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Muppets for Mature Audiences

5/30/2018

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

“Sunny Day, sweepin’ the clouds away.
On my way to where the air is sweet.
Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?”

Those famous lyrics remind us of the iconic kids' TV show tune, bringing back images of Big Bird, Elmo, and their furry friends. Such happy childhood memories are about to change, however, as a new Melissa McCarthy movie makes associations we don't expect from Muppets: sex, drugs, and violence.

Coming to theaters August 17, Happytime Murders looks like a cross between The Muppets Take Manhattan and Pulp Fiction. The premise of the movie, which features both humans and puppets, is that the cuddly creatures we adore on TV, lead “depraved, brutal lives” when off-camera. More specifically, McCarthy plays a detective who partners with a puppet to investigate gruesome puppet murders.

Homicide, however, is only one of the evils. The Happytime puppets are adept at a variety of vile acts. In the movie trailer alone, the puppets use extreme profanity, do hardcore drugs, and commit explicit sexual acts that might give an adult porn star pause. For instance, “A puppet in a spiked collar, vaguely resembling an emaciated Fozzie Bear, offers to perform oral sex for 50 cents on the movie’s star, Melissa McCarthy.”

Given the level of vulgarity, could there really be a connection between sweet Sesame Street and hard-boiled Happytime Murders? Yes and no. The Jim Henson Company, firm of Muppet fame, coproduced the movie with STX Entertainment, and Brian Henson, son of the legendary Muppet creator Jim Henson, directed the film.

However, in 2001, the Jim Henson Company sold the Sesame Street character rights to the Sesame Workshop (formerly the Children’s Television Workshop). The organization’s website explains: “Today, The Jim Henson Company provides the characters used on Sesame Street but the characters themselves are owned and run by Sesame Workshop.”

So, Sesame Street has no ownership of the movie, but it shares a unique puppet heritage that leads many people to conflate anything involving Henson puppets with Sesame Street. Happytime Murders further muddles matters by using the tagline “No Sesame. All Street.” For these reasons, Sesame Workshop believes the purity and innocence of the Sesame Street brand is at risk, which has led the organization to take legal action.

On May 24, Sesame Workshop sued STX Entertainment in federal court for unspecified damages, claiming the movie dilutes and defiles its Muppets’ reputations, causing Sesame Street “irreparable harm.” Sesame Workshop president Jeffrey Dunn also wrote a letter to the Jim Henson Co. asking why his organization was not consulted about the project, calling the movie trailer “practically pornographic.”

Lisa Henson, daughter of Jim, apologized to Dunn, claiming that she and brother Brian prevented STX from making the movie’s characters resemble other Muppets, but they couldn’t stop the firm from promoting the film as it wanted.

STX, was more resolute in its own defense, arguing that no one could reasonably confuse its adult-oriented characters with those of Sesame Street. Furthermore, STX lawyer David Halberstadter “reminded the humans behind Sesame Street that they have a long history of parodying other people’s intellectual property, including ‘Twin Beaks,’ ‘A’s Anatomy,’ and ‘Orange is the New Snack.’”

Happytime Murders is rated ‘R,’ which means only those 18 and older can see the film, unless they are accompanied by a parent or adult guardian. Unfortunately, however, some adults have no qualms about taking kids to R-rated movies. Given the film’s promotional reference to Sesame Street and the fact that most of the movie’s actors are puppets, such adult indiscretion is likely to increase.

Children are naturally drawn to colorful and creative characters, which is a main reason for the great success of kids' shows ranging from Barney to Teletubbies. Meanwhile, marketers of products intended for adults have at times been told to stop using cartoonish characters, such as R.J. Reynold’s Joe Camel, because they make harmful things like cigarettes more appealing to children.

Kid-appeal is certainly a key concern for Happytime Murders, but it’s only one of the picture’s problems. Should any adult see a film, let alone a comedy, full of so much gratuitous violence, sex, and profanity? Historical accuracy and artistic integrity make compelling cases for strong language in Saving Private Ryan and graphic violence in Schindler’s List, but what’s the redeeming value of seeing puppets snort drugs through licorice straws, witnessing their heads blown off by shotgun blasts, or watching one Muppet ejaculate all over a conference room?

Maybe it’s ‘entertainment,’ but at what social cost? At a time when our nation faces serious problems related to school shootings, opioid overdoses, and the hookup culture, Happytime Murders makes light of gun violence, illegal drug use, and casual sex. According to the film’s producers, they’re all a joke.

The Jim Henson Company has a rich history of educating and entertaining children. Melissa McCarthy is a talented actress and comedian. It’s sad to see those brands besmirched. Unfortunately, Happytime Murders scrapes the bottom of the barrel of moral decency. The movie may become a box office hit, but its only award will be for “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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For Lives, For Profit

5/16/2018

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

Childbirth can be dangerous—Claudine Ndayishime found out firsthand when a C-section complication caused her to lose blood and slip into a coma. Tragically, the hospital didn’t have her blood type in stock. As her life hung in the balance, help came from above.

Flying in from many miles away, a small and very fast drone delivered the blood she desperately needed. Thankfully, Ndayishime and her daughter are alive and doing well today. The drone that made the life-saving delivery wasn’t from who you might expect, e.g., the hospital system or the Red Cross. It came from Zipline, a for-profit startup company whose mission is about “life-saving delivery by drone.”

Ndayishime’s story of death defiance is not unique. Since launching in Rwanda in October 2016, Zipline’s innovative approach to delivering critical medical supplies has “logged more than 186,000 miles and over 4,000 deliveries,” often for cases of critical need. Rwanda’s Minister of Health Dr. Diane Gashumba suggests that many lives have been saved as a result.

Aerial drones are increasingly common. A simple search on Walmart.com returns over eighty drones that end-consumers can buy. So, why are Zipline’s drones special, and how does a small start-up deliver life-saving service on a national scale? For a clear and quick understanding of Zipline, watch the following three-minute video: https://youtu.be/6wBeXIgD4sY

One big difference from other drones is that Zipline’s have fixed wings, i.e., they’re like airplanes not helicopters. Zipline uses fixed-wing aircraft for the same reasons commercial airlines do—they can fly farther and faster. While Amazon’s delivery drones hit top speeds of 50 mph, Zipline’s drones travel as fast as 80 mph, making its technology “the fastest commercial delivery drone on earth.”

In critical situations when every minute matters, that speed saves lives, as does the reach of Zipline’s drones. The firm’s fixed-wing craft are more efficient than typical drones, allowing them to fly for nearly 100 miles round trip, or about 200 times further than the average quad-copter. Zipline’s drones also are cable of “flying over tall mountains, and even through high winds and downpours"--something most drones could never do.

However, Zipline’s success stems from more than just the type of drones it uses. The company employs comprehensive logistics that include strategically-located distribution centers for medical supplies, a text message-based ordering system, and “military-grade GPS” that guides the drone to the appropriate destination, where the valuable cargo is dropped softly by parachute.

Another important feature of Zipline’s drones is that they don’t take off and land like typical fixed-wing aircraft. Instead, the “zips” fly more like jets on and off an aircraft carrier. The drones are catapulted into flight for take-off, and they are tail-hooked out of the air upon returning to the distribution center, all of which adds to speed of service and location flexibility.

At this point, Zipline’s operations are restricted to Rwanda, but the company has plans to place distribution centers in many other countries around the world, including in the United States. Zipline has raised over $41 million in capital, which will help fuel the expansion.

That last piece of information may make some people uncomfortable: Zipline is a for-profit firm. As such, the company not only needs net income, it must produce a big enough return on investment to satisfy existing investors and to encourage future ones to buy into the business model. The average rate of return venture capitalists expect is 25%.

So, Zipline’s motivation is based on more than a selfless desire to do good. If your life were on the line, would you want the outcome to rest on the wings of a for-profit company? Wouldn’t you want aid from an organization that was more purely altruistic?

It would be helpful to ask these questions of Ndayishime and others in Rwanda who Zipline’s fast-moving drones have saved. My guess is they would have no problem with a for-profit firm being in the business of saving lives.

It’s a fallacy to think that individuals and organizations cannot hold different motives concurrently. Most of us do that kind of balancing in several areas of our lives. For instance, we’re employees who want to help the people our organization serves, but we also want to get paid. Those motives are different but complementary: the better we serve others, the more likely it is that we'll keep our jobs and perhaps receive a raise.

A similar relationship exists for Zipline. The better it serves hospitals and their patients, the more likely it is to retain their business and gain new accounts from other institutions. In the case of Zipline and many other companies, profit serves as an added incentive to innovate and to deliver their products/services more efficiently and effectively, which benefits others.

At a time when many say that technology is taking jobs and that business is bad for society, Zipline offers an excellent example of the opposite: Its work saves lives, provides employment, and ultimately makes our world a better place. It’s a company that can be commended for its “Mindful Marketing.”

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Should Alexa Be a Kid's Best Friend?

5/4/2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Subscribe to Mindful Matters blog.
Learn more about the Mindful Matrix and Mindful Meter.
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Muppets for Mature Audiences

For Lives, For Profit

Should Alexa Be a Kid's Best Friend?

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