Category: Respect170bbeec51

Selling Social Issues

6/5/2022

by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

Besides being a tasty treat that almost everyone enjoys, ice cream is a ‘celebration food’ served at birthday parties and used to reward kids' sports team success. So, why did Walmart’s new frozen dairy flavor created to celebrate Black Americans’ emancipation leave a bad taste in so many people’s mouths? Moreover, what can the failure teach organizations about commercializing social issues?

In its ongoing search for profitable new products, the world’s largest retailer recently cooked up a novel plan—tap into Black Americans’ and others’ celebrations of Juneteenth, the federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

Walmart’s strategy to support the celebration involved a line of party products, including napkins, plates, and drink koozies branded “Juneteenth” using the black, red, and green colors often associated with Black liberation, and carrying the tagline, “It’s the freedom for me.”

Walmart also created a special food worthy of the branded partyware--Juneteenth Ice Cream, a frozen concoction resembling swirled red velvet cheesecake. However, it wasn’t long after the company launched its Juneteenth line that social media began to skewer it, as shown in these sample tweets:

“Walmart needs to do better. It shows the lack of understanding of the pain and suffering that made Juneteenth come about. It is absolutely insulting to have this special holiday turned into some commercial product.” (@The Next Ceiling)

“This isn't "wokeness", it's corporations trying to profit off of minorities by acting like they care about us.” (@DeadpoolLIFE69)

“So let me get this straight 🤔, y’all made more money keeping us enslaved after the Emancipation Proclamation, and NOW that it’s a recognized Federal Holiday y’all want to make MORE money off the same culture you enslaved??” (@MoodaSchmooda)

“White America: Mmmm...best thing we can do is some Walmart Juneteenth ice cream that we'll profit off of.” (@RedeemRobinson)

In the face of the backlash, Walmart made a quick pivot and pulled its Juneteenth-themed ice cream. It also apologized:

“We received feedback that a few items caused concern for some of our customers and we sincerely apologize. We are reviewing our assortment and will remove items as appropriate."

Companies are increasingly ‘hitching their wagons’ to social causes’—an alignment that many people prefer including 83% of millennials. Consequently, the approach often proves profitable. Furthermore, during recent years filled with race-related violence, many consumers expect companies to show their support for racial justice.

So, wasn’t Walmart right to support Black Americans by launching a line of Juneteenth products?

Although the Twitter feedback above is enlightening, social media responses often prioritize ‘quick and pithy’ over ‘thoughtful and measured.’ For that reason and to help me better understand how Black Americans might perceive Walmart’s tactics, I reached out to a colleague at my university who’s well-qualified to offer an informed perspective.

Dr. Todd Allen is Vice President for Diversity Affairs and Professor of Communication at Messiah University. He’s also the founder of The Common Ground Project, “a community-based non-profit dedicated to teaching the history of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.”

When I asked Allen about Walmart’s Juneteenth product line, he shared these insights:

“I think the timing (a new holiday) and some people still feeling burned by the promises of 2020 (which haven’t necessarily resulted in the hoped-for transformative change) just made this too soon. The fact that they pulled [the ice cream] so quickly also makes me wonder who was in on the decision making in the first place. It seems like if the TV show Blackish were still on the air, this would be an episode.”

Allen also offered one word that captured much of what he shared, “context.” For instance, he mentioned that Walmart is not known for being progressive on racial issues. He also said that the company’s approach “felt just a bit too commercial and too opportunistic.”

So, what if the context were different? For another company with a more positive race-related track record, offering different products with better messaging, public perceptions may have been more positive.

Allen’s response and the idea of context got me thinking: Beyond just Walmart and Juneteenth, are there principles that all organizations should follow when connecting with social causes? There undoubtedly are many, but here are perhaps three of the most important questions to ask:

1. What’s the company’s track record on the issue? Whether it’s an individual or an organization, we’re more likely to trust the motives of someone who has already demonstrated genuine concern about the social issue at hand. In the case of Walmart and race, results have been mixed.

On one hand, in June 2020, the company pledged $100 million over five years to address racial disparities in the U.S. However, in January of 2022 a black correction officer sued Walmart for racial profiling when he was wrongfully accused of shoplifting, then in February, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Walmart because “Walmart violated federal law when it gave a Black female employee an unsanitary lactation space based upon her race.”

In contrast, Fundraising for a Cause, the world’s largest manufacturer of awareness products, enjoys strong credibility when it comes to earning income through social causes, partly because it’s owner and CEO, Karen Conroy, founded the company after her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and also because her company passes significant profits onto her customers, e.g., they can buy 50 silicone bracelets for $40, sell them for $5 each, and net $210 for their cause.

2. What’s the nature of the product? There’s a place and time for most products; the key is to ensure that the product personality aligns with sentiments surrounding the social issue.

Juneteenth is certainly a cause for celebration but that’s because it marks the end to several centuries of enslavement. As such, the holiday understandably evokes mixed emotions that aren’t necessarily in keeping with an all-out party atmosphere, or at least not one worthy of a namesake flavor of ice cream. Would it be right to have a dairy treat marking the end of the Holocaust?

For comparison, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is a nonprofit organization that works in over 50 countries around the world to provide disaster relief, foster economic development, and promote peace. Among its biggest fundraisers are quilt auctions, which raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Quilts are items of beauty and comfort that complement MCC’s three-fold mission.

3. Is the company adding value? Whether it’s a single salesperson or an entire organization, the measuring stick for any marketer is the value they add in an exchange. No company should extract more value than it gives.

It’s hard to know how much money Walmart would have made on the Juneteenth ice cream and other products. Knowing Walmart’s typical pricing approach, the profit margins on the items were likely low; however, selling them across more than 5,300 U.S. retail stores, even modest margins would have added up quickly.

Walmart also likely hoped to pocket goodwill from the products; however, the biggest grab by Walmart was its attempt to trademark (TM) Juneteenth, as if it had created the name, so that only it could sell Juneteenth branded products.

On a positive side, Walmart consumers could purchase the branded products at reasonable prices. However, it’s unlikely that Juneteenth-imprinted paper products and ice cream would deepen anyone’s understanding of and appreciation for the momentous historic event. If anything, Walmart’s products may have trivialized it.

Other companies have made money, in some cases very large amounts, from marketing race-related products; however, many times they’ve added extra value through education.

A good example of such value-added is the feature film Selma, “a chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.” An Academy Award nominee for best picture, the movie grossed over $66.7 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $20 million.

Selma was very profitable for Harpo Films and the other production companies that made the movie. However, those who watched the film also ‘profited,’ not just from two hours of entertainment but from a better understanding of a very important historic event.

As Allen suggested, context matters. Like others, he wondered why Walmart didn’t instead promote a Black-owned ice cream brand, Creamalicious, which it was already selling in its stores. Such an approach would have been a better context in at least two of the three ways described above.

Unfortunately, however, Walmart tried a more self-serving strategy that quickly melted. So instead of celebrating, the company is doing damage-control because of its “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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Does Free Speech Mean Unfiltered?

5/8/2022

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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

There’s no law stopping someone from telling a coworker he has bad breath, or a friend she texts too much, or a spouse their outfit isn’t flattering. Although people have the right to offer such criticisms, they often hold their tongues. Verbal restraint isn’t always ideal, but even common communication challenges like these can inform a newly trending social imperative—free speech.

Serial entrepreneur and one of the planet’s richest people, Elon Musk is buying Twitter— perhaps the world’s most pervasive and controversial communication platform. The reasons behind the $44 billion purchase are likely multifold; however, Musk claims that one of his primary motivations is to reduce the medium’s content moderation and to allow more free speech.

Free speech is fundamental to democracy: Government of-by-for the people is predicated on individuals speaking their minds, including ideas critical of the government. That’s why the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, [emphasis added] or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Of course, the nation’s founders couldn’t have foreseen social media and how it would be used both to bolster democracy (e.g., Arab Spring in 2010) and to bash people who look or think differently. The founders were people too, who probably fell into petty squabbles and even engaged in personal attacks; however, it’s unlikely that second kind of communication is what they intended to protect in amending the constitution.

Nevertheless, because of the First Amendment, there are no U.S. laws against hate speech; rather, people are free to say pretty much whatever they want about others, without legal repercussions, as Black’s Law Dictionary explains:

“A person hurling insults, making rude statements, or disparaging comments about another person or group is merely exercising his or her right to free speech. This is true even if the person or group targeted by the speaker is a member of a protected class. According to U.S. law, such speech is fully permissible and is not defined as hate speech.”

So, based on the law alone, people can pretty much let loose: no filter needed. Likewise, Musk has suggested that people should be able to ‘say whatever is legal.’ On April 26, 2022, he tweeted his stance:

“By ‘free speech,’ I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.”

Although it’s true that law and ethics often align, the fit is far from perfect. Some laws even encourage immorality. At a minimum, there’s a lag, sometimes of decades or centuries before legislation aimed at correcting ethical failings come to fruition.

For instance, Jim Crow laws once required physical segregation of people of different races. Likewise, from its inception in 1776, it took the United States nearly two centuries to pass laws forbidding discrimination, namely Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Even now, a leaked Supreme Court memo has spawned demonstrations across the country about abortion law. Regardless of whether Roe v. Wade stands or falls, a significant portion of the population will contend that the law does not match morality.

In short, we all need to be careful of equating what’s ethical with what’s legal. More specifically, if legal-moral equivalence doesn't hold for other social issues, why assume it works for communication-related concerns?

So, instead of rushing ahead with the reasoning, “Because the law allows us to say anything, we should,” individuals and organizations should collect their thoughts and consider three free speech amendments:

1) Practice Self-Restraint: Most people place limits on how much they eat, sleep, watch TV, etc., for their own good and sometimes because their actions impact others. Why not apply the same principle of self-control to our words? This adapted, time-honored moral axiom couldn’t be more apropos, ‘just because we can say it doesn’t mean we should say it.’

In speaking, as in many other things in life, less can be more, and sometimes saying nothing is best. When a baseball infielder mishandles a ground ball that allows the other team to score and win the game, nothing good comes from the coach berating him for his error. The player knows he made a mistake and already feels very badly about it. Even in cases when we’re free to speak, sometimes our thoughts are better left unsaid.

2) Ensure What We’re Saying is True: With social media and little effort, anyone can say practically anything to anyone anywhere in the world, which makes it all-the-more important to prioritize truthfulness. We should be confident of the veracity of what we say, as well as what we share from others. If we’re not certain something is true, we should at least provide a clear disclaimer or even better, wait until we know.

Alec Hill describes deception as encouraging someone to believe something that you don’t believe yourself. That kind of intentional manipulation of the truth is unconscionable. However, it’s also negligent to forward unverified information. A fundamental cost of free speech is the time and effort it takes to ensure the accuracy of what we say.

3) Take Care in How We Say Things: We’ve all heard the sentiment, ‘It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it.’ We’ve also experienced how much better it feels to receive a constructive critique versus caustic criticism.

When in person, nonverbal communication like welcoming body language and a friendly tone of voice can temper a message that’s not particularly positive. Similarly, a forward-looking frame is often better than a back-facing one. For instance, rather than belittling a person for what they did wrong, “You were so bad!!” focus on the action and project a positive future one: “It might be better to . . .” Both are free speech, but the latter will almost always elicit a more favorable reaction.

Do the preceding three recommendations restrict free speech? In the sense that they urge us not to say everything we think or to say things the way we first think them, yes . On the other hand, ‘filtering’ in the ways described above adds value to the communication by casting the sender in a more positive light and making it more likely that the recipient will take action.

By virtue of their many media-related roles, marketers and Musk have unique opportunities to influence mass communication and interpersonal conversations. Filtered communication is still free speech. It’s also “Mindful Marketing.”

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Harmful Humor

4/10/2022

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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

I still don’t get it. College professors are supposed to be insightful, but I’m baffled by reactions to Will Smith’s infamous Oscars slap. Most people have rightly condemned the violent reaction, but why aren’t more talking about the joke that sparked the response? Society’s double-standard for humor can be confusing and consternating, which are reasons to consider how individuals and organizations should lean into laughter.

Most of us have now seen the clip of actor Will Smith striding onto the Oscars stage and striking award presenter Chris Rock across the face. The unimaginable physical altercation on Hollywood’s biggest night came because of a quip Rock made about the baldness of Smith’s spouse, Jada Pinkett Smith, who suffers from alopecia, a condition that causes complete hair loss.

Smith’s reaction was wrong. No matter the nature of the verbal offense, real or imagined, there was no reason for him to respond violently. Still, such condemnation shouldn’t stop anyone from asking whether Rock stepped over a line.

Of course, Rock is a comedian whose job is to make people laugh—a charge that’s particularly important when appearing at the Oscars, one of the most high-profile gigs a comedian can get.

Also, Oscars hosts and presenters have a history of lightly razzing celebrities in attendance. Legendary comedian and 19-time Oscars host Bob Hope was perhaps the earliest propagator of that tradition, making quips like this one during his 1971 monologue: “But this is a strange business. Just think, Frank Sinatra announced he was quitting show business and they gave him a humanitarian award.”

Billy Crystal, the second most frequent Oscars host (9 times), also had a habit of ribbing famous actors, as he did Clint Eastwood in 1993 for his role in Unforgiven: “Clint, of course, played that ruthless character, and you know he used those same tactics when he cleaned up that lawless renegade town of Carmel, California when he was the mayor there . . . It was Clint Eastwood who instituted the no crème brulee after 10:00 pm ordinance.”

Rock was himself an Academy Awards host in 2016, at which time he gave much of his monologue to highlighting the unsettling fact that there were no Black nominees at what he called “the White People’s Choice Awards.” He also took a jab at Pinkett Smith for boycotting ‘Oscars So White,’ suggesting it didn’t make sense for her to spurn an event to which she wasn’t invited.

Compared to the biting personal attacks for which insult comedians like Don Rickles, Lisa Lampanelli, and Andrew Dice Clay have been known, Rock’s comments may seem benign. Some might also suggest that humor is inherently controversial, i.e., some people will like a particular joke, while others will not.

It’s true that humor, like beauty, is in the ‘mind of the beholder’; however, there is a relatively clear line that individuals and organizations can avoid crossing to ensure that their jest about others isn’t injurious:

It’s usually okay to playfully point out the peculiar things that people do or say, but don’t joke about who they are.

Before offering some personal examples to support this suggestion, those who don’t know me well should understand that I’m far from a ‘wet blanket’ when it comes to humor: I love to laugh and endeavor to inject ad hoc humor into my classes, which I’ve found keeps students engaged, provides a brief reprieve from back-to-back-to-back classes, and lightens the load of weighty issues and complex concepts.

Other professors cite similar benefits. In fact, I recently read a Harvard Business article, “What educators can learn from comedians,” that offered empirical evidence for the third benefit above.

David Stolin, professor of finance at TBS education, collaborated with comedian Sammy Obeid, host of Netflix’s 100 Humans series, to create a variety of educational videos, some humorous and others serious. The researchers found that “when students were assigned humorous videos, they had consistently higher engagement and subsequent test performance.” So, among other things, humor helps learning.

I haven’t formally studied the same causal relationship, but I have done research on “playful teasing,” which suggests that good-natured ribbing helps build social bonds. I sometimes use that type of humor with my students, which brings me to my first personal example.

In one of my recent classes, a discussion about personal branding turned to ‘what coaches can do to encourage their players when they’re down.’ One of the students, who’s a college athlete, began to share her team’s current experience, saying, “It’s funny because two of my teammates tore their ACLs . . .” As she briefly paused to finish the sentence, I couldn’t resist interjecting some seemingly serious censure, “There’s nothing funny about that.”

Students, including the one who was speaking, laughed, and a classmate quipped, “I’m going to tell your coach!” The student finished her story and, of course, revealed that by “funny” she didn’t mean amusing but coincidental. People knew I was kidding because of the hyperbole of my comment, because we often joke in class, and because the students, all of whom I’ve had in other courses, know my penchant for dry humor.

The second example came a few years earlier when one of my students turned the comedic tables on me. As our class was discussing a case study about a particular west-coast-based restaurant chain, I showed a few pictures of my family and me, over the years, at various locations of the chain.

One student noticed something peculiar in the pictures and commented, “Dr. Hagenbuch, don’t you ever let your shirt out? Even on vacation, it’s tucked in!” I tried to argue that in a couple of the photos my shirt only looked to be tucked, but no one was buying it. We all had a good laugh, and shirt tucking became an ongoing joke for us.

Then, during the last class of the semester, I shared a specially made PowerPoint titled “Dr. Hagenbuch Untucked” that contained a dozen or more different family photos, all with my shirts outside my pants. The class appreciated the levity of the short slideshow and its homage to our inside joke. A couple years later, the student responsible for the original “untucked” playful tease, told me that our repartee was a highlight of his college experience.

The point of these examples is it’s very possible to laugh without shaming or otherwise hurting people, even when the humor is targeted toward one person. The key is a pure motive and playfully pointing out something silly the person inadvertently said (“It’s funny because . . .”) or did (shirts tucked in).

Rock’s Oscars jabs at Pinkett Smith failed both times to follow that protocol and instead took aim squarely at who she is. In 2016, his joke about her not being invited to the ceremony was a painful suggestion that she’s not a good enough actor. At the latest event, he made light of a physical condition that she cannot change and that likely makes her self-conscious.

For me, such humor is out-of-bounds; however, I wanted to hear the opinions of people who know much more than I do about psychology, sociology, and how Rock’s joke may have impacted not just Pinkett Smith but others. I reached out to two of my colleagues who teach in our university’s graduate program in counseling. They shared these reflections:

Dr. Leah K. Clarke, Director and Associate Professor of Counseling
“My own reaction to the joke was a resigned disappointment that women’s appearances and bodies, including black women’s hair, continue to be fair game for public discourse. Women and girls learn, almost from birth, that their bodies can be commented on, evaluated, touched, and utilized for other’s profit or pleasure. I’m not sure you could even count the number of songs that reference women’s appearances or specific body parts.”

“Pinkett Smith had previously shared about the source of her baldness, but even in doing so she acknowledged she felt she had to. Because otherwise the conversation about what was going on her scalp would happen without her. And she was right, Chris Rock and her husband had an interaction related to her appearance without her involvement or consent. The idea that her hair might be of no interest and nobody’s business doesn’t seem to occur to anyone.”

Dr. Sarah Brant-Rajahn, Assistant Professor of Counseling, School Counseling Track Coordinator
“Rock’s joke triggered the pain of many women and Black women, in particular, about ideals that are attached to appearance and hair as a beauty standard. I was surprised that such a joke would come from Rock, after his Good Hair (2009) documentary highlighted issues around Black-American women and the perception of their hair being acceptable or desirable.”

“As Pinkett Smith, like so many other women, attempt to boldly embrace their authentic selves and engage in self-love, they are met with ridicule, judgment, and shame when this true self does not align with societal notions of beauty. And to an extent, Rock’s joke and many like them can be viewed as bullying, as Pinkett Smith likely felt powerless to defend herself at a professional event, with an audience, and in a space that was being publicly recorded and viewed. There was a clear imbalance of power here where a male with a microphone and a stage demeans a female who does not have the same capacity to share her voice at the time.”

“While it is likely that Rock did not consider these implications, as he is a comedian and comedians make jokes about many people and topics, we would be remiss to not name and address the potential impact such comments have on girls and women, as well as the perpetual devaluation of them based on appearance.”

Beyond many specific truths, my overarching takeaway from both these experts’ assessments is that humor’s impact extends beyond the parties directly involved—a realization I’d also had through my research into playful teasing.

People often learn vicariously, i.e., from observing others’ firsthand experiences. Just as we can ‘feel’ that a stove is hot by watching someone else touch it, we can feel ridiculed when we hear or see someone deride a person who is in some way like us, e.g., race, body type.

Because the Academy Awards is broadcast to millions of people worldwide, Rock’s joke was at the expense of thousands of people with alopecia, not just Pinkett Smith. Furthermore, as Clarke and Brant-Rajahn have suggested, women and especially Black women were right to feel that their bodies and appearances were once more objectified for public consumption.

Their thoughts pinpoint the hypocrisy to which I alluded at the beginning of this piece. How can a society claim it’s concerned about bullying, shaming, and mental health, but be accepting of things like mean tweets, taunting, and caustic comedy? It's hard to understand why more aren’t alarmed by the troubling connections.

So, what does this analysis have to do with marketing? For any of us who aspire to make others laugh, how we handle humor becomes part of our brand, whether we’re an individual like Rock or an organization like GoDaddy, which is still trying to break free from its oversexualized Super Bowl ad humor more than a decade ago. The character of one’s comedy has long-lasting implications for one’s brand.

Just as the same medicine that helps people can hurt them if taken incorrectly, the ‘best medicine,’ laughter, can hurt people when its wrongly administered. It’s fine to playfully tease people for silly things they do or say, but we shouldn’t make light of who they are.

It seems that Rock’s stock has risen since the last Oscars, probably due to extra publicity he’s received, as well as sympathy from the slap. However, those truly deserving empathy are the ones Rock’s putdown humor belittled directly and by extension. The impact on them makes Rock’s ridicule “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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The Trouble with Taunting

1/28/2022

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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

With Super Bowl LVI fast approaching, it’s a good time to analyze the officiating that’s caused so much controversy this football season. Surprisingly, the complaints haven’t been about referees throwing flags for excessive physical contact but for unnecessary psychological confrontation. The NFL’s crackdown on taunting has been widely unpopular, which could make anyone wonder if tightening the lid on trash taking was a bad business decision.

Imagine a football play in which a 320 lb. offensive lineman ‘pancakes’ a 310 lb. defensive tackle (i.e., blocks him to the turf). The defensive player wouldn’t expect anyone to ask him afterward, “How did that experience make you feel?”

Professional football is a very physical game, played by some of Earth’s biggest, strongest, and toughest people. They sign up for that kind of contact, and many even enjoy it. Hurting each other’s feelings is likely the least of their concerns. So why are NFL officials making it theirs?

This past summer, the league’s competition committee decided to try to tighten the reins on what it perceived to be a growing problem: players taunting their opponents with words and gestures, often aimed at rubbing in others’ failure, e.g., “I scored a touchdown, and you couldn’t stop me,” of course, expressed in a more ‘colorful’ and humiliating way.

Contrary to what some think, the NFL didn’t create a new taunting rule for the current season; rather, it asked officials to more strictly enforce the existing rule against “the use of baiting or taunting acts or words that engender ill will between teams.”

Most fans and analysts have blasted the stricter enforcement, especially when such calls have helped sway the outcome of close games. Given the arguably unnecessary restrictions on expression, some have snidely suggested that NFL should stand for “No Fun League.”

Lest we forget, football and all professional sports are entertainment. So, if players don’t mind taunting, and fans tolerate or even enjoy it, why not give them what they want—that’s Marketing 101—meet the target market’s wants and needs.

But, what if taunting has an impact beyond the professionals playing on fields like Lambeau and in stadiums such as Gillette?

Last February, I wrote an article, “Leaving a Legacy of Irreverence,” about an unlikely taunting incident that transpired at a teen football camp in Myrtle Beach, SC. One of the campers inexplicably began berating NFL quarterback and one-time league MVP Cam Newton, shouting at him, “You a free agent! You a free agent! You're about to be poor!”

Like most people, I said that the young man’s unprovoked antagonism was out of line. However, I also suggested that he very well could have learned his trash talking from some of the same media pundits who quickly became his most vocal critics, namely ESPN’s often acerbic analyst, Stephen A. Smith.

Amid the great derision that taunting penalties have drawn this football season, I wonder if, again, we’re failing to connect some potentially important cause-effect dots:
Does NFL players’ taunting inspire young impressionable athletes, who often idolize them, to imitate the insults?

Like many, I grew up loving sports and trying, with very little success, to pattern my play after that of professional athletes. Since my limited and dated experience doesn’t go very far in answering the question above, I reached out to someone who knows young football players better than almost anyone and can very likely project the impact that NFL players’ taunting has on today’s emerging athletes.

Jim Roth has been the head football coach at Southern Columbia High School, in Central Pennsylvania, for 38 years. That remarkable longevity alone suggests his unique familiarity with high school football; however, his years on the job are only the beginning.

Roth’s teams have won an incredible 12 state championships—twice that of any other program in the state. Furthermore, his 471 victories make him the winningest high school football coach in Pennsylvania and place him among the top ten coaches in the nation. During one recent stretch, Roth’s teams went an unimaginable four years without losing a game.

All this to say, there are few people anywhere who know high school football, its players, and what motivates them better than Roth. I recently had an opportunity to speak with him and ask his perspective on taunting in the NFL and how it might impact high school players.

Roth very clearly conveys his feelings about the league’s tough stance on taunting: “I think the rule is great.” He doesn’t appreciate a defensive lineman leaning over a quarterback he just sacked or believe it’s right for a receiver to wave his fingers at a safety he’s beaten for a touchdown.

Roth contends that professional players often take their celebrations too far: “The other team feels bad enough that they’ve gotten scored on. There’s no need to humiliate them more.”

When it comes to the possibility of his own players taunting opponents, Roth again does not equivocate, “We don’t condone taunting; we aren’t okay with our kids doing it.”

Even as Roth and his coaching staff strive to develop their players’ character and instill self-discipline, he realizes it’s become increasingly hard to do so for a variety of reasons, including that fewer grow up learning the same sense of accountability and responsibility they did years ago.

Individual upbringing, however, is not the only factor that influences behavior like taunting. Roth also believes that the actions of older, more accomplished athletes influence those of their younger counterparts: “There’s no question that when kids see certain things on TV in professional or college games, they imitate them.”

So, one of the most successful football coaches of all-time doesn’t appreciate players on any level taunting their opponents. He also confirms that younger players often emulate the behavior, good and bad, of older ones, which gives good reason for the NFL to sack taunting.

It’s ironic that despite society’s increased awareness of the importance of good mental health, including for accomplished athletes like Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, many people still see no problem with players in certain sports attempting to ‘get in the minds’ of their opponents. Yes, sports are games, but they also have real life physical and psychological consequences that don’t go away when players walk off the field or leave the court.

Battle-hardened NFL players may be able to endure taunting, and their fans might enjoy watching it, but many impressionable young football players and others see it and imitate it, to the detriment of themselves and others, all in a world that's wanting for respect and doesn't need more antagonism.

With television ratings at their highest since 2015, it doesn’t seem that the NFL has taken any financial hit for penalizing taunting; still, the significant pushback it’s received could cause the league to rethink its stricter stance. Such a reversion, however, would be a loss for many inside and outside football.

After nearly four decades of incredible success, winning games and developing young men, Roth maintains, “Winning without character is no better than losing.” That’s exactly what the NFL would be doing if it stops tackling taunting. However, as long as its referees throw flags for those demeaning deeds, the league wins with “Mindful Marketing.”

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Why Can't TikTok Block the Blackout Challenge?

1/1/2022

10 Comments

by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

Many people’s New Year’s resolutions are to eat less and exercise more. Fortunately, few people need to promise to kill less. That goal, though, may be a good one for the world’s-fastest growing social media platform in order to better protect the lives of young users who are oblivious to the dangerous game they’re playing.

Nyla Anderson was a “happy child” and “smart as a whip”—she even spoke three languages. Tragically, the 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl’s life was cut short on December 12, when she died while attempting a perilous social media trend called the Blackout Challenge.

The Blackout Challenge “requires the participant to choke themselves until they pass out and wake up moments later.” Sadly, some who participate, like Nyla, never wake up, and if they don’t die, they may suffer seizures and/or brain damage.

It’s tragic, but young people likely have engaged in foolhardy, life-threatening behavior since the beginning of humankind. Within a few years of my high school graduation, two of my classmates lost their lives in separate car crashes caused by high-speed, reckless driving. Most people probably can share similar stories of people they knew who needlessly died too young.

In some ways it’s inevitable that young people’s propensity for risk-taking paired with a limited sense of their own mortality will lead them to endanger themselves and encourage others to do the same. What’s inexplicable is how older and presumably more rational adults can encourage and even monetize such behavior, which is what some suggest TikTok has done.

Unfortunately, Nyla is not the only young person to pass away while attempting the Blackout Challenge. Other lives the ill-advised trend has taken include 12-year-old Joshua Haileyesus of Colorado and 10-year-old Antonella Sicomero of Palermo, Italy. TikTok provided the impetus for each of these children to attempt the challenge.

Most of us know from experience that peer influence can cause people to do unexpected and sometimes irrational things. In centuries gone by, that influence was limited to direct interpersonal contact and then to traditional mass media like television. Now, thanks to apps like TikTok, anyone with a smartphone holds potential peer pressure from people around the world in the palm of their hand.

In TikTok’s defense, the Blackout Challenge predates the social media platform. ByteDance released TikTok, or Douyin as it’s known in China, in September of 2016. Children had been attempting essentially the same asphyxiation games, like the Choking Challenge and the Pass-out Challenge, many years prior. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 82 children, aged 6 to 19, likely died from such games between 1995 and 2007.

It’s also worth noting that individuals and other organizations create the seemingly infinite array of videos that appear on the platform. ByteDance doesn’t make them, it just curates the clips according to each viewer’s tastes using one of the world’s most sophisticated and closely guarded algorithms.

So, if TikTok didn’t begin the Blackout Challenge and it hasn’t created any of the videos that encourage it, why should the app bear responsibility for the deaths of Nyla, Joshua, Antonella, or any other young person who has attempted the dangerous social media trend?

It’s reasonable to suggest that TikTok is culpable for the self-destructive behavior that happens on its premises. A metaphor might be a property owner who makes his house available as a hangout for underage drinking. The homeowner certainly didn’t invent alcohol, and he may not be the one providing it, but if he knowingly enables the consumption, he could be legally responsible for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

By hosting Blackout Challenge posts, TikTok could be contributing to the delinquency of minors.

I have to pause here to note an uncomfortable irony. Less than four months ago, just after Francis Haugen blew the whistle on her former employer Facebook, I wrote a piece titled “Two Lessons TikTok can Teach Facebook.” In the article, I described specific measures TikTok had taken to, of all things: 1) discourage bad behavior, and 2) support users’ mental health.

How could I have been so wrong? Although I certainly may have been misguided—it wouldn’t be the first time—TikTok’s actions that I cited truly were good things. So, maybe the social media giant deserves to defend itself against the new allegations.

TikTok declined CBS News’ request for an interview, but it did claim to block content connected to the Blackout Challenge, including hashtags and phrases. It also offered this statement, “TikTok has taken industry-first steps to protect teens and promote age-appropriate experiences, including strong default privacy settings for minors."

The notion of protecting teens is certainly good; however, it’s hard to know what “industry-first steps” are. Furthermore, prioritizing age-appropriateness and privacy are important, but neither objective aligns particularly well with the need to avoid physical harm—the main problem of the Blackout Challenge.

In that spirt and in response to accusations surrounding Nyla’s death, TikTok offered to Newsweek a second set of statements:

“We do not allow content that encourages, promotes, or glorifies dangerous behavior that might lead to injury, and our teams work diligently to identify and remove content that violates our policies.”

"While we have not currently found evidence of content on our platform that might have encouraged such an incident off-platform, we will continue to monitor closely as part of our continuous commitment to keep our community safe. We will also assist the relevant authorities with their investigation as appropriate."

These corporate responses do align better with the risks the Blackout Challenge represents. However, there’s still a disconnect: TikTok claims it’s done nothing to facilitate the Blackout Challenge, but family members of those lost say the social media platform is exactly where their children encountered the fatal trend.

The three families’ tragedies are somewhat unique, but they’re far from the only cases of people seeing the Blackout Challenge on TikTok and posting their own attempts on the app. TikTok has taken measures that have likely helped ‘lessen the destruction,’ but it’s unreasonable for it to claim exoneration.

The company’s app must be culpable to some degree, but what exactly could it have done to avoid death and injury? That question is very difficult for anyone outside TikTok or without significant industry expertise to answer; however, let me ask one semi-educated question—Couldn't TikTok use an algorithm?

As I’ve described in an earlier blog post, “Too Attached to an App,” ByteDance has created one of the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence tools—one that with extreme acuity serves app users a highly-customized selection of videos that can keep viewers engaged indefinitely.

Why can’t TikTok employ the same algorithm, or a variation of it, to keep the Blackout Challenge and other destructive videos from ever seeing the light of day?

TikTok is adept at showing users exactly what they want to see, so why can’t it use the same advanced analytics with equal effectiveness to ‘black out’ content that no one should consume?

The truism ‘nobody’s perfect’ aptly suggests that every person is, in a manner of speaking, part sinner and part saint. TikTok and other organizations, which are collections of individuals, are no different, doing some things wrong and other things right but hopefully always striving for less of the former and more of the latter.

Based on its statements, TikTok likely has done some ‘right things’ that have helped buffer the Blackout Challenge. However, given the cutting-edge technology the company has at its disposal, it could be doing more to mitigate the devastating impact. For that reason, TikTok remains responsible for “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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Are Apple AirTags Too Risky?

12/19/2021

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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

Most of us played ‘tag’ as a kid and loved the simple thrill of chasing others around and trying not to get tagged. Thanks to Apple’s advanced tech, the game has graduated to adulthood; however, criminals are increasingly “it, ” and the stakes are much higher for those being chased.

So, if you’re wondering what to buy for that childhood friend-turned-felon this holiday season, Apple has the perfect present: AirTags--The gift that keeps on taking. This dark humor aims to underscore some disturbing news: More criminals are finding that AirTags are a convenient way to pilfer the valuable property of others or even worse, to stalk people.

Apple introduced the small electronic tracking devices this past April to help individuals more easily locate products they’re apt to misplace like keys and bags. The company’s website explains how the 1.26” diameter tags work:

“Your AirTag sends out a secure Bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby devices in the Find My network. These devices send the location of your AirTag to iCloud — then you can go to the Find My app and see it on a map.”

Given that this location system leverages a vast network of strangers’ devices, Apple has made privacy a top priority. The company ensures that only the AirTag’s owner can see where their AirTag is, and its location data and history, which are always encrypted, “are never stored on the AirTag itself.”

These measures appear effective in protecting the property owner, i.e., the person who places the AirTag on their own phone, in their own bag, etc.; however, it seems that a major security risk remains, namely preventing those with ignoble intentions from attaching AirTags to the possessions of others.

Of course, most people would notice if an AirTag inexplicably appeared on their coat or keychain, but they’d probably never see one affixed to the underside of their automobile. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for car thieves to realize AirTags’ wonderful potential for pilfering.

Various news media have reported the troubling trend in which thieves see sought-after vehicles in public places like mall parking lots, attach an AirTag to the car in an inconspicuous spot, and track the vehicle to a more private place, like the owner’s driveway, where it can be stolen more easily.

The notion of ‘auto theft made simple’ is disconcerting, but even more disturbing is the idea that criminals could use AirTags to stalk people. What if you’re in a public place and someone inconspicuously slides one into a bag you’re carrying? The wrongdoer could show up at your home anytime.

Fortunately, Apple claims there are measures to thwart such chilling contingencies; its website explains:

“AirTag is designed to discourage unwanted tracking. If someone else’s AirTag finds its way into your stuff, your iPhone will notice it’s traveling with you and send you an alert. After a while, if you still haven’t found it, the AirTag will start playing a sound to let you know it’s there. Of course, if you happen to be with a friend who has an AirTag, or on a train with a whole bunch of people with AirTag, don’t worry. These alerts are triggered only when an AirTag is separated from its owner.”

These precautions do help ally some concerns; yet, a few questions remain, for example:

What if the person who’s unknowingly been ‘tagged’ doesn’t own an iPhone or have it with them, in which case they wouldn’t receive the alert?
How long does it take for the alert to be triggered?
How far does an AirTag need to be from its owner in order for the alert to be sent?

In keeping with the last question, if a person has an AirTag in a key chain that she hangs in a first-floor entryway, she won’t want an alert to sound each time she takes her iPhone to her second-floor bedroom. All this to say, AirTags’ security features give some significant reasons for pause.

Geoffrey Fowler, a columnist for the Washington Post, substantiated such concerns when he asked a colleague to pretend to stalk him for a week “from across San Francisco Bay.” He found that it took three days for the alert to sound, which amounted to “just 15 seconds of light chirping.” What’s more, if he didn’t own an iPhone, he wouldn’t have received any notification.

Although Fowler credits Apple for trying to do more to keep people safe than other tracking device makers, like Tile, have done, his experience still leads him to conclude that AirTags are “a new means of inexpensive, effective stalking.”

So, should Apple stop selling AirTags? Base on Fowler’s experiment, a natural conclusion is ‘yes.’ However, as it is with so many products that offer both positive and negative outcomes, the answer is not that easy.

For instance, many of us travel in automobiles each day to go to work, school, shopping etc. Tragically, more than 38,000 U.S. residents die in car crashes each year, and many more are injured. Also, we’ve unfortunately seen some use cars maliciously to kill others.

However, such incidents don't make many of us think twice about climbing into a car or crossing streets where others are driving them. Although the potential negative outcomes of injury and death are daunting, the great individual and collective benefits of car use overshadow those remote probabilities.

Similar rationale can be applied to many other products from kitchen knives to prescription drugs. We welcome their use because in the vast majority of cases they help people, not harm them.

Still, it’s fair to ask if AirTags offer a high enough risk-to-reward ratio. Yes, misplacing one’s car keys is annoying and can even be very frustrating, but we usually find them. How do we weigh the convenience of finding lost keys against the use of the devices to track others’ property or people themselves?

Those risks, especially if they become more common, likely don’t outweigh the rewards of quicker key recovery. However, there are several other, potentially more critical functions that AirTags can serve. Writing for Gadget Hacks, Jake Peterson identifies several of those uses, which include:

Lifesaver Beacons: People with severe allergic reactions can place AirTags on life-saving medications like EpiPens.
Location Trackers for Children: Parents can put the devices in their children’s backpacks or pockets and hopefully avoid experiencing their worst nightmare—a lost child.
Location Trackers for People with Dementia: At the other end of the age spectrum, some individuals beset by mental decline wander off. AirTags can make it easier to find them quickly.
Beacons for the Visually Impaired: The Find My app can help people with limited or no sight precisely locate important objects within their homes.
Location Trackers for Pets: An AirTag can help ensure that a beloved animal is found, without needing to insert a microchip into the pet.

Do the benefits of these latter applications outweigh the risks of unscrupulous AirTag use? They probably do, provided that Apple continues to improve AirTag security and that the deviant behavior remains isolated. Assuming those two ‘tag rules,’ AirTags can be useful for many people, helping to make the tracking devices “Mindful Marketing.”

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Will the Metaverse be Meta-Worse?

11/7/2021

6 Comments

by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

A name change is seldom a small thing. It’s especially significant when one of the world’s most valuable companies decides to rebrand. Facebook’s move to “Meta” offers an important signal about the firm’s future focus, which promises to impact billions of people who regularly sign onto its social media platforms. The idea of a ‘metaverse’ sounds exciting, but will it really be a better place?

The recent decision of the planet’s most widely used social media platform to rename itself Meta surprised many; yet, it’s a move we’ve witnessed before, one of the most notable happening in 2015 when Google grew into Alphabet.

Like Google, Facebook would never do something as rash as discard one of the world’s most valuable brands. Rather, the company recognized that by retaining the Facebook name for just the specific social media platform and renaming the umbrella corporation Meta, the company’s expansion would be much more free from perceptual constraints.

Moreover, Meta might stimulate a whole new world of virtual possibilities. According to the New York Times, the move encapsulates CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to “refocus his Silicon Valley company on what he sees as the next digital frontier, which is the unification of disparate digital worlds into something called the metaverse.”

Wasn’t ‘unifying disparate digital worlds’ what Facebook did when it allowed users to link the platform to their Instagram accounts? In a manner of speaking it was, but the metaverse purports to be much, much more.

So, what exactly is the metaverse?

Despite its sudden popularity, the concept is not one that’s easy to define, mainly because “it doesn’t necessarily exist”; rather, it’s “a dream for the future.” It’s also hard to get a handle on the metaverse because, like the Internet, it’s not a singular product that Facebook or any one company can build alone.

Crypto game developer Andrei Shulgach, who spends several hours each day in the meta-space doing research for metaverse-related projects, affirms the concept’s evolving and evasive meaning:

“For the past four years, the term metaverse has mainly been a buzzword without a defined meaning, and even now it is often used ambiguously. For instance, there's a distinction between the gaming metaverse and the metaverse as a whole.”

To the end of reducing the ambiguity, here’s how some have described the metaverse:

“a variety of virtual experiences, environments, and assets”
“a framework for an extremely connected life”
“a 3D virtual world inhabited by avatars of real people”
“a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space as you”
“a multiverse which interoperates more with the real world, incorporating things like augmented reality overlays, VR dressing rooms for real stores, and even apps like Google Maps.”
“a future digital world that feels more tangibly connected to our real lives and bodies.”

If it’s challenging just to understand what the metaverse is, it’s even more difficult to estimate its moral impact. As Facebook and a slew of other organizations aim to engage us in their own region of the new ream, it’s important to ask:

To what extent will the metaverse be a force for good?

For those who don’t now frequent the metaverse, cynicism may be the understandable reaction, especially when some of the companies spearheading the change regularly make headlines for moral lapses like profiting from divisive content, playing fast and loose with data privacy, and allowing people to pummel others’ self-concepts.

There are undoubtedly more, but here are four main moral concerns related to the metaverse:

1. Time sink: Whether it’s watching hours of TikTok videos or compulsively checking one’s Facebook feed, social media has already become a time waster for many, so one can only imagine how an even more immersive virtual experience might consume each waking hour.

2. Distraction: In keeping with the first point, virtual worlds and avatars might also draw people’s attention away from what’s happening in the physical world around them, including relationships with flesh-and-blood people and resources that should be spent on real physical needs like food, clothing, and housing.

3. Safety: Internet safety is already a perennial concern, especially for children. Will even more complex and blended interaction, e.g., augmented reality, present new ways for predators to deceive and disadvantage vulnerable populations?

4. Accessibility: As technology serves increasingly important functions in many of our lives, it’s easy to forget that not everyone has the same access, which can be because of limitations that are financial (affording hardware and related services), physical (seeing or hearing), cognitive (distinguishing the virtual form the physical).

These and other moral issues may be further complicated by what Shulgach has observed: “many companies jumping into the space, trying to ride the wave and catch an audience when they really have no experience or know what it takes to launch a successful metaverse project.”

Yes, its cynical, but it’s also realistic to expect that at least some of these firms that are willing to overleverage their experience and expertise will also be inclined to undervalue ethical concerns. We see some of that ambivalence now with the Internet--Why would the metaverse be any different?

However, that rhetorical question can also have a favorable frame: Despite its flaws, the Internet has been a tremendously positive force for communication, work productivity, relationship-building, entertainment, and more--Why should the metaverse be any different?

As the metaverse continues to evolve, we’ll likely witness increasingly positive outcomes such as:

Organizations using the metaverse to train employees and serve customers, all while saving time and conserving other resources
Individuals finding even more interesting and engaging opportunities for information, education, and entertainment
People forming meaningful relationships with others who they otherwise would have never known.

Shulgach, who actively works within the game industry metaverse with others, has a vision for a metaverse that makes such a positive impact:

“The idea of connecting users through virtual worlds, and digital economies powered by crypto and NFTs with real-world effects, is crucial for what the metaverse will be defined as in the future. This is an incredible opportunity to re-define and innovate the way we interact with each other moving forward.”

Like many things in life, the metaverse is a kind of tool. Whether a tool is something as simple as a hammer or as complex as a car, most can be used for either good or bad—the outcomes depend on the motivation of the user.

The metaverse is a collection of tools that together form a mechanism unlike any other. It’s wishful thinking to believe that every user of the tool will actively consider its moral impact, but hopefully many will, if not most. There’s no reason that metaverse marketing can’t be “Mindful Marketing.”

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Two Lessons TikTok can Teach Facebook

10/10/2021

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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

Most of us have used social media to learn how to do something, from making bread to remodeling a bathroom. We often turn to such media for new skills, but what if these sites could educate each other? In the wake of the latest revelations about negative social media impact, it seems there are at least two lessons the up-and-coming platform could teach the seasoned pro.

It’s been hard to find news feeds recently that haven't featured Facebook. The iconic social network that’s often been the focus of questions from citizens and senators, was back in the spotlight after a former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower appeared on 60 Minutes and exposed a series of alleged corporate abuses, most impacting consumers.

Francis Haugen is a 37-year-old data scientist and Harvard MBA who has worked for a variety of top-tier social media firms for 15 years, including a two-year tenure at Facebook. In her October 3rd interview on 60 Minutes, she didn’t pull punches in portraying what she believes is her former employers’ danger to society. Among her accusations were:

Facebook’s algorithms systematically amplify angry and divisive content, which are rewarded with more revenue, as other content doesn’t receive adequate returns.
Facebook employees are compelled to curate polarizing posts in order to drive site traffic, maintain user engagement, and ultimately keep their jobs.
“Facebook has set up a system of incentives that is pulling people apart.”

Two days later, Haugen testified before a Senate subcommittee, where she made several other stinging revelations:

Facebook has ways of determining people’s ages and could be doing much more to identify users younger than 13.
Hate speech and misinformation boosts meaningful social interaction (MSI), a key Facebook metric to which employee bonuses are tied.
Facebook’s “amplification algorithms” and “engagement-based ranking” drive young people to destructive online content, resulting in bullying, body image issues, and mental health crises.

Facebook has responded to Haugen’s accusations, including with a written statement to 60 Minutes in which it claims that polarization has decreased in countries where internet and Facebook use has risen. Also, in a Facebook post, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has suggested that Haugen’s revelations represent “a false picture of the company” and that the idea that the firm prioritizes profit above safety and well-being is “just not true.”

Unlike Haugen and Zuckerberg, most of us have no window into Facebook’s innerworkings. At best, we’re just one of world’s largest social media platform’s 2.7 billion monthly active users, meaning we have no way of knowing whose representations are really true.

Human nature and history tell us that both sides are likely right in some ways, and perhaps responsible for certain misrepresentations. That said, many people have experienced firsthand Facebook feeds strewn with angry and polarizing posts. Likewise, the company’s recent decision to pause its work on an Instagram product for children under age 13 seems to reflect some sense of mea culpa.

In short, it’s becoming ever-more-apparent, even to nominal social media users, that there are important issues Facebook needs to address more effectively. The question, then, becomes, “Who can teach Facebook how to rehabilitate its social impact?”

It must be hard for one of the largest and most influential companies in the world to accept advise from anyone, including members of congress, as evidenced during Zuckerberg’s many visits to testify on Capitol Hill.

That doesn’t mean that government regulation isn’t effective. It plays a critical behavior-modifying role. However, there are natural delays in passing legislation, and those lag-times are often exacerbated by the speed at which social media and related technology change. Furthermore, members of congress typically don’t understand an industry as well as those who work in it, particularly when the industry involves high-tech.

So, who also lives at the cutting edge of technology and could influence Facebook toward more positive social impact? One particular competitor could—TikTok.

I admit; on the surface, this suggestion seems almost ridiculous: With its own algorithms driven by artificial intelligence, isn’t TikTok part of the same problem?

In fact, I’ve expressed my misgivings about the influence of the widely-popular app that Search Engine Journal describes as having “the fastest growth of any social media platform.” In the end, however, I concluded that users’ abilities to restrict or stop using TikTok suggested that it was not truly addictive.

Of course, ‘not being part of the problem’ doesn’t necessarily mean that TikTok can be part of a Facebook solution. However, the social media upstart has recently taken two initiatives that align squarely with two of the main principles that Haugen suggested Facebook must learn:

1. To discourage bad behavior: Compared to the millions and millions of videos available on TikTok, it was admittedly a minor move when the app recently began to ban posts that referred to stealing school property—a disturbing late-summer trend among teens. Still, the moral stand that the company took shouldn’t be diminished. A TikTok spokesperson explained the ethos:

“We expect our community to stay safe and create responsibly, and we do not allow content that promotes or enables criminal activities.”

2. To support users’ mental health: Also about a month ago, TikTok unveiled “a slew of features intended to help users struggling with mental health issues and thoughts of suicide.” Among the app-related resources are well-being guides for those struggling with eating disorders and a search intervention feature that activates if a user enters a term like “suicide.”

Facebook’s challenges to more effectively discourage bad behavior and to support mental health may be somewhat unique, both in terms of their nature and magnitude. Still, TikTok now has 1 billion monthly users, up from 700 million just a year ago, and those users seem to deal with many of the same social concerns that Facebook users do.

Businesses routinely learn from others, often by observing and emulating them (e.g., developing new products). Facebook certainly can and likely does already do that, but maybe there’s another level of within-industry education that could occur.

This suggestion may be the most ridiculous one yet, but what if Facebook and TikTok cooperated? What if the two companies ‘compared notes’ and in some way worked together to address the physical, emotional, and social challenges that threaten both their users?

Of course, imaging any cooperation between such large and close competitors is practically unthinkable, but it's not unprecedented. Several decades removed, both Harvard Business Review (1989) and Forbes (2019) published articles citing such partnership examples, like General Motors and Toyota, and explaining the win-win outcomes that accrued from such “coopetition.”

What might Facebook and TikTok’s motivations be for cooperating? Perhaps they both would like to avoid probable government regulation. Or, they may want to see how they can advance themselves, without compromising their competitive positions.

Moreover, maybe Facebook and TikTok can recognize that personal and societal well-being are what matter most, and together they have the power to shape it like few others can. Actually, all three of motivations have merit and together they certainly represent “Mindful Marketing.”

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Four Behaviors of a Peacemaking Brand

9/25/2021

1 Comment

by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

In one of my favorite commercials, Liberty Mutual spotlighted acts of kindness that inspired others to pay the good deeds forward. Most people want a kinder, gentler world, but in a society awash in antagonism, how many of us think seriously about whether our daily actions encourage peace?

There are many ways for both personal and organizational brands to support serenity. Top-of-mind for me and accessible for all are four peacemaking behaviors that coincidentally all begin with the letter ‘L’:

1) Listen: Anyone who has dealt successfully with dissatisfied customers knows that first and foremost they want to be heard. More often than not, just listening to and acknowledging their frustration allays their anger.

Brands that genuinely listen, for instance, through other-focused interactions on social media, model humility, which according to Mother Teresa, is an important precursor to peace: “Only humility will lead us to unity, and unity will lead to peace.”

2) Learn: When we genuinely listen, we naturally learn. When that learning is aimed at appreciating and understanding others, interpersonal and interorganizational peace often result.

Most of us have experienced situations in which our exacerbation with coworkers, classmates, or others was largely due to not knowing them well or understanding their circumstances. However, after learning both, our appreciation grew, our annoyance subsided, and a more peaceful relationship ensued.

3) Laugh: Two research colleagues and I recently completed a study about playful teasing in advertising in which we learned that good-natured ribbing builds social bonds. Not only is laughter the best medicine, it’s a great peacemaker.

As a young aspiring athlete, I enjoyed playing basketball at local playgrounds with friends. One day an older, bigger boy, known to be a ‘rough character,’ asked to join our game—with trepidation, we obliged. Tension ran high as we worried about doing something to set him off, then one of my friends playfully teased the older boy, making some ridiculous comment about him playing professional baseball. I gasped, wondering how the short-fused guy would react—he burst out laughing, the mood lightened, and gratefully the game ended without incident.

4) Love: The best way any of us can promote peace is to show others love. It’s difficult to be at odds with those who treat us charitably. Although they might cringe at calling it love, companies are often able to act compassionately on levels that individuals cannot, as this extraordinary example illustrates.

A major meat processor had a smaller competitor whose plant became submerged from unprecedented flooding. While many firms would seize the opportunity to gain market share and eliminate an adversary, the larger company showed compassion, first sending some of its own employees to help clean up the water-logged facility then, unimaginably, lending equipment so the challenger could continue to fulfill orders.

The two competitors eventually returned to vying for business but likely with uncommon mutual appreciation and respect. Like the good Samaritans in the Liberty Mutual ad, these companies remind us that reconciliation isn’t someone else’s responsibility. Every individual and organizational brand can practice peace by listening, learning, laughing, and loving, which ultimately make for “Mindful Marketing.”

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Gen Z Students Teach Their Professor About Thrifting

9/10/2021

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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

Remember the excitement of your first time wearing a new jacket or pair of shoes? Did you wonder how the original owner felt when they wore them? You probably didn’t unless you’ve been part of one of the hottest consumer trends--thrifting. For a variety of reasons, it’s now fashionable, especially among Generation Z, to shop secondhand, but this Gen X marketing professor wonders if it’s smart for the apparel industry to embrace a fad that may dissuade people from purchasing its new products.

Scanning my marketing news feeds a couple of months ago, a headline caught my eye, “Letter from Gen Z: Why thrifting is the future of fashion.” Thinking it was a bold prediction, I saved the article to discuss with my fall classes. The semester started, I shared the piece, and I’m stunned how passionate so many students are about thrifting!

However, on the first day of Personal Selling class, before I even mentioned the article, I asked each person to ‘sell us on something important to you.’ With great enthusiasm, a student named Brooke shared how much she enjoyed thrifting. Her tremendous passion for the practice was obvious to all, and very surprising to me.

My impression had long been that shopping for secondhand items was something mostly people on very limited budgets did out of necessity, to save money. Similarly, those who did frequent aftermarket sellers certainly wouldn’t brag about what they’d bought. Apparently, that stigma has subsided, and college students, some of whom come from affluent families, are among those most active in propagating thrifting’s new-found popularity.

To get a better picture of thrifting behavior among college students, I created a brief online survey that I shared with my four classes; about 70 students completed it. The results revealed some surprising behavior, for instance:

70.4% of students had purchased used clothing three or more times, and 54.9% had done so seven or more times.
The most likely places to purchase used clothing were traditional thrift stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army (39.4%), followed by retailers and brands that sell both new and used clothes, such as H&M and Levi’s (33.8%), then consignment stores (22.5%), and finally flea-markets (7.1%).
The strongest motivations for buying used clothing were cost (49.3%), followed by fashion (16.9%), then desire for old/vintage (11.27%), then impact of influencers (2.8%), and last environmental concerns (1.4%).

Before the survey, I didn’t think that so many college students were actively thrifting. To my surprise, only 9.9% of those who responded, said they’ve never purchased used clothing. I was also surprised that the places they thrift are rather evenly distributed.

Comparing the two different findings, it’s remarkable that the percentage of those who are very likely to frequent even the least popular thrifting place, flea-markets (7.1%), is not much lower than the portion of people who have never thrifted (9.9%).

On one hand, seeing cost emerge as the top motivator for thrifting was not surprising; however, I had expected its percentage to be even higher, e.g., 90% or more—again, I always thought that saving money was the only reason people purchased used clothing.

As it turns out, the desires to be fashionable and to own old/vintage clothing were also very compelling. Along those lines, I realized that my simple survey failed to ask about what may be one of the most important motivations!

At the end of the survey, an open-ended question invited respondents to share any other thoughts about thrifting. Seventeen students seized the opportunity and offered responses that included the following:

“I love it so much!”
“I love to thrift and over half of my closet is thrifted.”
“Very cheap way of finding trendy clothes”
“It’s how I get 90% of my clothes.”
“I love that I can find articles of clothing that no one else is likely to have. Thrift finds are one of a kind. I also buy clothes from stores like Target, but my purchases [there] are not as unique [emphasis added] because other people have the ability to buy the same thing. Thrifting grants me a more unique [emphasis added] wardrobe!”
At least 50% of my clothes are thrifted, I absolutely love thrifting - both because it limits waste in the fashion industry and because it’s fun! [emphasis added]

The last two comments contained two words that were both eye-opening and full of marketing implications:

1) Unique: I remember, not long ago, when young people wanted to look like everyone else. To be one of the few people who didn’t have the popular brands of sneakers or jeans was often an ostracizing experience.

Now it seems that many Gen Zers want to own clothing that not everyone else is wearing. Moreover, items that are one-of-a-kind, like those that can be found through thrifting, are even better, as they help express individual identity, which mass marketed products can’t easily accomplish.

2) Fun: In my thrifting survey, I kind of included a question about wanting unique clothing (“old/vintage”), but I completely overlooked the idea that members of Gen Z thrift because they enjoy the thrill of the experience.

For many, thrifting is a kind of treasure hunt in which they may or may not know exactly what they’re looking for, and what they find may be a complete surprise. It’s exciting for almost anyone to come across something special that others are unlikely to locate.

Both of these motives, as well as some of the others, are instrumental to the thrifting behavior of Brooke, introduced above, who has been buying secondhand products for 3-4 years and goes thrifting once every two or three weeks. In those outings, Brooke has found used bargains on everything from American Eagle clothing, to Ugg boots, to Vera Bradley bookbags.

Cost is certainly a motivation for Brooke; in fact, she says she loves saving money and showing people the great buys she gets for ¾ of regular retail prices. She also says that she now has “a hard time spending full price on clothing at retail stores.” However, Brooke also enjoys the excitement of thrifting:

“I get a thrill in not knowing what I’m going to find. You don’t know if you’ll walk in and find brand new Nike shoes for $40 or Lululemon leggings for $30, and that’s the fun in thrift shopping, the unknowns.”

There’s little question that many members of Gen Z enjoy thrifting for a variety of reasons, but what can/should marketers do with that consumption behavior? After all, most clothing brands are in the business of selling new clothes, not used ones. Some, however, have found ways to do both, and apparently make money.

One of those brands is the iconic blue jean maker Levi’s, which has made an entire enterprise out of buying back and reselling its used denim. The company runs a well-developed website, Levi’s SecondHand where it resells its classic jeans, jean shorts, denim jackets, and more.

Even though they’re used, the items aren’t cheap. For instance, the site sells preowned men’s original fit 501 jeans for $38. On a recent Labor Day sale, Macy’s offered the same jeans new for $41.70, or less than $4 more. Levi’s used product site also sells Vintage 501 Shorts for a pricey $78 a pair.

However, a webpage that describes Levi’s SecondHand explains why someone would want to pay a premium for preowned: “Denim from past seasons that’s already beat-up and broken in. In other words, perfect.”—That sentiment is very similar to the survey finding mentioned above about generation Z liking clothes that are old, vintage, and unique.

The company also touts several other advantages of SecondHand, especially sustainability:

“If everybody bought one used item this year, instead of buying new, it would save 449 million pounds of waste.”

“Levi’s SecondHand keeps coveted pieces in circulation. It’s all about connecting people to timeless styles they otherwise may not have found, and most importantly, saving clothing from going into a landfill. Old denim has never looked better.”

A big question that remains is if selling secondhand is sustainable for Levi’s. Sure, used denim may be what consumers want and what the environment needs, but can the company make money in the clothing aftermarket? If not, the program has little potential.

Levi’s SecondHand isn’t yet a year old, so longevity is still not the best indicator. However, if the company is successful selling some used products for only a few dollars less than they sell for new, and others for even more, it seems likely that the firm, free from manufacturing costs and with relatively little added overhead, must make a healthy margin on each piece and turn a profit on the program as a whole. Interestingly, over the past year Levi’s stock price has increased significantly, from $12/share on September 21, 2020, to $26.50/share on September 6, 2021.

Can other clothing companies pull off a secondhand program like Levi’s? Few have the history and brand equity that the iconic jean maker enjoys; however, consumers’ appetite for used clothing and the favorable cashflow suggested above serve as an invitation to other suppliers. Furthermore, the fact that those who have entered the aftermarket include clothing retailers J.C. Penney, Macy’s, Madewell, and Nordstrom, as well as the furniture behemoth IKEA, suggests the viability of selling secondhand.

When you think about it, it’s not unusual for manufacturers and new product retailers to sell used products. Auto dealerships have been doing so for a century or more. Part of the reason people are willing to pay so much for new cars is that they know when they’re done driving them, someone else will buy them. Whether it’s Levi’s or Lexus, high resale value is a hallmark of a strong brand.

Still, an important moral issue remains, which a second member of Gen Z brought to my attention. Katie, also a marketing student of mine, helped me see that consumers have a responsibility to ‘thrift ethically.’ Inspired by a variety of posts she’d seen on Instagram and a visit to a thrift store in Colorado, Katie suggested that consumers shouldn’t shop in “low-volume, high-populated areas” and that they should avoid patronizing secondhand places “outside of their fiscal demographic."

The overarching reason for these sensitivities is that some desirable-brand item that we buy in a thrift shop as a ‘little luxury’ might be the same item that a more impoverished person would buy out of necessity. As consumers, we are often accustomed to there being plenty of products for everyone, but Katie reminded me that what we buy secondhand may be taking something away from someone who needs it more.

Of course, not every product lends itself to a profitable aftermarket, but many do. Consequently, for the sake of environmental, financial, and social stewardship, more companies and consumers should consider how they might responsively market and purchase preowned products. Whether new or used, items that offer value to buyers and profit to sellers, can be considered “Mindful Marketing.”

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