Mindful Marketing
  • Home
  • About
    • Mission
    • Mindful Meter & Matrix
    • Leadership
  • Mindful Matters Blog
  • Engage Your Mind
    • Mindful Ads? Vote Your Mind!
  • Expand Your Mind
  • Contact

Companies that Want to Make Us Mad

9/21/2019

32 Comments

 
Picture

by Keith Quesenberry, Associate Professor of Marketing, Messiah College

Some people have a real knack for ‘pushing our buttons.’  They’re good at taking us to the point of frustration, then backing off just before we unravel.  Now some companies are perfecting this tactic with the help of data analytics.
 
A friend recently shared with me his exasperation in dealing with one of the big Internet-TV-phone providers.  For many months, his home Wi-Fi was having significant problems, which the provider finally sent a technician to fix, but only after many futile and often infuriating phone calls.
 
When the contract ended, my friend considered all his options, including giving the current provider a chance to keep his business.  After several more frustrating phone calls, however, the best the provider would offer was a price about $20/month higher than he had been paying and than “new customers” could get.
 
So, he cancelled his account and switched to another company.  Only then did the original provider call him with a competitive price and a plea, “Please come back to us,” but it was too late.
 
Unfortunately for it, the company passed the point of no return.  Some other firms, however, have found how to step right up to that loss line without crossing it.  Their secret is ‘big data.’
 
According to a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, certain companies now use data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to determine “how far a customer can be pushed until their heads explode.” The practice gauges how angry a customer can get right before they leave a business, then uses that knowledge to guide customer service and other marketing practices.
 
At first glance, such tactics may seem questionable, but could it be that these companies are on to something and consumers just need to consider ‘the bigger picture,’ beyond their immediate ire?  Although these organizations might minimize customer support, maybe the cost savings and efficiencies they find will lead to lower prices or benefit customers in other ways.
 
Some question the ethics of AI, particularly whether it will take people’s jobs, but AI used properly can improve marketers’ performance and better serve customers.  “How AI Can Improve Your Job Not Steal It” highlights these benefits, including the automation of time-consuming manual processes.  Marketers also can use AI for data analysis, personalization, optimization, testing, digital asset management, automated campaigns and offers, content creation, and programmatic ad buying.
 

Picture
 
“How AT&T Uses Machine Learning to Better Serve Customers” describes how the communication giant uses AI in customer service to make predictions and provide intelligence to managers in near real-time that helps them answer questions like: “Were my customers happy or not?”  “If I put them on hold did that make them unhappy?” and “Did my agent solve their problem the first time?”
 
In a recent post on AT&T’s technology blog, the firm explains how it’s using AI to improve experiences for customers, such as by building 5G, optimizing network traffic and speed, fighting robocalls, and making sure technicians arrive on time. AT&T adds that it uses AI to personalize customer interactions and “to enable friction-free, always available, customer powered problem-solving solutions.”
 
But, do systems that push consumers to the brink of breakdown solve problems or create them?  In those tenuous cases, AT&T’s customers probably aren’t experiencing the standards set out in the firm’s AI Guiding Principles, which suggest that the technology should be: 1) By people, for people, 2) Accessible and shared, and 3) Secure and ethical.
 
These new analytics systems track things such as how long a customer will wait for a human to answer the phone and how many ads they will listen to before hanging up. AI can analyze behavior, personalities and tone of voice to determine what each person will tolerate.  One expert, Mark Shaefer, author of Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins, calls this use of AI “the worst marketing tactic ever.”
 
The WSJ shares a story similar to the unfortunate personal experience mentioned above.  An AT&T customer had to make six calls and spend four hours on the phone to get the company to change her plan. Only when she asked to have her number transferred to Verizon did AT&T honor her original request.
 
So, what’s the bottom-line?  Data analytics and AI certainly can make customer service more efficient and effective, which should mean better company performance and increased income that can benefit both shareholders and employees.
 
However, even if a company can ‘get away with it,’ using these tools to push people to anger isn’t strong support for societal values like fairness and respect.  There’s enough anger in the world and angst in people’s lives.  We don’t need companies intentionally adding more.
 
It’s great that more organizations are leveraging the latest technological trends to help power customer service, but using those tools to manage human emotions and manipulate people to madness should be seen as “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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

Who's to Blame for Opioid Abuse?

9/8/2019

19 Comments

 
Picture

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

‘It’s hard to protect people from themselves.’  That saying resonates with everyone from EMTs who wish motorists would wear seatbelts, to parents who demand that their kids “Stop climbing on that!”  So, who’s responsible when a significant portion of the population harms itself with prescription painkillers?
 
If you’ve been following the news, you’ve heard of America’s troubling opioid epidemic, which unfortunately has seen:
  • Misuse among 21-29% of those who are prescribed opioids for chronic pain
  • Use disorders in 8-12% of those who take the drugs
  • Transition to heroin for 4-6% of those who misuse prescription opioids
  • More than 130 people a day dying from opioid-related drug overdoses
 
What are opioids?  They’re types of drugs that come naturally from the opium poppy plant that are often used to reduce pain.  They also “can make some people feel relaxed, happy or ‘high,’ and can be addictive.”
 
The most common prescription opioids are Vicodin and OxyContin.  Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, “50 to 100 times more potent than morphine,” that’s often used to treat pain from advanced cancer.  Then there’s heroin, “an illegal, highly addictive drug processed from morphine.
 
Recently, the name often heard in the same sentence as opioid epidemic is Purdue Pharma, the Stamford, Connecticut-based company that makes OxyContin, the brand name for oxycodone hydrochloride.  The drug’s position at the center of the opioid crisis has made Purdue Pharma the focus of frequent legal scrutiny.
 
Used to “help relieve severe ongoing pain (such as due to cancer),” OxyContin should be a ‘medication of last resort.”  In other words, if people suffering from very serious illness cannot find relief from anything else, OxyContin can be used to mitigate their pain.

Sufferers of significant, relentless pain, however, are not the ones driving the opioid epidemic.  The problem stems, instead, from those who don’t need the drug but take it to get high and, if they don’t end up overdosing, often become addicted.  
 
Should Purdue Pharma be accountable for this abuse by illegitimate users?  More broadly, to what extent is any company culpable when consumers don’t use its products as intended.  Are organizations responsible for protecting people from themselves?
 
Since the advent of mass-production, there have been continual examples of consumers injuring themselves by misusing products, often despite clear warnings from manufacturers, e.g., “Don’t stand on the top of this stepladder”; “Don’t put this plastic bag over your head.” 
 
One of the most recent examples of widespread abuse was called the Tide Pod Challenge, which involved mainly teens videoing themselves chewing on the small detergent sacs and posting clips of their reactions on social media.  Tragically, several people died as a result of ingesting the liquid.
 

Picture
 
Procter & Gamble (P&G), the maker of Tide, responded to its product’s misuse by offering advice on Twitter to those affected by the Challenge and by asking YouTube and Facebook to remove Tide Pod Challenge posts.  P&G also produced a television commercial with former New England Patriots tight-end Rob Gronkowski urging viewers not to eat Tide Pods.  All of these efforts were in addition to the company coating the Pods with a bitter-tasting substance in order to discourage children from biting into them.
 
P&G hasn’t stopped making Tide Pods, and as far as I know, the company hasn’t assumed responsibility for the Challenge-related injuries and fatalities.  Is the firm wrong for failing to take those actions?  No.  The Tide Pod Challenge is an example of consumers' blatant product misuse, despite the company’s multifaceted, good-faith efforts to avoid it.
 
The same cannot be said, however, about Purdue Pharma and OxyContin.  Here’s why the two cases of consumer abuse are very different:
  • In contrast to the Tide Pod Challenge, which was a short-lived ‘fad,’ Purdue Pharma knew for decades about OxyContin abuse but avoided addressing it.  A  New York Times piece details the timeline, beginning in the late 1990s, when the company concealed its knowledge that the medication was being stolen and sold illegally to abusers.  Meanwhile, the firm promoted the exact opposite—that OxyContin was less prone to abuse than other prescription opioids.
 
  • Although serious, there never was an “epidemic” of Tide Pod misuse; cases were relatively isolated.  As the earlier opioid statistics suggested, however, opioid abuse has been shockingly widespread.  For instance, during the early 2000s, prescription drug distributors “sent enough pain pills to West Virginia over a five-year period to supply every man, woman and child there with 433 of them.”
 
  • Unlike Tide Pods, OxyContin is highly addictive.  Probably no one who did the Tide Pod Challenge wanted to try it again, but those who start using OxyContin often can’t stop.
 
  • Despite the added exposure it brought the brand and the additional revenue it produced, all evidence supports that P&G did not want anyone eating Tide Pods.  On the other hand, the New York Times suggests that Purdue Pharma, essentially encouraged abuse of its product by claiming that the company “planted the seeds of the opioid epidemic through its aggressive marketing of OxyContin.”
 
As I’ve read and heard about the opioid epidemic, I’ve wondered about the responsibility of doctors who liberally prescribed the drugs and of the consumers who misused the medication.  I now understand that these persons share responsibility with at least one company that knowingly fueled the crisis.  Purdue Pharma’s profiting from the nation’s opioid pain is a clear case of “Single-Minded Marketing.”

Picture
Subscribe to Mindful Matters blog.
Learn more about the Mindful Matrix and Mindful Meter.
Check out Mindful Marketing Ads
 and Vote your Mind!
19 Comments
    Subscribe to receive this blog by email

    Editor

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

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

    Categories

    All
    + Decency
    + Fairness
    Honesty7883a9b09e
    * Mindful
    Mindless33703c5669
    > Place
    Price5d70aa2269
    > Product
    Promotion37eb4ea826
    Respect170bbeec51
    Simple Minded
    Single Minded2c3169a786
    + Stewardship

    RSS Feed

    Share this blog:

    Subscribe to
    Mindful Matters
    blog by email


    Illuminating
    ​Marketing Ethics ​

    Encouraging
    ​Ethical Marketing  ​


    Copyright 2020
    David Hagenbuch

Proudly powered by Weebly