide for them if they can’t do so for themselves. Amy Wright reiterates this blog post’s opening as she explains why the value of work is much more than earning an income:

“Having a workplace that makes you feel proud of yourself and gives you a sense of community is something we all want. For our employees, I feel like it's the first time they've had that. We figured out what their skill set was and we plugged them in. They're proud to be employed by Bitty and Beau's Coffee, and they will shout it from the rooftops. It's given them purpose and a sense of being valued in ways that we take for granted.”

One of those employees, Jesse, shares why she values her work:
“My job gives me confidence and helps me grow as a person. My job brings me joy and happiness.”

Bitty & Beau’s clearly makes a big difference in the lives of the people it employs; however, that’s not the end of the impact. There’s another group of people who are also very positively influenced: the coffee shop’s customers.

A key part of Bitty & Beau’s mission is also to “bring the community together and to help people with and without disabilities spend time together.” That interaction is an overwhelmingly positive and often eye-opening experience for customers. Amy Wright again explains:

“Creating (Bitty & Beau’s) has given people a way to interact with people with disabilities that (they) never had before. This is a safe place where people can test the waters and realize how much more alike we are than different.”

Of course, not everyone welcomes the opportunity to interact with individuals who are different than they are, but plenty of other people do, and it’s that latter group that has helped make Bitty and Beau’s a success. Yes, the customers like the products, but “they really come in for the unique customer service experience,” which transforms individuals and can “forever change the way communities view those with IDD.” As testament to that success, the Wrights plan to open a second location of Bitty & Beau’s soon in Charleston, SC.

By providing meaningful work for individuals with IDDs, Bitty & Beau’s gives an invaluable gift to an often-marginalized group of people. Those passionate employees, in turn, bless the many customers who frequent the coffee shop, attracted by a truly unique value proposition. In short, Bitty & Beau’s is an excellent example of “Mindful Marketing.”