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Dress Codes for Customers

3/31/2017

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

United Airlines recently created a flap when it refused two young women entry onto a flight because they were wearing leggings.  Not surprising, social media’s response was swift and severe:  Many decried the airline’s decision, in support of the travelers.  Underlying the incident is an interesting ethical question:  Should companies be in the business of telling their customers what to wear?
 
Organizational dress codes are very common.  The rules are typically for employees, who companies feel free to restrict since they are paying for the completion of specific tasks.  In some cases, workers put themselves and others at risk if they are not properly attired (e.g., food production, firefighter, lifeguard).  In most instances, there’s no physical danger, but there’s the risk of violating social norms and creating unproductive environments, for instance, by wearing bathing suits in an office setting.
 
So, it makes sense for organizations to prescribe, at least to some extent, what their employees wear, but why should firms try to make that decision for their customers?  Companies aren’t paying their clients; their customers are paying them!  If anything, the nature of the relationship suggests that customers should tell the companies what to do, after all, “the customer is always right.”
 
So, then, how do restaurants and a variety of other retailers get away with posting signs like “No shoes, no shirts, no service”?  If a consumer desires to dine in a state of semi-undress, shouldn’t the restaurant oblige?  Likewise, why shouldn’t other businesses show acceptance of each customer’s wardrobe wants?
 
It’s true, meeting customers’ needs lies at the heart of the marketing concept; however, there are at least two important qualifications for implementing this central tenet of the discipline:
 
First, as consumers, we don’t always know what’s best for us.  In fact, sometimes marketers need to protect us from ourselves, which may mean telling us what to wear.  For instance, on Segway tours, few people probably want to wear helmets, but tour operators insist that they do so for the riders’ own protection.  In other situations, consumers balk at putting on protective gear like life-vests, safety goggles, and even long sleeves, unless the service provider insists.  Thankfully these companies look after our welfare by demanding that we wear what’s best for us, even when we don’t want to.
 
Second, as individuals, each of us must remember that we’re not the only consumer.  In service situations, production and consumption happen concurrently, so our behavior directly impacts the experience of others who are consuming the service at the same time.  On an airline flight, then, even though playing music without headphones or wearing a t-shirt with offensive language may be what one person wants, it’s not what the rest of the passengers prefer.  It is that collective preference, however, that the airlines must honor, especially if they want to stay airborne.
 
So was United Airlines right to deny entry to the young women wearing leggings?  To continue the story, the two girls weren’t typical customers.  They were flying on “buddy passes,” which are special tickets reserved for family and friends of airline employees.  With those vouchers come some unique requirements, including that the holders wear more professional-looking attire.
 
United was, therefore, within its rights to enforce the dress code to which all employees and their guests must agree.  However, should United even have such a policy?  As I suggested above, organizations need to have influence over what their employees wear.  Likewise, it’s prudent to prevent individual consumers from behaving in ways that endanger themselves or that infringe on the rights of others.
 
But, does wearing leggings do either of those two things?  It’s unlikely that any physical harm will come from leggings.  The notion of restricting others’ rights might apply in as much as fellow passengers may feel uncomfortable seeing others in clothing that is skin-tight or otherwise revealing.  This standard, however, is difficult to discern for much apparel, including leggings, given that other clothing, like a long top, might help create a more modest look.
 
To finish the story, it wasn’t the young legging-wearing women who vehemently objected to United’s decision, but rather a passenger at another gate who witnessed the exchange, assumed they were ordinary travelers, and tweeted her displeasure.  The airline, then, exacerbated the situation by tweeting back a rather terse reply that failed to explain the peculiarities of the situation (i.e., the buddy passes).  Consequently, the social media firestorm ensued.

So, misunderstandings and miscommunication were largely to blame for the United leggings debacle.  This unfortunate incident, however, shouldn’t become precedent for denying organizations’ influence over what their customers wear.  Sometimes companies need to protect us from ourselves and ensure that the exercise of our ‘rights’ doesn’t diminish the consumption experience of others.  In such situations, enforcing a customer dress code can be “Mindful Marketing.”


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Gender Rolls

3/25/2017

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

English speakers studying languages like Spanish and French sometimes struggle to learn whether a noun is masculine or feminine.  For instance, in Spanish the word for paper (el papel) is masculine, while the word for towels (las toallas) is feminine.  Combining these words requires even more careful gender consideration: paper towels = las toallas de papel (feminine).  Interestingly, paper towel brand Brawny has produced a different set of gender questions by swapping out the image on its iconic packaging.
 
One of the best known household brands, Brawny is often remembered for the eye-catching picture plastered on the wrapper of its paper towels.  The image, which has gone through various iterations over the years, has been of the head and/or chest of a man who looks burly, powerful, strapping . . . in other words, “brawny.”
 
Unlike other spokes characters who have kept a pretty consistent appearance over the years (e.g., the Jolly Green Giant, Captain Crunch), the Brawny man’s look has changed significantly at times.  One of the more recent images consists of just a cross-section of a man, from lips to chest, sporting about seven days’ growth of beard.  An earlier image was more clean-shaven and complete:  One could see all of the Brawny man from waste up, including his barrel chest and log-sized arms.

Most often the Brawny man has been a brown-haired Caucasian.  At one point, though, he was a mustache-wearing blond in a blue top.  Almost always, however, he has worn the same thing, a rugged-looking red plaid shirt, which probably has been the most memorable part of the paper towel packaging.  Of course, the reason for this visual and verbal branding (the man and the Brawny name) has been to convey that these paper towels are stronger and tougher than those of competitors.  In fact, Brawny uses the tagline “The Strength to Take On Tough Messes.”
 
The preceding description is important in order to appreciate Brawny’s decision to replace its male brand icon with a female counterpart.  The change isn’t permanent, but for the month of March, in honor of Women’s History Month, a “Brawny woman” graces the front of all its paper towel packages.
 
The Brawny woman looks similar to the man in terms of her brown hair and fair skin.  Of course, she wears a red plaid shirt.  Her physique is more slender than stout; however, she strikes powerful poses that show her with either arms crossed over her chest or hands placed boldly on her hips.  We can’t see all of her, but what’s visible reinforces Brawny’s special tagline “Strength Has No Gender.”
 
What should we make of Brawny’s bid to honor women with a cameo on its paper towel packages?  At first blush, it’s hard not to view the effort as noble.  Given the injustices that many women have suffered and the biases they continue to endure, it’s especially nice to see a company such as Georgia Pacific, parent of the Brawny brand, pay homage to both women’s inner and outer strength.
 
“Yes, but Brawny isn’t just being benevolent,” some may argue.  “The company is trying to profit from Women’s History Month.”  Undoubtedly, there are brains behind the brawn, and the company is looking out for its bottom-line, as any responsible organization should.  After all, if Brawny somehow went belly-up, there would be many unhappy customers, dejected suppliers, and desperate employees—both women and men.
 
But, is Brawny’s temporary packaging really a profit-making proposition?  It’s hard to know for sure, but one must first consider that the company is incurring extra costs in making the short-term switch, e.g., design and printing.  Then, one must wonder whether the special packaging produces incremental sales.
 
From my experience, grocery shoppers are notoriously price sensitive, usually looking for the best deal, especially for things like paper products.  However, people do develop brand loyalties for certain things, which makes them somewhat less price sensitive, but also less likely to switch brands, e.g., a Bounty user probably won’t buy Brawny just because of some special packaging.
 
There’s also the question of whether shoppers will even notice the novel wrapper.  Supermarket shelves are overflowing with options, making it hard enough to find what one is looking for, let alone attend to something new.  In addition, given that the male and female Brawny photos are similarly cropped and both contain red plaid, people who glance may not even realize it’s a different package.
 
So, any significant, direct return-on-investment for Brawny is doubtful, but that’s still not the end of the analysis.  There’s another compelling question that approaches gender identity from a different angle:  What if Georgia Pacific were introducing paper towels now, for the first time?  Would it be appropriate to put a woman’s picture on the package?
 
A prudent answer is probably “no,” not because of anything to do with perceived strength but because paper towels are often used for cleaning, and women are typically the ones typecast as cleaners.  So, the use of a female spokes character for a cleaning product could be seen as perpetuating a constricting gender stereotype.
 
That said, I suspect that virtually no one would currently accuse Brawny of promoting such a stereotype, especially given the context of Women’s History Month.  However, as suggested above, I also doubt that Brawny’s attempt at gender equity will make a measurable marketing impact for the brand.  Georgia Pacific can be commended for its goodwill, but in the end, people don’t really care if paper towel promotion is masculine or feminine; it’s just “Simple-Minded Marketing.”



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Frozen in Hope

3/18/2017

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

A recent arctic blast and some significant snow left many Americans feeling frozen.  The frigid experience reminded me of a recent news story about a young girl in the U.K. who actually asked to be frozen, and a judge granted her wish.
 
No, her desire was not symbolically tied to the popular Disney movie (“Frozen”); rather, her request stemmed from a much more serious need.  The fourteen-year-old girl, known as JS, suffered from a rare form of cancer, such that there was nothing modern medicine could do to remedy her terminal condition.
 
Knowing that her fate was sealed, JS searched the Internet to see if anything could be done to extend her life of just fourteen years.  She came across cryonics and spent her final months researching the controversial process in which humans are frozen with the hope of reviving them sometime in the future, when medical advances presumably will make such resuscitation and extended life possible.

However, before contracting with one of just a few organizations in the world that practice cryonic preservation, JS had to surmount two other significant obstacles: 1) the high cost of the procedure, which ranges from $28,000 to $200,000, and 2) permission to undergo the process, since she was not of legal age.
 
Fortunately, her maternal grandparents raised the $46,000 that JS need to be preserved. However, a court battle ensued between the girl’s divorced parents: Her mother was in favor of the procedure, but her father was not.  Shortly before JS passed away in a London hospital, Justice Peter Jackson ruled in favor of her mother, granting the dying girl’s request.  After she passed, JS’s body was preserved and flown to the Cryonics Institute in Michigan where it’s now stored in a 10-ft.-high vat of liquid nitrogen.

The case of JS’s death and freezing is both fascinating and tragic, but what does it have to do with marketing ethics?  Well, the organizations offering cryonics are marketing a service that an increasing number of people are considering despite its very high price.  Again, the cost of cryonic preservation can range from $28,000 - $200,000.  Of course, people ‘of means’ often pay that much or more for all sorts of other exclusive and possibly superfluous services, such as entertainment and travel, so why shouldn’t they pay handsomely to hold onto something far more valuable—their life?

The big difference is that when someone books something like a $50,000 European vacation, there’s a high probability that the trip will happen.  However, when individuals undergo cryonics, the chance that anyone will ever see them alive again, not to mention healthy, is extremely slim.  In fact, one might even say the possibility is virtually nonexistent. 
 
Despite the fact that cryonics has been used for about 50 years, no human being has been successfully unfrozen.  Science has no real track record for bringing people back to life.  Yes, there have been instances in which people have “died” on operating room tables, etc., and miraculously kept living.  There was even a case in 2015 in which a Pennsylvania man was revived after spending 12 hours unconscious in the snow, while temperatures dipped to minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
 
In such situations, it’s questionable whether the subjects had truly passed.  In the case of cryonics, however, people must be legally dead before they can be frozen (freezing live subjects is not allowed), which of course adds another degree of difficulty: It’s not ‘just’ a matter of carefully thawing a previously frozen living person; medical technicians also somehow need to bring that person back from the dead.  Then, after performing that miracle, they must solve other significant issues, like curing the person of the advanced-stage disease that killed him or her.

All this to say, someone who purchases a cryonics contract is far from holding a guarantee of a second chance at life.  These risk-takers are, however, recipients of an ever-so-slim ray of hope:  Perhaps at some point in the future, science will discover a way to overcome death and cure currently fatal diseases.  Maybe that hope is worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars when the alternative is certain, irreversible physical demise.
 
Cryonics isn’t the only industry to place a price tag on hope.  Everyday, people spend significant money on many items that cannot promise positive outcomes.  Certain surgeries are extremely risky with low rates of success.  Likewise, there’s no guarantee that cancer patients who undergo radiation or chemotherapy will survive.  Or, to take a completely different example, only the smallest fraction of people who play the lottery win.  The rest enjoy just a brief period of belief, prior to the drawing, during which they imagine that they might be the winner.
 
So, what’s different when cryonics companies make a similar sale of hope?  The main distinction is that other entities have shown they can succeed, or produce positive results.  Some of their customers will, in fact, realize their wishes.  However, again, cryonics has no history of success and its future prospects are extremely dim.
 
Furthermore, cryonics introduces an array of other ethical issues, especially if more and more people place hope in the uncertain science, for instance:
  • Use of resources
  • Responsibility for bodies if/when a cryonics organization closes
  • Reintegration into society of people who have been dead for decades or centuries
    
So, should cryonics be offered at all?  That’s a question that has significant spiritual implications, as well as environmental, financial, and social ones.  I’ll simply suggest here that if it is, it should be framed as entirely experimental, such that people who participate essentially donate their bodies to science.  Those individuals, then, should not be charged.  Furthermore, only a limited number of select cases should be accepted—not everyone who wants to add another ten years to his or her life.
 
There are many positive outcomes that organizations legitimately promise and successfully deliver, some more reliably than others.  Restoring to life the frozen deceased, however, is not a current reality, and it may never be one.  Consequently, any over-inflation of such hope should be seen as “Single-Minded Marketing.”


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All-You-Should-Eat

3/10/2017

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

People don’t like limits.  We've seen signs of such distaste recently as Sprint, Verizon, and other cell phone carriers have competed to give consumers the best unlimited data plans.  If people can use all the data they want for a flat fee, shouldn’t food afford the same option?  Of course, many restaurants do offer ‘all-you-can-eat’ alternatives; the question is ‘should eating be endless?’
 
Olive Garden and IHOP are two national restaurant chains that recently offered specific all-you-can-eat specials.  Olive Garden had its “Never Ending Classics,” which allowed consumers to eat all of the spaghetti with meat sauce they could for $11.99, while other entrées, like fettuccine alfredo, lasagna, and chicken parmigiana cost a bit more.  For the extra fee consumers could keep refilling with different selections, as well as eat limitless breadsticks and soup or salad.

IHOP’s special was even simpler.  For $9.99, customers could consume their fill and more of plain pancakes.  The restaurant also offered some other options with finite sides of sausage and hash browns for about the same price.  Such tempting treats led some consumers to hold their own hotcake-eating competitions to find which friend or coworker could do the most damage to IHOP’s pancake promotion.
 
Like Olive Garden and IHOP, TGI Friday’s has employed a limited-time, all-you-can-eat special: Endless Apps.  The chain has now decided to make the option permanent, proclaiming “Endless Apps are Back for Good.”  So, for the foreseeable future, patrons can purchase an infinite flow of appetizers like BBQ chicken flatbread, mozzarella sticks, and fried pickles for $10 each.  Even some sports teams, like the Philadelphia 76ers and the Pittsburgh Pirates, have instituted endless food plans for fans.
 
The point is, all-you can-eat options are pretty common.  In addition to these national players, there are all sorts of local and regional restaurants that provide limitless food for a flat fee.  Chinese buffets and pizza buffets are among the most common purveyors.  Of course, the purpose of Mindful Marketing is not just to summarize such practices but to answer the ‘should’ question.  So again, should restaurants offer all-you-can-eat options?
 
The main ethical issue this question seems to elicit is that of gluttony: the “excessive ongoing consumption of food or drink.” While we might want to minimize such behavior (“Everyone overeats at times”) it’s worth noting that gluttony has long been recognized as one of the “Seven Deadly Sins,” alongside the likes of greed, wrath, and sloth.

In terms of personal impact, it’s pretty easy to understand how gluttony can be harmful to one physically, e.g., extra weight puts more strain on organs and joints.  There also are likely negative social and psychological consequences; for instance, others might not find the gluttony very appealing, and individuals who routinely overeat may not feel good about themselves.
 
On a society level, the United States continues to face an obesity epidemic, which carries billions of dollars of financial costs.  Here are some specific stats from the 2009-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which studied American obesity:
  • More than 2 in 3 adults are considered to be overweight or obese.
  • More than 1 in 3 adults are considered to be obese.
  • More than 1 in 20 adults are considered to have extreme obesity.
  • About one-third of children and adolescents ages 6 to 19 are considered to be overweight or obese.
 
Of course, overeating is not the only cause of obesity; other factors like genetics can play a role.  Still, “the most common causes of obesity are overeating and physical inactivity.”  The question that remains, then, is whether all-you-can-eat options bear some responsibility for this overindulgence.
 
In my book Honorable Influence, I identify “encouraging overindulgence” as one of the “Seven Sins of Influence” that marketers must avoid.  More specifically, I suggest eight questions that can help determine, in a specific situation, whether the marketer is abetting excessive consumption:
  1. Are non-marketing factors unlikely to be encouraging overindulgence?
  2. Is the overindulgence widespread among members of the market?
  3. Are the market’s consumers particularly prone to overindulge?
  4. Are the market’s consumers especially susceptible to marketing influence?
  5. Do members of the target market have difficulty affording the product?
  6. Does one-time consumption of the product represent overindulgence?
  7. Does the product have addictive properties or non-satiating tendencies?
  8. Do specific marketing tactics explicitly promote overindulgence?
 
The idea is that “yes” answers indicate the marketer may be to blame, whereas “no” answers suggest that consumers are responsible for their own excesses.  As I consider these questions for all-you-can eat restaurants, I find myself answering “no” nearly every time, for example:
  1. No, non-marketing factors are likely to be encouraging overindulgence.  For instance, people often eat meals out with others, and if one person goes back for ‘thirds’ or loads up on luscious desserts, others are more likely to follow suit.
  2. No, the overindulgence isn’t necessarily widespread in the target market.  Many people who go to buffets or other all-you-can eat restaurants show restraint and eat reasonable amounts.
 
The one question that does give me some pause is #8, not for every all-you-can-eat restaurant but for a few that do things like Captain George’s in Williamsburg, VA does.  Captain George’s puts out a truly spectacular spread that it touts as one of the “Top 12 All-You-Can-Eat Seafood Buffets in America!”  The restaurant also charges adults $34.99 for the opportunity to partake in the overwhelming selection.

So, what’s the problem?  When a person pays more than three times the price of the average Chinese buffet, one feels especially obligated to keep eating—I know from firsthand experience.  Early in our marriage, while vacationing in Williamsburg, my wife and I dined at Captain George’s on the recommendation of others.  At one point we were about to leave, but we talked ourselves into staying and eating more because we had paid so much for the extraordinary eating experience.  We finally stumbled out of the restaurant in pain from having consumed too much.
 
Did Captain George’s force us to forgo restraint?  No, we fed ourselves more than we should have.  At the same time, though, the restaurants’ product and pricing tactics really encouraged this kind of overindulgence.  I’d bet that many people who dine at Captain George’s make the same “gut-wrenching” mistake we did.
 
Still, I maintain that Captain George’s is more the exception than the rule.  In most all-you-can-eat restaurants, it’s significantly easier for people to leave before they’ve overeaten because they’ve paid much less.  Our family sometimes goes to a Chinese buffet that charges about $9 for lunch.  The food is great, and when I start to feel full, I have no problem calling it quits because I believe I’ve already gotten good value in the exchange.
 
Yes, there are some unprincipled marketers who do things that hurt consumers, but most marketers understand the idea of mutually beneficial exchange and take their customers’ best interests to heart.  As consumers, we are also accountable for our own consumption.  Sometimes that means not eating everything we could.  Ultimately, this means that all-you-can-eat options can be “Mindful Marketing.”


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Making Sport of Men Too

3/4/2017

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

In the history of Mindful Marketing, it’s rare for the blog to treat the same topic twice, especially in consecutive posts. However, given that last week’s discussion of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition struck an especially deep nerve and because there’s more to be said about the images’ impact on men, this week’s Mindful Matters is a sequel: SI-2 (or, too).
 
Last weeks’ post argued that although Sport Illustrated’s claim of inclusiveness seemed noble on the surface, deeper analysis reveals harmful indecency.  The magazine appears to embrace diversity by including women of various shapes, sizes, ages, and skin colors; however, that inclusiveness really isn’t female-friendly when one sees how women are portrayed in the annual edition. 

“Swimsuit” is somewhat of a misnomer, as many models sport only half a bathing suit, and some wear nothing but body paint.  Furthermore, the poses of many of the women are extremely erotic and clearly aimed at arousal.  Such prominent media portrayals of women as sex objects perpetuates a harmful stereotype, undermining the personhood of all women and making it less likely that their male counterparts will consider them equals.

Of course, Sports Illustrated will dispute that claim, but how might the magazine deny evidence that it also is doing a great disservice to its main consumers—men?  More specifically, there’s good reason to believe that through its swimsuit issue, SI encourages a very destructive form of addiction. 
 
According to Echo Media, Sports Illustrated is “the most well-known name in sports media.”  The magazine has an average weekly circulation of over 3.1 million.  The mean age of its readers is 37, their average income is $60,913, and 77% of the audience is male.
 
Given that over three-quarters of Sports Illustrated’s target market has no practical interest in women’s bathing suits, and that such skimpy suits have virtually nothing to do with sports, why does the magazine even produce such an issue?  Of course, it’s not the bathing suits that SI’s predominantly young, male target market desires but the near-naked women wearing them.  These images, which in many cases appear pornographic, can easily become an obsession.
 
The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) defines addiction as “a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry . . . characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response.”
 
Of course, people can become addicted to substances like nicotine and alcohol, but is pornography in that same category?  WebMD describes the debate as to whether pornography use represents compulsive behavior or actual addiction.  This distinction seems irrelevant, however, when one considers that neither type of behavior is edifying and that Psychology Today uses “compulsive” to describe addictive behavior:
 
“Addiction is a condition that results when a person ingests a substance (e.g., alcohol, cocaine, nicotine) or engages in an activity (e.g., gambling, sex, shopping) that can be pleasurable but the continuation of which becomes compulsive [emphasis added] and interferes with ordinary responsibilities and concerns, such as work, relationships, or health.  People who have developed an addiction may not be aware that their behavior is out of control and causing problems for themselves and others.”
 
The bottom-line is that pornography use, once started, proves difficult to stop and is often destructive to both the user and those around him.  Addiction.com reports that those addicted to pornography routinely spend 11 hours a week or more searching for and viewing pornographic material and that sometimes that preoccupation exceeds 30 hours a week.  That expenditure of time alone can cost users’ their jobs and relationships.
 
It’s not just lost time, however, that makes pornography so destructive.  Users often experience a variety of other negative effects such as feelings of guilt and shame, anger and hostility when confronted, lack of control over their own lives, emotional distance from others, and reduced intimacy in relationships.
 
By now you might be thinking: “But, Sports Illustrated only puts out its swimsuit issue once year.  How can such infrequent exposure be blamed for addiction?”  Any addictive behavior starts somewhere—the first drink, the first puff.  What’s more, the magazine provides much more than one image; it presents dozens of pornographic pictures that are easy for users to consume continually through the hardcopy issue delivered directly to their home or through the SI swimsuit website, which doesn’t even require a login.   
 
A final question all should be asking is “Why?”  Why would any organization want to place its key target market in such a vulnerable position?  To be honest, it’s hard for me to understand Sport Illustrated’s thinking.  A good guess is that the swimsuit issue is an especially big seller for the firm (i.e., a significant income source) and that the special edition serves as a subscription hook (i.e., individuals want that issue, so they order the entire year).
 
Given the longevity alone of the SI swimsuit issue (53 years), it’s likely that the special edition is creating value for Sports Illustrated, in addition to perverse pleasure for those who “read” it.  That gratification is short-lived and superficial, however, when one considers the destructive long-term impact the indecency has on its users and many others.  Once again, Sports Illustrated can be seen as practicing “Singe-Minded Marketing."


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