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Unclear Communication

10/21/2017

23 Comments

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

If a friend says her “head is spinning” or a coworker claims he could “eat a horse,” we don’t worry about a broken neck or a slaughtered stallion.  Language is full of figures of speech.  What’s more, we don’t need to be told every detail; a conversation’s context carries much of the meaning.  That’s the way communication is supposed to work; although, it notably didn't during a recent college business class.
 
Professor Reb Beatty teaches financial accounting at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland.  To aid his students on the first exam, he told them several times to bring a “3 x 5 note card,” on which they could write any information they might find useful during the text.  Allowing students a small ‘cheat sheet,’ is not unusual for college courses, especially ones involving quantitative topics.    

On the day of the exam, students filed into the classroom with their usual books and bags and the note cards.  One student, however, carried something much more conspicuous.  Ten minutes before the test, Elijah Bowen entered toting a 3 ft. x 5 ft. poster, packed with information for the exam.
 
When he first saw it, Professor Beatty disregarded the jumbo card, thinking it was just a study aid that Bowen was using to cram before the test.  However, when it became apparent that he planned to use the poster during the exam, the teacher confronted the student.  Bowen explained that all of the information Beatty had sent about the card just said 3 x 5.  Nowhere was there any mention of inches.
 
After hearing the explanation, Beatty relented and allowed Bowen to use the card, but in the back of the classroom where other students couldn’t read it.  Of course, Bowen was delighted that he got to use the super-sized exam aid, which he had spent over an hour creating the night before.  He also was very surprised his professor allowed him to do so:  "It was fabulous. I was shocked."  "I gave it about a 5 percent chance he'd let me use it."
 
But what were his professor’s feelings about the liberal interpretation of his instructions?  Beatty said he was impressed by the ingenuity:  "I was actually very happy for him.” "You have to have a student with the intelligence to recognize the loophole and then have the audacity to put it together and come in and try it."  Beatty even took a picture of Bowen with the card and posted it to Facebook, where over 28,000 people shared it.  The professor also appended his syllabus, adding the note card’s true size.
 
So, the story had a happy ending, right?  Well, if you’re familiar with this blog, you know there must be more to the analysis.  Plus, what does an exam in a financial accounting class have to do with marketing?  Let’s see.
 
There are at least two examples of branding that happened here, the first of which was personal branding.  Bowen branded himself as someone who’s not averse to bending the rules, or gaming the system.  Although he knew his professor meant inches, not feet, he still tried the ploy, even acknowledging afterward that he doubted it would work.
 
As mentioned above, reasonable people interpret information rationally based on the context.  They don’t argue with a lumberyard that its two-by-four boards should be 2 ft. x 4 ft. thick, and they don’t pretend that note cards are of a similar large size. Perhaps Bowen meant to be funny, but ultimately he showed a lack of integrity:  He plotted to gain an advantage over his peers and feigned an unrealistic interpretation of the note card size, which even he didn’t believe.  Such behavior does not reflect the kind of individual with whom most people want to work or otherwise interact.
 
The second instance of poor branding involved the portrayal of accounting—a very important field and a noble profession.  Accounting abhors creative manipulation and exploiting loopholes, for which Beatty praised Bowen.  Good accountants want their firm’s books to accurately and honestly reflect their firm’s financial realities, as Investopedia suggests:
 
“Creative accounting capitalizes on loopholes in the accounting standards to falsely portray a better image of the company. Although creative accounting practices are legal, the loopholes they exploit are often reformed to prevent such behaviors.  A primary benefit of public accounting statements is that they allow investors to compare the financial health of competing companies. However, when firms indulge in creative accounting they often distort the value of the information that their financials provide.”
 
By allowing and even exalting Bowen’s gigantic note card, Beatty encouraged behavior that is antithetical accounting.  Over time, endorsing such illicit activity will taint the field’s image, i.e., people will think of accountants more as dishonest schemers and less as trustworthy advisors.
 
College campuses cultivate some crazy behavior, much of which is a fun and harmless part of the undergraduate experience.  College is also a place, however, where students develop work habits and reputations that go with them for much of their lives.  For these reasons, devious behavior that disparages individual and collective branding must be called “Mindless Marketing.”

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Racial Representation Gone Wrong

10/13/2017

27 Comments

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

Comedian W.C. Fields famously advised, "never work with animals or children," the idea being, both are unpredictable and likely to steal the spotlight.  A somewhat similar ultimatum for advertisers might be “never make race the focus of ads.”  At least that’s what Unilever is probably thinking now.
 
The Dutch conglomerate responsible for brands such as Axe, Lipton, and Breyers, recently lit up social media with reactions to a Facebook ad for one of its most iconic brands: Dove.  The fact that the video featured three women of different races didn’t cause the controversy.  Many ads depict as much or more diversity.  The issue for many people was how the ad portrayed racial differences.
 
The video showed “a young black woman taking off her T-shirt and then morphing into a white woman, who in turn takes off her T-shirt, and turns into a woman appearing to be Asian.”  Although Dove said it was celebrating the beauty of different races, many viewers saw the ad differently:  they thought each morph implied some kind of racial improvement.
 
Unfortunately, such a repugnant interpretation is not unfounded, considering the long history of unfair racial characterizations in advertising, especially certain ads that have expressly illustrated what Dove’s critics claim.  For instance, a 1940s print ad by N.K. Fairbank Co. showed a white girl asking a black girl “Why doesn’t your mamma wash you with Fairy soap?”  More recently, a Chinese detergent commercial drew overwhelming accusations of racism for showing a young black man being pushed into a washing machine, only to emerge happily as a lighter-skin Chinese man.
 
Even worse for Dove is the fact that it made a similar mistake not that long ago.  In 2011, the brand created an ad for its VisibleCare product that featured three women—one black, one Latina, and one white—standing left to right in front of enlarged pictures of skin and two signs: “before” on the left and “after” on the right.  The ad was supposed to illustrate dry skin before using the product and smooth skin after, but the positions of the women relative to the signs made it seem like the ad was advocating ‘dark skin before, white skin after.’
 
That interpretation isn’t unreasonable given that several well-known skincare companies, such as Nivea, market skin-lightening creams.  Africa is a favorite target market for such products.  In West Africa, skin bleaching is a “multibillion-dollar industry,” as advertising and social pressure lead many to adopt the misguided notion that lighter skin is more beautiful.  The highest frequency of skin-lightening occurs in Nigeria where “77% of Nigerian women use the products on a regular basis,” despite significant health risks that come with the treatments.
 
Skin-lightening is not limited to Africa, however, and among the companies pushing such products around the world is, you guessed it, Unilever.  In markets that include India, the firm promotes its Fair & Lovely line, using ads that “depict dark-skinned women transforming into light-skinned women with a direct result of success in romance and careers.”
 
So, what should we make of Dove’s latest misstep via its t-shirt morphing ad?  Well, first it’s important to note that the company has offered what appears to be a sincere apology:
 
“Dove is committed to representing the beauty of diversity. In an image we posted this week, we missed the mark in thoughtfully representing women of color and we deeply regret the offense that it has caused.”  “[The ad] was intended to convey that Dove Body Wash is for every woman and be a celebration of diversity, but we got it wrong and, as a result, offended many people.”
 
It’s also worth noting that Lola Ogunyemi, the black actress in the ad, has voiced her support for the promotional piece, saying that she understands the backlash but believes the ad was taken out of context.  She adds she felt honored to be the face of dark-skinned beauty in the ad and doesn’t consider herself a victim.  However, she was unaware of the order that she and the other actresses would appear in the ad.
 
Ultimately, Unilever/Dove should have: learned from its past mistakes as well as those of other advertisers, recognized the ad’s implied endorsement of physically and socially harmful skin-lightening, and more thoroughly vetted the new ad before deciding to publish it.  Respectful representation of racial diversity in ads is great, but Dove’s imprudent approach is an unfortunate example of “Mindless Marketing.”


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Barfarian Sneakers

10/7/2017

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

People once wore one sneaker to do everything.  Thanks to Nike and other apparel manufacturers, there are now specialized sneakers for almost any activity, from basketball, to lacrosse, to volleyball.  Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised, then, that one well-known company has created a special shoe just for this favorite pastime: drinking.

Yes, German footwear giant Adidas is marketing a shoe called the München (or, Munich) that has a “durable puke and beer repellent (DPBR) coating” that allows users to dabble in drunkenness without ruining their footwear.
 
Why would one of the world’s leading apparel manufacturers, which equips superstar athletes like Novak Djokovic, Lionel Messi, and James Harden, want to outfit the town drunk?  The reason is more compelling than you might think.
 
Early fall is the time of year when many cities, towns, and other associations, host their own version of Oktoberfest, the lively celebration best known for one thing—beer. The granddaddy of all these well-oiled gatherings is the one in Munich, Germany, which claims to be “the largest festival in the world.”  It just completed its 184th iteration.
 
Munich is located in the heart of Bavaria, world-renowned for its hops and boasting some of the most prolific beer-drinkers anywhere—the average Bavarian consumes 150 liters, or 40 gallons, of beer a year.  Adidas is also in Bavaria, headquartered in Herzogenaurach, less than 200 km north of Munich and the original Oktoberfest.
 
Interestingly, Oktoberfest didn’t start as a keg party. It began as a wedding celebration for Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese that included horse races and a “festival for the whole of Bavaria.”  The following year, the horse races returned, and over the years, additional activities were added to the annual festival, including more places to buy beer.
 
The latest iteration of Munich’s Oktoberfest featured about 143 food and drink businesses, which started serving suds at 10:00 am on weekdays and 9:00 am on weekends.  Those early hours helped vendors sell over 6 million liters of beer during the festival.

As you might imagine, with so much “liquid gold” flowing freely among 6.3 million visitors, there are likely to be incidents, such as the 7,900 people who needed to visit medical tens and the 600+ individuals who got alcohol poisoning.  One Munich native describes the often unpleasant scene: 
 
“During Oktoberfest, the city gets packed and there are drunk people everywhere, and all the time. The drunken debauchery often leads to fights, aggressive behavior, and bierleichen — so-called "beer corpses," which is what locals call the many passed out drunks lying on the hill behind the tents.”
 
This past year, an American tourist from Texas didn’t let his one-year old baby strapped to his chest stop him from getting plastered.  As the man slumped over, police took the baby away and took him to the hospital.
 
Given its geographic and cultural closeness to the debauchery, it appears that Adidas has picked the perfect target market for its ‘drinking sneaker.’  In addition to the barf and beer-resistant coating, other details artfully reinforce the shoe’s positioning, e.g., a red and white check lining that matches the beer tents’ tablecloths, a brown and gold upper that coordinates with lederhosen, and the word “Prost” (German for “cheers”) embroidered on the side.  Even at €199.95 (about $240), the sneakers sold out on one popular website, suggesting that Adidas has a marketing hit.

However, just because Adidas can sell a shoe for drinking doesn’t necessarily mean that it should.  While many people drink responsibly, and some studies even suggest benefits from moderate alcohol consumption, there’s a difference between having a beer with dinner and drinking oneself into a stupor, which is when a sneaker’s protection against suds and vomit becomes most important.   Consequently, it’s fair to ask, ‘Does the sneaker’s unusual positioning encourage drunkenness?’

Of course, no sneaker by itself will make people drink.  Personal and social factors hold much more influence.  Still, there’s something unseemly about products that promise to help us avoid the negative consequences of bad behavior.  For instance, I’d bet that people who own radar detectors are more likely to speed.  Do the detectors make them speed?  No, but having a device in their vehicle that significantly reduces the probability of getting caught probably encourages them to take their chances.
 
Is the possibility of ruining one’s shoes a deterrent to drunkenness?  It’s probably not a major factor, but it must have some influence; otherwise, Adidas wouldn’t have developed the special coating and consumers wouldn’t be buying up the sneaker's supply.  The more important point is that by marketing the shoe, the company is essentially saying, ‘Go ahead and drink ‘til you hurl; we’ve got you covered.’  
 
But, maybe it’s not just people who get drunk who can benefit from the sneakers.  There also are individuals who drink moderately, or not at all, who risk having their shoes ruined by others’ indiscretions.
 
That’s a reasonable argument, except for the fact that it’s pretty unusual to get vomited on unless you’re keeping close company with buds who are bashed.  Likewise, how many people are willing to shell-out $240 for sneakers when there's only a remote possibility that they’ll be walking in other people’s puke.  It seems like the sneakers’ primary appeal, therefore, is to people who plan to get plastered.  That bad intent is reinforced by Adidas offering a free beer mug with every purchase of the sneakers.
 
Aside from some people’s wild intemperance, Oktoberfest is a great cultural event that brings families and communities together to celebrate Bavaria’s rich history.  Similarly, Adidas is a fine company that is smart to support its German heritage.  However, any product that makes it easier to overindulge on alcoholic must be called “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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