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Will Heinz’s Halloween Promotion Scare Away Consumers?

10/23/2021

6 Comments

 
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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
​author of 
Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing 
​

Halloween is a time when many companies give a glimpse into their dark sides, usually with carefully created, humor-filled ads.  However, one iconic consumer product company’s frightful holiday tactic brings to mind the fearful parental warning, “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt!”  Is Heinz’s gory Halloween promotion going to bloody its own brand?
 
The H. J. Heinz Company merged with Kraft Foods in 2015, creating one of the largest food and drink companies in the world, with an enticing selection of edibles, from Maxwell House Coffee, to Oscar Meyer Hot Dogs, to Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  With such consumer product success, Kraft Heinz obviously knows something about branding, which makes Heinz’s decision to turn its ketchup into Halloween blood even eerier.
 
Yes, Heinz is suggesting that America’s favorite condiment for covering hamburgers at July 4th cookouts can also be used to coat Halloween costumes to give them a gruesomely bloody appeal.
 
Specially labeled Tomato Blood Ketchup is just one of the brand extensions.  The company is also offering “Tomato Blood costume kits, masks and premade outfits themed around mummies, pirates and more,” all available on a company microsite, HeinzHalloween.com.
 
A YouTube video introduces the Tomato Blood Ketchup, which the microsite further describes as “a collectible limited edition 20 oz. squeeze bottle . . . the same classic Heinz ketchup you know and love, but with a spooky Halloween makeover.”
 
What should we make of Heinz’s move into the macabre?  First, it’s important to note that Heinz is far from the only consumer products company that has sought to tap into the revenue potential of Halloween.  Other brands that have created “Frightfully Fabulous Halloween Marketing Campaigns” include:
  • Butterfinger:  mugshots aim to convict parents who have eaten their kids’ Halloween candy to turn themselves in.
  • Snickers:  a grown-up trick-or-treater in a bear costume insists she really is a bruin.
  • Temptations:  the cat food company recommends that pet owners feed its treats to their felines, so their cats won’t eat them.
  • Nike:  has created a special Halloween-themed sneaker with orange and black colors, an illuminated outsole, and a “creepy spider pattern on the insole.”
  • Lego, Star Wars, Disney+:  have partnered to produce a series of animated shorts with clever storylines based on Halloween themes.
  • Reese’s:  a longtime Halloween favorite, suggests that all the Reese’s that disappear during the holiday have gone on to “a better place.”
  • Skittles:  has released a special line of Zombie Skittles in Halloween themed flavors that include Mummified Melon and Boogeyman Blackberry.
 
The point is that other brands’ Halloween-themed promotions are heavy on humor and light on realism.  For instance, no one would actually believe the Temptation commercial’s suggestion that a housecat would eat a person.
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Contrast that humorous hyperbole with the bloody realism of Heinz Ketchup, which really does resemble plasma.  If the next time you’re chopping vegetables for dinner you squeeze ketchup over your hand and wail in pain, members of your household will likely believe you’re badly injured.
 
Heinz Ketchup acting as blood has the ability to genuinely shock or sicken people unlike any of the other Halloween promotions mentioned above.  Still, whether you’re a fan of Halloween or not, much of the holiday is increasingly about scaring and nauseating people, so in that grisly context, the tomato blood ketchup is not as outrageous as it otherwise would be.
 
So, most people can probably tolerate the idea and image of ketchup blood—there are things even more grotesque that people watch throughout the year in movies, TV shows, and online videos. Graphic violence that was seldom seen decades ago is now much more commonplace.
 
Some might say it’s a good thing that more people are now acclimated to the sight of blood, but what is that desensitization doing to society?  Although it’s probably true that most of us are no more likely to kill someone, how do we respond when we see real bloodshed and violence on screen or in-person.  Are we as likely to be appalled and to act against it?
 
A few weeks ago, on a SEPTA train outside of Philadelphia, a man raped a woman while several bystanders reportedly did nothing.  Of course, intervening in an act of violence is no small thing.  Still, if we weren’t exposed to so much violence and bloodshed, would we react differently when we see it?  Is fake blood or anything that trivializes trauma adding a little more insensitivity to our collective apathy?
 
Such societal impact is certainly the most significant consideration here; yet, from a business perspective, there’s another important question to ask about the Halloween promotion:
 
Can Heinz’s own bottom-line stomach the bloodshed?
 
Of course, the campaign is the company’s own doing, so surely Heinz has conducted cashflow analyses to project how much marginal revenue Tomato Blood will raise against incremental costs for things like new labels and special promotion.
 
It’s fairly easy to estimate that net income.  What’s much harder to determine is the blood’s long-term impact on Heinz's well-established brand.  To that end, the AIDA model (attention, interest, desire action) may help.
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On one hand, the uniquely appalling nature of Tomato Blood has gained Heinz considerable attention, or awareness that the brand wouldn’t otherwise have, e.g., news coverage, social media shares.  Similarly, the mere idea of the repulsive product piques curiosity, or interest, and likely causes many people to want to find out more, just as I did.
 
For some people that attention and interest might also lead to desire, or identifying a need to use the product either as fake blood or to put on burgers, as well as to action, i.e., purchasing the bottles and/or recommending them to others.
 
On the other hand, there’s a real risk in associating a beloved condiment with a body fluid that many people literally "can’t stand the sight of."
 
Between 3 and 4 percent of the population has hemophobia, or an irrational fear of blood. For these individuals, even seeing blood on television can cause symptoms such as difficulty breathing and extreme anxiety or panic.
 
It’s easy to dismiss a relatively small group whose reactions to blood are clinically considered “irrational.”  However, the same primitive reflex that causes some people to faint at the sight of blood exists in all of us to some extent.
 
How many people actually enjoy blood?  It seems that a visual of the vital fluid makes most people at least a little squeamish if not nauseous.  Given that widespread response . . .
 
Why would any brand, especially one whose consumption is predicated upon appearing appetizing, want to associate itself with such strong and innately negative reactions?
 
Human history and Maslow’s hierarchy have taught us that the motivation to eat is one of the most basic human needs and, if given a choice, people prefer to eat things that ‘pass the eye test’ and look appealing, if not delicious.
 
Food companies like Kraft Heinz usually go to great lengths in ads to make their products appear as attractive as possible.  Some even use little tricks, like putting a light layer of deodorant spray on fruit to make it shine or substituting shaving cream for whipped cream, which looks better in pictures.
 
Industry insiders know that bad food experiences and negative impressions can be very difficult to overcome.  I was one of many people who were slow to go back to Chipotle after about 1,100 of its customers contracted norovirus between 2015 to 2018. Many diners are even reluctant to return to a restaurant after finding something as simple as a hair on their plate.
 
More than what they wear, type on, or wash with, people are understandably very particular about the products they put in their bodies.  Any kind of negative association real or imagined, can be difficult to overcome.  So, it’s hard to understand why the manufacturer of a very popular tomato product would plant in people’s minds a seed of dissonance that could bloom into a very ‘bloody taste in their mouths.’
 
It’s hard to know actually how Heinz’s Halloween promotion will play out.  It might offer a nice short-term shot to income, but it may also be a blow that bruises the brand while also helping make people a little more comfortable for gore.  For these reasons, the matrix type for Tomato Blood is 'MM negative' for Mindless Marketing.
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Two Lessons TikTok can Teach Facebook

10/10/2021

2 Comments

 
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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
​author of 
Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing 

Most of us have used social media to learn how to do something, from making bread to remodeling a bathroom.  We often turn to such media for new skills, but what if these sites could educate each other?  In the wake of the latest revelations about negative social media impact, it seems there are at least two lessons the up-and-coming platform could teach the seasoned pro.
 
It’s been hard to find news feeds recently that haven't featured Facebook.  The iconic social network that’s often been the focus of questions from citizens and senators, was back in the spotlight after a former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower appeared on 60 Minutes and exposed a series of alleged corporate abuses, most impacting consumers.
 
Francis Haugen is a 37-year-old data scientist and Harvard MBA who has worked for a variety of top-tier social media firms for 15 years, including a two-year tenure at Facebook.  In her October 3rd interview on 60 Minutes, she didn’t pull punches in portraying what she believes is her former employers’ danger to society.  Among her accusations were:
  • Facebook’s algorithms systematically amplify angry and divisive content, which are rewarded with more revenue, as other content doesn’t receive adequate returns.
  • Facebook employees are compelled to curate polarizing posts in order to drive site traffic, maintain user engagement, and ultimately keep their jobs.
  • “Facebook has set up a system of incentives that is pulling people apart.”
 
Two days later, Haugen testified before a Senate subcommittee, where she made several other stinging revelations:
  • Facebook has ways of determining people’s ages and could be doing much more to identify users younger than 13.
  • Hate speech and misinformation boosts meaningful social interaction (MSI), a key Facebook metric to which employee bonuses are tied.
  • Facebook’s “amplification algorithms” and “engagement-based ranking” drive young people to destructive online content, resulting in bullying, body image issues, and mental health crises.
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Facebook has responded to Haugen’s accusations, including with a written statement to 60 Minutes in which it claims that polarization has decreased in countries where internet and Facebook use has risen.  Also, in a Facebook post, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has suggested that Haugen’s revelations represent “a false picture of the company” and that the idea that the firm prioritizes profit above safety and well-being is “just not true.”
 
Unlike Haugen and Zuckerberg, most of us have no window into Facebook’s innerworkings.  At best, we’re just one of world’s largest social media platform’s 2.7 billion monthly active users, meaning we have no way of knowing whose representations are really true.
 
Human nature and history tell us that both sides are likely right in some ways, and perhaps responsible for certain misrepresentations.  That said, many people have experienced firsthand Facebook feeds strewn with angry and polarizing posts.  Likewise, the company’s recent decision to pause its work on an Instagram product for children under age 13 seems to reflect some sense of mea culpa.
 
In short, it’s becoming ever-more-apparent, even to nominal social media users, that there are important issues Facebook needs to address more effectively.  The question, then, becomes, “Who can teach Facebook how to rehabilitate its social impact?”
 
It must be hard for one of the largest and most influential companies in the world to accept advise from anyone, including members of congress, as evidenced during Zuckerberg’s many visits to testify on Capitol Hill.
 
That doesn’t mean that government regulation isn’t effective.  It plays a critical behavior-modifying role.  However, there are natural delays in passing legislation, and those lag-times are often exacerbated by the speed at which social media and related technology change.  Furthermore, members of congress typically don’t understand an industry as well as those who work in it, particularly when the industry involves high-tech.
 
So, who also lives at the cutting edge of technology and could influence Facebook toward more positive social impact?  One particular competitor could—TikTok.
 
I admit; on the surface, this suggestion seems almost ridiculous:  With its own algorithms driven by artificial intelligence, isn’t TikTok part of the same problem?
 
In fact, I’ve expressed my misgivings about the influence of the widely-popular app that Search Engine Journal describes as having “the fastest growth of any social media platform.”  In the end, however, I concluded that users’ abilities to restrict or stop using TikTok suggested that it was not truly addictive.
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Of course, ‘not being part of the problem’ doesn’t necessarily mean that TikTok can be part of a Facebook solution.  However, the social media upstart has recently taken two initiatives that align squarely with two of the main principles that Haugen suggested Facebook must learn:
 
1.  To discourage bad behavior:  Compared to the millions and millions of videos available on TikTok, it was admittedly a minor move when the app recently began to ban posts that referred to stealing school property—a disturbing late-summer trend among teens.  Still, the moral stand that the company took shouldn’t be diminished.  A TikTok spokesperson explained the ethos:
 
“We expect our community to stay safe and create responsibly, and we do not allow content that promotes or enables criminal activities.”
 
2.  To support users’ mental health:  Also about a month ago, TikTok unveiled “a slew of features intended to help users struggling with mental health issues and thoughts of suicide.”  Among the app-related resources are well-being guides for those struggling with eating disorders and a search intervention feature that activates if a user enters a term like “suicide.”
 
Facebook’s challenges to more effectively discourage bad behavior and to support mental health may be somewhat unique, both in terms of their nature and magnitude.  Still, TikTok now has 1 billion monthly users, up from 700 million just a year ago, and those users seem to deal with many of the same social concerns that Facebook users do.
 
Businesses routinely learn from others, often by observing and emulating them (e.g., developing new products).  Facebook certainly can and likely does already do that, but maybe there’s another level of within-industry education that could occur.
 
This suggestion may be the most ridiculous one yet, but what if Facebook and TikTok cooperated?  What if the two companies ‘compared notes’ and in some way worked together to address the physical, emotional, and social challenges that threaten both their users?
 
Of course, imaging any cooperation between such large and close competitors is practically unthinkable, but it's not unprecedented.  Several decades removed, both Harvard Business Review (1989) and Forbes (2019) published articles citing such partnership examples, like General Motors and Toyota, and explaining the win-win outcomes that accrued from such “coopetition.”
 
What might Facebook and TikTok’s motivations be for cooperating?  Perhaps they both would like to avoid probable government regulation.  Or, they may want to see how they can advance themselves, without compromising their competitive positions.
 
Moreover, maybe Facebook and TikTok can recognize that personal and societal well-being are what matter most, and together they have the power to shape it like few others can.  Actually, all three of motivations have merit and together they certainly represent “Mindful Marketing.”
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