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Should Elmo Explain Zika?

3/26/2016

by David Hagenbuch, Founder of Mindful Marketing

Did you like watching Sesame Street? For almost 47 years children have had fun learning from their fuzzy TV friends things like counting, reading, and respecting people. Yes, Muppets can make almost anything interesting, but should they be educating about infectious diseases?

Elmo and Raya, a teal-colored girl Muppet, are appearing throughout Latin American and the Caribbean in public service announcements (PSAs) aimed at educating about the Zika virus. If you haven’t heard, the World Health Organization has declared the mosquito-borne disease a public health emergency, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has given Zika “Level 1 activation,” the agency’s highest response protocol. There are currently about 40 countries and territories in the world with active Zika virus transmission.

Why is Zika worthy of such worry? Individuals bitten by the Aedes mosquitos that carry the virus experience rather minor symptoms (e.g., “fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise, and headache”) that usually last for a week or less; however, babies born to Zika-infected mothers suffer much more dire effects. The infants often emerge with microcephaly, a condition characterized by undersized heads and inadequate brain development, which leaves those affected significantly disabled for the rest of their lives.

Zika is certainly a serious problem for individuals infected and for our world. That kind of gravity is not what you’d think of sharing with grade schoolers or younger children; yet, Sesame Street, in partnership with the Pan American Health Organization, is taking on the virus in 30 second TV spots, voiced in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

In one PSA Elmo and Raya provide tips for preventing mosquito bites, such as keeping screens on windows and doors, using insect repellent, and wearing long sleeves and pants. In the other announcement the Muppets suggest battling the bugs by covering trash cans and removing standing water.

As might be expected, there’s nothing about the Sesame Street PSAs that’s fatalistic or graphic, besides Elmo swatting at one particularly pesky mosquito in the first video. So, it’s practically impossible that any child would be traumatized by the ads. But then again, how helpful can it be to share these tips with toddlers? Young kids aren’t in control of most of the things the PSAs mention. It’s their parents, grandparents, etc., who buy clothes and put screens on windows, so what’s the point of telling children how to combat Zika?

Well, anyone who has children knows that they are master influencers. Not only are they adept at asking for and getting things they see and want, they’re also experts at calling our parental hypocrisy. For instance, “Dad, you make me wear my seatbelt, so why aren’t you wearing yours?” Similarly, if they learn there’s something socially responsible that the family should be doing, they are often the ones who hold the household accountable.

It’s also important to remember that young children soon become older children, and eventually adults. It’s helpful, therefore, if kids internalize the right messages at an early age so they can develop and maintain good behavioral habits throughout their lives. Sesame Streets’ PSAs, therefore, may serve the same purpose as for-profit companies’ ads that aim to “get consumers while they’re young.”

Finally, there have always been and always will be unfortunate occurrences that kids need to know about for their own safety and that of others—fires, wars, terrorism, natural disasters, abductions, etc. As much as we’d like to shelter our children from the knowledge of these realities, censorship poses a much greater risk. Unfortunately what kids don’t know can hurt them.

Fun-loving, family-friendly brands like Sesame Street usually don’t want to associate themselves with topics as terrible as pandemics. However, with its Zika-fighting PSAs, Sesame Street creates stakeholder value and upholds societal values, showing its genuine concern for the families it serves, as well as for the world in which we all live. So, the Sesame Street letter of the day is “M,” as in “Mindful Marketing.”

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Apple's Acting Ads

3/19/2016

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by David Hagenbuch, Founder of Mindful Marketing

Have you noticed recently a rash of people pretending to be someone else? An Ohio teen, for instance, pretended to be a senator in order to speak to a high school class. Then police in Pennsylvania found the opposite: a 23-year old man pretending to be a high school student. Unfortunately individuals aren’t the only pretenders--an organizational icon also has gotten into “the act.”

Apple News is in the news because of its plans to pretend. How exactly has Apple, America’s consumer electronics leader and the world’s most profitable company, decided to deceive? Its “News” app will display advertisements that look almost exactly like news articles. The only difference is that the ads will have a very small “sponsored” byline below them. Furthermore, that subtle commercial identifier might not even contain the name of the advertiser; it may just say “sponsored,” making the advertisement all-the-more ambiguous.

Since Apple just introduced News last year, many may not know exactly how the app works, or what it does. Leveraging customer data, the app identifies patterns of interest and delivers to each user the specific types of news stories that he/she is most likely to read. While Apple acts as the curator, the news feeds come courtesy of over 100 top publishers, such as Time Inc., which have decided to partner with Apple.

Right now News is only available in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and only on iPhones and iPads running iOS 9 or later. Apple undoubtedly would like to expand the app’s distribution. It also would like to increase the app’s modest advertising, which is managed by the company’s unique iAd advertising platform. Such improvements would be welcomed by media partners such as Joe Ripp, CEO of Time, who so far has been underwhelmed by the revenue his firm has earned from advertising on the app.

Now back to the native banner ads on News . . . In its own words, Apple’s express intention is to make the ads “blend in with their surrounding[s]” by running them “directly in the content feeds, inline with the News articles” and by setting them in “the default font used in News.” The question begging to be answered is “Why?”—Why would Apple not want ads to standout from articles?

Maybe Apple just wants a very uniform look, or a simple design, throughout the News feed. That theory seems unlikely, however, given that the company says “News also combines the rich and immersive design found in print with the interactivity of digital media, letting you enjoy stunningly crafted articles that reflect the style of the publications they come from.” Uniformity in appearance, therefore, doesn’t appear to be an overriding objective.

It seems more likely that Apple wants inconspicuous ads in order to confuse consumers; i.e., to lead people to believe that the ads are articles so they’ll read the ad summaries and unwittingly click on them. Such a claim sounds cynical, but unfortunately there’s precedent in other media for certain advertisers' use of such stealth tactics. Likewise, Apple and others seeking to place ads in on-line environments face increasingly stiff resistance from consumers who want to avoid the ads. In fact, there’s a bitter irony in that Apple itself has been a backer of ad blocking software.

So people will sometimes mistakenly click on ads they think are articles. What’s the big deal? Well, there are two main problems with that scenario:

1. Deception: People process commercial content differently than they do other information. For instance, most of us will interpret a friend’s recommendation of a restaurant differently than we will the restaurant’s recommendation of itself in an ad. There’s nothing wrong with either type of information; both can be very helpful; but we deserve to know when the information comes from an objective source versus one that has a stake (and possibly a “steak”) in our decision.

2. An Arms Race of Acting Ads: What will the media landscape look like if more and more organizations resort to disguising their ads as articles or other program content? People will find it harder and harder to distinguish real news from the faux variety, which will create considerable frustration for consumers and eventually lead them to make wholesale changes in their online behavior, upending many of the current commercial models. Of course, it could also be that the FTC will step in and take regulatory action before such a seismic shift occurs.

Given the Apple News app’s current low level of advertising, the use of article-imitating ads will likely spur an increase in ad revenues for Apple and its media partners, and even News consumers may benefit from an expanding array of available articles. That probable increase in stakeholder value, however, is offset by compromises of societal values such as honesty and respect, due to the approach’s inherent deception and consumers’ inevitable frustration. For those reasons, Apple’s covert advertising can be called “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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An Unappealing Product

3/12/2016

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by David Hagenbuch, Founder of Mindful Marketing

Do you find any of the following frustrating?

   - You can’t hear the TV when you’re eating potato chips.
   - Your laptop’s power dies, but the charger is in another room.
   - The auto detailer moves your car’s seat.
   - You want to turn off the lights but the bed is too comfortable.
   - You house takes too long to clean because it’s so big.

If you do, you may be experiencing “first world problems,” those trivial difficulties that people in rich industrialized nations bemoan, which pale in comparison to the challenges that individuals in emerging countries often endure.

There’s another apparently petite problem you may not have heard about: “I’d like to eat an orange, but it has a peel on it.” In a world of seedless grapes and crust-less bread, why can’t there be peel-less oranges? Well, thanks to a leading U.S. supermarket chain that wish recently became reality, although short-lived.

Whole Foods, the Texas-based retailer that bills itself as “America’s Healthiest Grocery Store” introduced a peel-less orange in some of its stores. As the picture above shows, consumers could buy the single citrus, sans the skin, in a pint-size plastic container. The retailer priced the package at $5.99 per pound.

It didn’t take long for the fruit-selling-strategy to come under fire, which started when a London-based shopper, Nathalie Gordon, posted a picture on Twitter along with a snarky remark: “If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn't need to waste so much plastic on them.”

No surprising, Gordon’s witty sarcasm didn’t just sink into the social media abyss. Her indictment went viral, and within only three hours Whole Foods responded saying that it would pull the orange packages from its shelves. It tweeted this apology: “These have been pulled. We hear you, and we will leave them in their natural packaging: the peel.”

So, case closed. For once a company promptly processed consumers’ concerns and rapidly made the right response. Well, not so fast. Part of the reason Gordon’s commentary went viral is that it caused a social media melee: people had strong feelings for and against her critique and Whole Food’s reaction. Those who responded in favor generally echoed the negative environmental impact to which Gordon alluded. For instance, @StephanieBe tweeted, “[expletive, expletive]. That makes me unbelievably angry actually. Talk about necessarily contributing to plastic taking over the planet.” Such strong support, however, was met by equally robust rebuttal.

The main criticism of Gordon’s tweet and Whole Food’s product retraction came from those concerned about individuals who can’t peel their own oranges. There are likely millions of people who lack such digit dexterity due to a wide variety of conditions ranging from arthritis to amputation. Many sympathetic to these persons’ plights voiced their support for the peel-less orange, as well as their distaste for Gordon’s tweet and the retailers’ reaction. Here are a few of those opposing tweets @ Whole Foods:

“I'm so sorry you've decided to do that. I have rheumatoid disease and it's often impossible to peel an orange” (@pschiendelman).
“How do you feel about preventing disabled people from eating fresh fruit because some cracker complained?” (@decolonizeupdog).
‎“Please don’t. A lot of ppl with disabilities like arthritis see them as a lifesaver, and don't appreciate the ‘joke’" (@KevinCarson1).

So, maybe having to peel an orange is not just another first world problem. Does that possibility, then, mean that Whole Food’s introduction of the peel-less orange was “Mindful Marketing”? Again, the answer is “not so fast.”

First, there’s no evidence that Whole Foods had any intention of helping those who suffer from conditions that would prevent them from peeling their own oranges. The company didn’t mention that desire in any of its pre- or post-organgegate communication. Plus, if the retailer really wanted to avoid physical encumbrances, it might have gone one step further and separated each orange into sections, making the fruit even easier to eat.

Of course, one might argue that the firm’s motivation doesn’t matter as much as the end result, i.e., people being helped is more important than why they are helped. However, the long-term reliability of that outcome is also tenuous, for instance:

Some have suggested that that the packaging itself (a hard-to-remove lid) might pose a problem for those with limited manual dexterity.
The oranges’ high cost (nearly $6 per lb.) would make their purchase cost prohibitive for many people, particularly persons with disabilities, whose physical challenges often correlate with financial ones.

Of course, customers’ cost is not the only concern. Even if Whole Foods’ peel-less oranges had helped a significant number of shoppers, there still would be the issue of environmental impact, which was the reason for Gordon’s critical tweet. Likewise, one can only wonder how many of the high-priced oranges would have been wasted after sitting peel-less in plastic. Neither of these outcomes would be desirable ones for a company that prides itself in environmental stewardship.

So, whether or not Whole Foods’ peel-less orange exemplified a first world problem, it did represent a real world marketing problem: a product that probably never would have created sufficient stakeholder value, while compromising the societal value of good stewardship. The end result is another unappealing instance of “Mindless Marketing.”

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Rewriting a Travel Tragedy

3/5/2016

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by David Hagenbuch, Founder of Mindful Marketing

More people seem to like “retro” things. Whether it’s listening to vinyl records or wearing Chuck Taylor Converse, there’s something special about connecting with the past. There’s also retro travel; for instance, a unique Vacation Rental by Owner (VRO) near Sedona, AZ showcases 1960s décor in a home whose design was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Spending a few nights in a ‘60s-style home is one thing, but how about taking a trip that mirrors one of the most infamous travel experiences ever? I’m talking about the Titanic. Yes, it’s for real: An Australian billionaire, Clive Palmer, has set out to replicate the ill-fated luxury liner in detail and to set sail with actual passengers.

Under construction in the CSC Jinling Shipyard in Jiangsu, China, “Titanic II,” will look extremely similar to its namesake, the RMS Titanic. Like its predecessor, the new ship will feature a grand staircase, timber-clad walls, and crystal artwork chandeliers, as well as a Turkish bath, a period-appointed gymnasium, and a smoking room.

Titanic 2 also will have three passenger classes, as made famous by James Cameron’s 1997 Oscar-award-winning film “Titanic” featuring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Those who book a cruise will have the option of staying 2 nights in each of the three caste-levels of accommodations.

Of course, the RMS Titanic tragically sunk in 1912, 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada after the ship hit an iceberg. More than 1,500 of the 2,240 passengers and crew lost their lives. Fortunately safety features of Titanic 2 hail from the modern era. For instance, the ship’s hull will be four meters wider and will be welded instead of riveted. The bridge will contain the latest high-tech navigational equipment, and there will be an added “Safety Deck” with ample lifeboats and safety chutes. Also worth noting, the ship’s maiden voyage, planned for 2018 between Jiangsu, China and Dubai, UAE, will run little risk of encountering icebergs.

All of the above sounds good, but will anyone really want to ride on a ship whose name represents one of the greatest transportation tragedies of all time? The answer appears to be “yes.” Since Palmer’s shipping company, Blue Star Line announced its plans, the company “has reportedly been flooded with requests for tickets — with some offering up to about $900,000 for a spot on the first trip.” So, there appears to be a market for Titanic 2 travel and strong potential for creating stakeholder value, but what about the always-important ethical question: Should such a ship be made?

What about the descendants of those who took the ill-fated trip on the RMS Titanic? For some the name conjures memories of lost loved ones whose lives were cut tragically short. For others Titanic is a story of familial survival; however, the narrative is a horrific one. Some of the passengers’ relatives have suggested that building Titanic 2 is insensitive and others have criticized the plans, but Blue Star Line claims that the response it has received has been “largely positive.”

In light of these mixed messages, I took the opportunity to contact a friend who is the grandson of a Titanic survivor. I asked him what he thought of the plans for Titanic 2. He kindly spoke with his mother whose own mother was a passenger who endured that fateful day in 1912. Her aunt also survived the sinking, but unfortunately her uncle did not. I didn’t know what their response would be to my question, and I felt uneasy even broaching the topic.

However, both grandson and daughter of the Titanic survivor voiced strong support for the commemorative ship. My friend suggested that Titanic 2 could be a way of honoring those who survived as well as those who died on the voyage. He added that the new vessel would not deprecate their memory, even though those memories were difficult to replay:

“My grandmother was one of the few on her half full lifeboat that desired to go back, and recalled hearing the screams from the dying in the water after the ship sank. According to my Mom, my grandmother wept uncontrollably every time she would tell the story orally, so she would have to write it out.”

Even in recounting such heart-wrenching stories as this one from his own kin, my friend’s affirmation of Titanic 2 suggests to me that the commissioning of a second ship could perhaps be restorative. Maybe a new generation’s completion of the amazing voyage would help to both reclaim the ship’s name and reframe the memories for those whose loved ones suffered a century ago. To be honest, the notion that Titanic 2 might recover hope from tragedy was not the conclusion I expected when I first set-out to write this piece.

Of course, my conversation with one ancestor of Titanic passengers does not represent the feelings of all the families. Still, based on this communication and the positive responses that Blue Star Line has apparently received from others, perhaps most descendants will see the new ship as a living memorial to their departed loved ones. If that perception prevails, then Titanic 2 can be considered a case of “Mindful Marketing.”

Subscribe to Mindful Matters blog.
Learn more about the Mindful Matrix and Mindful Meter.
Check out Mindful Marketing Ads and Vote your Mind!

5 Comments

Should Elmo Explain Zika?

Apple's Acting Ads

An Unappealing Product

Rewriting a Travel Tragedy

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