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Leaving a Legacy of Irreverence

2/28/2021

3 Comments

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


A teenage football player’s verbal hits on an MVP NFL quarterback led amateur and professional sports analysts alike to call a personal foul.  ‘Who taught the young man to talk that way?’ was the question most asked, including many of the world’s top sports minds.  Is it possible the teen learned to heckle from some of the same commentators who have censured him?
 
Heisman Trophy winner, former Carolina Panthers star, and recent New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton was leaving the field at a teen football camp in Myrtle Beach, SC, when one of the young campers inexplicably began to berate him: “You a free agent! You a free agent! You're about to be poor!”
 
Newton smiled as he replied “I’m rich,” which caused the teen to reiterate his attack and led Newton to repeat his retort, all while keeping his cool and eventually asking to talk with the teen’s father.
 
After the video went viral, several current and former NFL players joined the social media uproar to express support for Newton, who, after all, was there to help the aspiring athletes.  Many paid media pundits also offered their opinions, including ESPN’s most passionate personality, Stephen A. Smith.
 
On First Take, a daily sports talk show he cohosts, Smith came down hard on the contentious teen, delivering an unsympathetic rebuke of the young player’s abrasiveness.  Some of Smith’s harsh criticism included:

“That kid should be ashamed of himself.  If I was his parent, he would have been grounded, he would have been punished.  I might have slapped him upside his head.”
 
 “That was a disgraceful, disgraceful display of behavior by that young kid.”
 
“The level of disrespect that young kids show to their elders is one of the problems that we have existing in today’s world.”

NFL analyst Louis Riddick emphatically agreed that there’s a troubling rise in insolence among adolescents: “We’re failing in some way shape or form that the youth of our country feels as though they have a right to talk to people that way in any kind of forum, quite honestly.”

Such comments beg the question: ‘When it comes to modeling civil dialogue, who is setting such a bad example for young people?’  In admonishing the teenage heckler, Smith suggested that the breakdown is not happening on the home front: “What would get you to do that to begin with, because those same parents were there, those same coaches were there.  They taught you better than that.  You knew better than that before you did it.”
 
Tweeting what appeared to be a heartfelt apology, the beleaguered teen confirmed Smith’s theory that his parental upbringing was not to blame for his actions: “First I would like to start off by saying my parents never taught me to [treat] people disrespectful.”
 
So, if family is not at fault for this and other youthful irreverence, who is responsible?  Could it be that this young man learned insolence, at least in part, from one of the same sports commentators who castigated him?
 
Anyone who enjoys ESPN knows Smith as someone with a very sharp sports mind who is always insightful, usually entertaining, often cantankerous, and occasionally uncivil.  Unfortunately, it’s easy to find instances of the last category simply by searching YouTube for “stephen a smith angry” or some similar terms. Here are a few of the odious outtakes, including their starting times in the clips:
 

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­“You know, you [Will Cain, former ESPN analyst] make me sick sometimes; you make me sick sometimes, please, please, just be quiet and listen because let me tell you something:  You don’t know what the h*** you talking about . . .  Zip it.  I’m giving you facts. You don’t get to speak right now . . . People disagree with me all the time and they just end up wrong like you.” [0:14]

“This man [Kwame Brown] was a bona fide scrub; he can’t play.  No disrespect whatsoever, but I’m sorry to tell everybody the truth, the man cannot play the game of basketball  . . . He has no game whatsoever, plays no defense, doesn’t have the heart, the passion, or anything that comes with it.” [1:25]
 
“Before I get to the phones, let me say this about Joel Embiid for the Philadelphia 76ers.  What the h*** was that!  What the h***!  You freaking kidding me?” [:01]

How likely is it that young sports fans see Smith’s rants?  In September of 2019, ESPN Digital was the number one sports platform “across every key metric and demographic.”  What’s more, the platform saw a 64% year-over-year increase in people age 13-24, which contributed to the medium reaching 109.2 million unique visitors—about a third of the U.S. population.
 
Similarly, in 2018 Statista reported that 35.71% of respondents aged 18-29 watched ESPN during the previous month.  All this to say, media metrics suggests that a very high percentage of young sports fans view ESPN, where they are very likely to see Smith, who is probably the network’s most visible personality and is certainly its highest paid, at $8 million a year.
 
Smith–viewer correlation, however, does not necessarily mean causality.  Young athletes also may be mimicking the impertinence of others, namely that of professionals who increasingly do disrespectful things like taunt opponents after touchdowns, brazenly flip bats after home runs, and stare down defenders after dunks.  Other ESPN commentators sometimes  celebrate such actions on SportsCenter’s Top Ten plays—see #3 at 1:55.
 
However, an even more direct correlate with adolescent irreverence may be professional athletes’ trash-talking: the in-game verbal sparring that prizes putdowns, is sometimes seasoned with profanity, and can easily lead to physical altercations.  ESPN tends to laugh off or even eulogize ‘the most memorable trash-talking moments.’
 
So, put yourself in the cleats of the teenage football camper.  You love sports, you watch media like ESPN, you see top athletes glorified for trash-talking and other irreverent acts, and you listen to sports analysts’ verbal attacks on others.  It’s not hard to imagine how anyone, let alone an adolescent who is still learning to distinguish certain socially unacceptable behaviors, could think it’s funny to take some verbal jabs at an NFL star.  Of course, it wasn’t okay, but in light of all the mixed messages from role models and sports media, the teen’s actions should not be surprising.
 
Ironically, ESPN’s YouTube title for the First Take clip referenced above is “Stephen A. reacts to Cam Newton’s incident with a trash-talking camper.”  Granted, there’s the issue of youth disrespecting age, but what’s the fundamental logic or fairness in condemning the “trash-talking” of some while celebrating the trash-talking of others?

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It’s also ironic that several years ago, Smith made his own caustic verbal attack on an NFL quarterback, JaMarcus Russell of the Oakland Raiders.  Here’s what Smith said at 2:18 into the clip:

“I am a person that believes in second chances.  I think America is the land of second chances, except for when it comes to this dude, Mr. Jabba the Hutt, you fat slobily, no-good lazy bum of a quarterback.”
 
“This dude should be arrested for being a thief.  He stole money from the Oakland Raiders for years.  I’m talking $40 million dollars.  The dude had about seven starts, did absolutely positively nothing.  He cashed in the money, evidently used it on buying a bunch of donuts.”
 
Some may say Smith’s QB hit was worse than the teen heckler’s, “You a free agent! You a free agent! You're about to be poor!” Although Smith didn’t say his words to Russell’s face, he probably planned his tirade and knew it would be broadcast on national television, which also was arguably worse.
 
In his commentary on First Take about the heckling teen, Smith said, “I do think it takes a little bit of looking in the mirror to ask yourself, what would get you to do that?”  Of course, the point here is that Smith could benefit from some of the same introspection.
 
However, he’s not the only one who needs to do self-assess.  It’s tempting for any of us to demand, 'Do what I say, not what I do.'  It’s also very easy to see the “speck” in someone else’s eye while overlooking the “plank” in our own.
 
I’ve been guilty of that hypocrisy at times, along with failing to appreciate my action’s influence on others, including young people.  There have been occasions when I’ve watched painfully as one of my children did something ‘the wrong way,’ only to realize, ‘they learned it from me.’
 
Such unwanted imitation reminds me of Ralphie in The Christmas Story.  After he accidentally swore in front of his father, his mother asked him, “Where did you hear that word?”  Ralphie conveniently told her it was one of his friends, but he knew, “I had heard that word at least 10 times a day from my old man.  My father worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay.  It was his true medium, a master.”
 
The best way to avoid others imitating our bad art is to not make it.  That approach comports with Riddick’s recommendation:
 
“Instead of being too shocked about [the teen’s heckling] and spending too much time being angry about it, try to do something to change it, try to do something to positively impact the youth of our country so that kind of thing doesn’t happen.”
 
For ESPN, that positive impact could come by ending its own analysts’ trash-talking and not exalting athletes who let their mouths run afoul.  No one’s trash-talking should be tolerated, let alone celebrated, and especially not monetized.
 
It’s dangerous for any of us to think, “It’s okay for me to do it, but not for you,” particularly when our actions influence young people learning social norms.  Smith speculated that the heckling incident could be “a teaching moment, a learning moment.”  Let’s hope it is for him, for ESPN, and for all of, so we can put a collective lid on this rancid type of “Single-Minded Marketing.”


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When TV Commercials Wink

2/14/2021

14 Comments

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

As a Seinfeld fan, one of my favorite episodes is when George’s eye catches a piece of flying grapefruit, causing him to confuse everyone with his involuntary winking.  Such hijinks are funny for a television sitcom, but what happens when commercials use conflicting verbal and visual cues, particularly on TV’s biggest stage?
 
Before the recent big game, a friend graciously invited my analysis of the ads—You don’t have to ask twice for my opinion on advertising, especially Super Bowl commercials, so I shared thoughts about one particular ad that seemed strange.
 
Toyota’s “Upstream” commercial featured the adoption story of Jessica Long, a 13-time gold-medal-winning Paralympic swimmer.  Long’s rise to success despite severe adversity was inspiring; however, there was also something unsettling about the ad.
 
Pushing against the positive verbal messages of parental love and athletic achievement was a literal stream of cold, dark water that ran through every scene, including the family’s home and other indoor places.  That’s a disconcerting sight that can cause anguish for anyone, especially those who have experienced floods in their home, school, or work.
 
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The negative visual of flood water worked against the ad’s affirmative verbal messages, significantly diluting the positive affect Toyota likely wanted for its ad, and making it “Simple-Minded Marketing.”  The automaker certainly had good intentions, but I doubt the inadvertently somber spot did much to boost the company’s brand.
 
I remembered this ad partly because of its unpleasant aftertaste but also because I’ve studied such verbal-visual disconnects before.  Several years ago, I did research on the same phenomenon found in pharmaceutical ads, which are probably the worst offenders when it comes to sending mixed commercial messages.
 
When we watch a prescription drug ad, we usually hear a list of the medication’s side effects, which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandates.  However, as a narrator recites those potential negative outcomes, the commercial often shows very pleasant visuals, like the ones seen in this ad for Lipitor.  At about 33 seconds into the spot, a narrator starts to quickly read several serious warnings:
 
 “Lipitor is not for everyone, including people with liver problems and women who are nursing or pregnant or may become pregnant.  You need simple blood tests to check for liver problems.  Tell your doctor if you are taking other medications or if you have muscle pain or weakness.  This may be the sign of a rare or serious side effect.”
 
Ironically, the visual backdrop for these weighty words is a guy and his dog taking a pleasant walk through the woods and later jumping into a lake for some swimming fun.  Yes, we hear the side effects in such ads, but are we really listening to and understanding their gravity, given that very positive visual scenes distract us from those negative verbal messages?
 
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That’s the question I set out to answer through research that began with a group of students in an Advertising Ethics class I was teaching.  In a controlled empirical study that involved commercials for fictitious pharmaceuticals, we found that people do indeed discount drugs’ negative side effects when shown positive “dissonant” visuals at the same time.
 
I presented those findings at the American Marketing Association’s Marketing & Public Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., where a member of the FDA commended the research and asked for a copy of the presentation.  Health Marketing Quarterly later published the study.
 
So, one “Simple-Minded” Super Bowl ad failed to make effective use of reinforcing, or “redundant,” visuals—no big deal.  Actually, several other $5.5 million+ spots made the same mistake in similar ways and in doing so conveniently completed the other three quadrants of the Mindful Matrix:
 
 “Alexa’s Body” - Amazon claimed the steamiest spot in this year’s Super Bowl.  For nearly sixty seconds, a female Amazon employee fantasized about handsome Black Panther star Michael B. Jordan, who replaced the smart speaker in her lustful daydreams, which included Jordan removing his shirt and joining her in a bubble bath for two.
 

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The commercial was uncomfortable to watch in mixed company and may have posed problems for parents, but the real issue was the spot’s repeated sexual objectification of Jordan.  Role-reversal (a woman mentally undressing a man) may have seemed funny, but no one should be reduced to their body parts or have their personhood downgraded to a “vessel.”  Similarly, it’s dangerous to objectify men as doing so suggests that it’s also okay to objectify women.
 
The ad involved dissonant visuals in that images of a sexy superstar have nothing to do with voice commands about ‘the number of tablespoons in a cup’ or ‘turning on the sprinklers.’  The pairing of an A-list celebrity with Alexa probably has helped keep Amazon’s smart speaker top-of-mind, but all the gratuitous sexual innuendo made the ad “Single-Minded Marketing.”
 
“Happy” - In its “Ultra” light beer ad, Michelob employed an entire lineup of past and present all-star athletes.  For instance, there were still shots and/or video clips of Serena Williams, Mia Hamm, Anthony Davis, Usain Bolt, Billy Jean King, Arnold Palmer, Wilt Chamberlain, Jimmy Butler, Peyton Manning, and more.
 
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I wonder whether Michelob got permission from all these athletes, or their estates, to associate their images with its brand, but assuming it did, there’s still another problem that directly involves dissonant visuals:  People don’t ascend to those kinds of athletic heights by downing much beer.  There’s little to suggest that alcohol enhances athletic performance; in fact, alcohol has exactly the opposite effect:  It reduces aerobic efficiency, impairs motor skills, decreases strength, disrupts sleep, and slows recovery.
 
Michelob’s suggestion that happiness helps athletes win may have some truth to it, but there’s clearly much more to athletic achievement, namely physical and mental discipline both of which alcohol easily impairs.  For that reason, it was irresponsible of Michelob to show images of athletes in uniform, on their courts, fields, etc., along with alcohol-friendly soundbites such as, “fueling the run toward greatness” and “something more vital.”
 
How ironic and tragic it was that Kansas City Chief’s outside linebacker coach Brit Reid, son of head coach Andy Reid, caused a multi-vehicle accident days before Super Bowl, apparently due to alcohol impairment.  The accident caused him to miss the game and left a young girl fighting for her life.  Alcohol and athletics definitely don’t mix, and it’s doubtful that such precarious positioning will give Michelob’s brand much boost, which makes the beermaker’s ad “Mindless Marketing.”
 
“Get Back to Nature” - After the three commercials just described, it’s easy to be suspicious of all Super Bowl spots, believing that most played with consumers’ minds and sacrificed social mores.  Thankfully however, the preceding ads were exceptions.  Most of the commercials employed redundant, not dissonant, visuals that appropriately reinforced their verbal messages.
 
One of the best examples of such visual-verbal consistency was Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s 60-second spot that featured clips of ordinary people planning for and enjoying beautiful places in the great outdoors while hiking, fishing, camping, and more.
 

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Sprinkled into some scenes was gear that one could probably purchase from the outfitter, but none of the product placement was overdone; rather, all subtly and artfully supported the simple call to experience nature.  Consequently, viewers were likely both to remember the firm’s ‘enjoy the outdoors’ value proposition and to believe its closing promise, “We’re there for you.” 
 
Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s commercial wasn’t the only advertiser to hit a home run in terms of verbal-visual consistency that was both effective and ethical.  A couple of other best-practices ads belonged to Huggies for “Welcome to the World, Baby” and to Indeed for “The Rising.”
 
A wink is the epitome of a dissonant visual—it slyly states, “Don’t believe what I’m saying.”  Advertisers shouldn’t ‘wink’ with their ads, i.e., use dissonant visuals that contradict their spots’ verbal messages.  Instead, commercials should enlist strategically-chosen redundant visuals that reinforce the right verbal messages.  In Super Bowl ads and in other communication, that consistency makes for “Mindful Marketing.”


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General Motors – Going Electric, Going for Broke?

2/6/2021

7 Comments

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

There’s news and there’s NEWS.  The unexpected announcement that one of the world’s best-known companies, in an indispensable industry, had decided to convert all its product lines to clean energy was shocking NEWS that’s gained public praise.  However, is this storied firm making a PR promise that its bottom-line can't bear?
 
About a week ago General Motors made the stunning announcement that it would “phase out petroleum-powered cars and trucks and sell only vehicles that have zero tailpipe emissions by 2035.”  Companies revamp product lines all the time, so what makes this U-turn so extraordinary?
 
Throughout most of its 113-year history, the gasoline combustion engine has been the driving force inside the vast majority of the automaker’s products.  Gas has been to GM like chicken is to KFC.  In fact, GM could stand for Gasoline Motors.
 
GM has long-been known for gas-gulping sedans like Buicks and Cadillacs, as well as increasingly popular pickup trucks and SUVs, including one with one of the lowest MPGs of any noncommercial vehicle in the modern era--Hummer.
 
Not only has the company been an avid user of petroleum-burning technology, it’s also been a developer.  For instance, “In 1971, GM pioneered the use of engines that could run on low-lead or unleaded petrol.”
 
Meanwhile, this world-leading automaker hasn’t exactly been heading the charge into electric vehicles (EVs).  In 2016, Bloomberg estimated that GM lost $9,000 on every all-electric Chevrolet Bolt it sold, and in 2019, the company halted production of its Chevrolet Volt hybrid car.  Both of these short-circuits likely contributed to projections that EVs would account for just “5 percent of the automaker’s total production by 2026.”
 
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What’s more, in an effort to promote a gas-fueled future, General Motors joined a Trump administration lawsuit against California aimed at compelling the state to decrease its gas-mileage standards to the lower federal levels.
 
In short, “General Motors’ history hasn’t been especially kind to electric mobility.”       
 
So, would a company kept afloat for so long by gasoline really want to sever that fuel line?
 
Given GM’s history and current product portfolio, it’s easy to suspect that the company is simply playing a PR card.  Perhaps ‘no petroleum by 2035’ is a stretch goal that the company doesn’t actually expect to achieve, or the objective is just symbolic of the firm’s intent to be more environmentally-friendly.
 
Companies making such bold long-term projections can take cover in our collective amnesia.  In 2035, will anyone remember what GM promised a decade and a half earlier, let alone hold the company accountable?
 
GM’s current CEO, Mary Barra, has been leading the automaker since January of 2014.  Given the five-year median tenure for CEOs of large-cap companies, how likely is it that she’ll be at the helm in 15 years at the age of 74?  If there is accountability for GM’s no-petroleum pledge, it probably will fall on one of Barra’s successors.  That protection along with pressure for next quarter’s earnings could encourage a leader to promise anything!
 
However, GM doesn’t really need a confidence-building headline right now—the company is actually doing well.  Since a low of $16.80 per share on March 18, 2020, its stock price has tracked steadily upward to its current price of $54.25, making a market cap of $72.54 billion.  The company’s trailing twelve months revenues are $115.79 billion with net operating income from continuing operations of $3.39 billion.
 
Furthermore, many have an optimistic outlook on the firm, including 18 investment analysts CNN recently polled, all of whom gave the stock a “buy” rating.  Given the momentum of its existing operations, maybe a better question to ask is:  Is GM making a big mistake by promising to sever its gasoline fuel line?
 
One very good reason for wondering is that GM’s sales are increasingly skewed toward bigger products.  In 2019, GM delivered 2,887,046 vehicles in the U.S., of which more than 2 million were full-size pickups, SUVs, and crossovers.  Those bulkier vehicles need more energy to move their larger masses, especially if they’re hauling or towing things.  That kind of power demand can be hard for battery power to support.
 
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Political uncertainty is another issue.  After the Biden administration’s win and call for more clean energy, GM withdrew from the California fuel efficiency lawsuit—a move that seems prudent now, but what happens if the pendulums of politics and consumer sentiments swing back, away from environmentalism, as they’ve done on more than one occasion?  Will GM wish it hadn’t made such a life-changing commitment?
 
It’s reasonable to ask these kinds of questions about the authenticity of GM’s promise and the acumen of its long-term strategy.  However, it’s still very likely that the company’s electricity-powered approach is its best path forward, for strategic and moral reasons:
 
  • No future in fossil fuels:  Each year, more organizations and individuals convert their energy consumption to renewable sources such as solar and wind.  Although economic influences like low oil prices may temporarily slow the trend, it will continue, especially with more pro-environment government policies, purchase incentives, and industry innovation, such as Apple’s potential autonomous EV.
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  • Turning an aircraft carrier:  Many of the newer EV producers are more nimble than GM because of their smaller sizes, flatter corporate structures, and more risk-tolerant organizational cultures.  It typically takes an older, larger company longer to make a significant business model change, especially if the company is not privately held but needs to answer to shareholders.
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  • A planet in peril:  In the face of mounting evidence, it’s hard to overlook the negative impacts that CO2 emissions are having on the environment, including its animals, plants, and people.  Even if GM could continue to sell petroleum-powered products for another hundred years, moral considerations like fairness to those breathing polluted air and stewardship of limited resources suggest that the company shouldn’t continue production as usual.
 
As often happens in the auto industry, GM’s changes will have some significant impacts on other companies such as its main suppliers, as well as on thousands of other organizations that automotive touches like service centers, gas stations, and replacement parts suppliers. 
 
However, just as this large corporation’s changes will threaten certain industries, those that respond to the challenge and adapt may find great economic opportunities, like manufacturing batteries and operating charging stations.
 
GM’s 15-year conversion commitment is a big, bold move, yet it’s one the company needs to make for its own success, as well as for the wellness of our world.  Maybe this major player’s actions will inspire others to take similar steps, making GM’s electrical charge even more “Mindful Marketing.”
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