Category: Promotion37eb4ea826

Higher Ed's Big Gamble on Sports Betting

3/26/2023

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

For centuries, universities have been places where students study philosophy and sharpen professional skills. Are colleges now becoming locations where young minds learn to place prop bets and parlay their winnings? As more schools find gambling partners, those educational outcomes seem less like longshots.

By now most basketball fans’ March Madness brackets have been busted, which is not a big deal, provided they didn’t put down dollars on those picks. Of course, the risks of such bets increase with the amount of money wagered, but they also rise as gamblers’ ages decline. So why are some universities encouraging their own students to try sports betting?

According to the New York Times, schools that have established such partnerships include Michigan State, Louisiana State University (LSU), Maryland, University of Denver, and the University of Colorado. The executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, Keith Whyte, claims that eight or more universities have inked similar deals, and “at least a dozen athletic departments and booster clubs have signed agreements with brick-and-mortar casinos.”

Why would institutions that families trust to guide the next generation down paths of enlightenment and prudence, expose their students to activities that may strain relationships, double debt, and spell insolvency? The simple answer is money.

Many colleges and universities have long felt the pinch of revenue lost from declining enrollment and rising costs, including meeting expectations for best-in-class facilities and services. Corporate sponsorships often have helped bridge such fiscal divides, but when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized sports gambling in May of 2018, the doors swung wide open for all kinds of institutions to enter partnerships with oddsmakers.

In 2020, the University of Colorado Boulder signed a $1.6 million contract to promote sports gambling on its campus, and the deal that LSU inked with Caesars Sportsbook in 2021 is worth seven figures. Higher education may have been a little late to the gaming table, but now that some schools have gone all-in, others are likely to follow.

Of course, money is also a motivator for gaming companies. The ability to realize untapped revenue is understandably attractive to them. However, compared to other demographic groups, the young and green-to-gambling college-age market has special long-term appeal.

I remember years ago a client of our family’s promotional products company, a local bank, had created a special savings account for children called “Mega Bucks.” It featured a variety of kid-friendly incentives, the unambiguous intent of which was to forge relationships with young savers before their bank loyalties could be deposited elsewhere.

“Get ‘em while they're young” is a common mantra among marketers. Given that consumers are creatures of habit, constrained by switching costs, it’s often hard to persuade people to try a new product, especially when they’re satisfied with what they have. So, it’s understandable that organizations from banks to bookstores to bars want to reach the youngest age cohorts able to use their services.

Gambling companies want to do the same, i.e., reach young gamblers for the sake of current and future profits. One of the best ways to do so is through sports since most young people have no history with horseracing or blackjack, but many are avid fans of football, basketball, etc.

In all but four states, these firms can’t target consumers below age 21, but as with alcohol advertising, spillover into younger demographics is inevitable. It’s impossible to keep ads from Caesars Sportsbook and BetMGM that air during televised sporting events from influencing viewers who are 20 or, for that matter, 12, especially when they employ popular celebrity endorsers like Jamie Fox and former NFL quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning.

Moreover, actual gambling for those underage isn’t hard to accomplish, as many betting firms provide little resistance thanks to very loose screening processes. For instance, FanDuel Sportsbook PA’s $1,000 No Sweat First Bet, which promises new customers “Up to $1,000 back in bonus bets,” provides the following easy entry:

When you click on “JOIN NOW,” a list of about 20 states appears. Choosing Pennsylvania produces a “Create an Account” form that asks for an email address, username, and password but not a birthdate or age.
A sentence in small type, just above the “Create and Account” button reads, “Users must be 18+ (21+ in MA) to play Fantasy and 21+ to place bets on Sportsbook.” There’s nothing more on the page to prohibit underage gambling beyond that soft admonition.
If someone is inquisitive enough to click on Terms of Use, they’ll find a 161-page document with more than 76,000 words, which does state that underage gambling is a critical offense and FanDuel reserves the right to “to request proof of age documentation from any applicant or customer.” Still, what are the chances that anyone, let alone teenagers looking to try something new and exciting, will find the buried disclaimers or be dissuaded by them?

The experience in Apple’s App Store is similar. Three of the top betting apps (FanDuel, Draft Kings, and BetMGM) have age ratings of “17+ Years Old.” Granted, it’s a standard measure that applies to all kinds of apps; still, it’s easy to imagine how an 18-year-old who wants to bet could interpret the rating as a green light to begin gambling.

When a potential user clicks on “GET,” there’s no prompt to enter an age or birthday before being served the “Install” button. On BetMGM’s website, potential users are prompted to enter their email address and last four digits of their social security number before they’re asked their age. Human nature suggests that the further someone goes in the process, the less likely they’ll be to abort and the more likely they’ll be to rationalize and possibly lie.

However, this targeting of young people for sports betting is pedestrian compared to what some college and universities permit through partnerships that “allow sports betting companies to advertise on campus, in athletic venues and, in some cases, directly in students' email inboxes.” LSU’s contract with Caesars Sportsbook has seen students under the age of 21 receive an email encouraging them to place their first bet.

It’s unimaginable to think that a college or university would send its students any kind of invitation to gambling. As someone who’s worked in higher education for more than two decades, I know that students intrinsically trust communication from their school, which they believe is looking out for their best interests. For many undergrads, a partnership with a betting firm would seem like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on gaming.

Of course, gambling can be exciting entertainment, but at what cost, particularly for those who are still developing their understanding of risk/reward, debt, and addiction? As just a college sophomore, Saul Malek found himself in “tens of thousands of dollars in debt after two years of betting on sports.”

Unfortunately, Malek’s gambling experience is likely to play out increasingly for others, thanks to more universities partnering with betting firms. Even worse, these youthful indulgences may be setting up the gamblers for a lifetime of financial hardship and relational stress.

I recently spoke with a woman who witnessed her father’s gambling addiction firsthand and saw it break up her family. At age nine, she thought it was normal to go to the racetrack on a school night. After her dad drained her mom’s bank account and left her stranded outside her work for hours without a ride while he gambled, her mom left him. Unable to make it on his own, the dad now lives with his grown daughter who must take care of everything for him.

There’s a reason ads for betting often contain gaming disclaimers and phone numbers to call about gambling addiction: It’s a slippery slope on which a simple $5 wager can easily spiral into regular $500 bets on point spreads.

It’s also worth noting that the house never loses. Sure, individual gamblers sometimes make good bets, but overall and long-term, the gaming companies always win – their business models are based on outcome imbalance in their favor.

Marketers can target younger consumers for products, provided they’re properly informed and the products truly benefit them. Back to “Mega Bucks,” There’s a big difference in risks between banking and betting. For colleges and universities to promote sports gambling is madness any time of year, not just March. It’s also “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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Why So Many Super-Beer Ads?

2/12/2023

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

If last month was “Dry January,” this year’s alcohol-soaked Super Bowl ads might mean calling the current month Febrewery. There always are ample spots for suds during the big game, but the latest contest was especially inundated with companies selling spirits.

Parade Magazine offers those interested in Super Bowl commercials the opportunity to “watch every ad.” At the time of this writing, the publication had cataloged two dozen spots, and close to half of those ads, 10 of 24, or 41.7% were for alcohol:

Bud Light – 1
Budweiser – 2
Busch – 1
Royal Crown – 1
Michelob Ultra – 4
Samuel Adams – 1

Granted, these were only the ads that sponsors released early – many more air during the actual game. Still, the number of intoxicating spots already has increased substantially from last year.

During the 2022 game, there were 80 ads, only seven of which were for alcohol. So, even if no more alcohol commercials aired than those listed above, four additional ads equal an increase of 42.9%

It’s understandable that marketers of alcoholic and other mass-consumed products are drawn to the Super Bowl since its ads reach consumers in party situations, e.g., when they’re kicking back, eating nachos, and drinking beer with others. Even though by game-time, most people have already purchased all the refreshments they need, the Super Bowl’s strong association with food and drink may make those ads memorable later when purchasing the same products for future use.

Of course, the size of the Super Bowl audience also makes alcohol companies salivate. Over the last decade, between 91.6 million and 114 million Americans have watched the game, making it an unmatched medium for reaching in one fell swoop a very wide swath of the population. Last year, viewers totaled 99.18 million, or about 30% of the current U.S. population of 333 million.

Such a large portion of the population naturally means audience members ranging from four to 94, and every age in between. Moreover, a substantial number of viewers are undoubtedly under the age of 21 – it’s hard to know exactly how many, but given that those younger than 18 represent 22% of the population, is reasonable to believe that the number of viewers younger than 21 is above 20 million (99.18 million x .22 = 21.81 million).

So, somewhere around 20 million young people who cannot lawfully consume alcohol will watch the Super Bowl, where they’ll see 10 or more ads for alcohol – is such exposure legal?

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stipulates that “no more than 28.4% of the audience for an [alcohol] ad may consist of people under 21, based on reliable audience data.” It’s unlikely that those under 21 comprise 28.4% or more of all Super Bowl viewers, but as estimated above, the percentage is still high. Furthermore, even a small percentage of all Super Bowl viewers is a very large number of people.

The FTC also warns that “ad content should not appeal primarily to people under 21,” which is an even more subjective judgment. The ten ads listed above don’t contain bright colors, cartoon characters, or other elements that would appeal to preschool and elementary age kids, but they’re not the main concern for the alcohol ads’ possible youth appeal: It’s more likely those age 15 to 20.

Although Michelob Ultra’s Dynamic Duo ad featuring white-haired actor Brian Cox and tennis legend Serena Williams playing golf probably does not have great appeal to this demographic, some others may:

Budweiser’s Six Degrees of Bud spot contains a sequence of young basketball players grabbing some beers after a pick-up game, before transitioning to what seems like a hip hop recording session.
Busch’ Survival Skills spot parodies those heart-wrenching animal rescue ads, representing the same kind of irreverent humor that companies increasingly use to appeal to Gen Zs.
Michelob’s Cinderella Story commercial is also a parody, this one of a famous Bill Murray scene in Caddyshack. Those age 15 to 20 were not yet born when the movie debuted in 1980, but they are likely drawn in by the ad’s irreverent humor courtesy of former NFL quarterback and popular CBS football broadcaster Tony Romo.

Do these three ads appeal “primarily to people under 21”? It’s hard to say without conducting empirical research, such as an attitude survey. The commercials likely appeal to those 21 and older too, but it’s possible that the younger segment likes them more.

Regardless, there’s a psychological phenomenon, key to learning and critical to advertising, that the FTC guidelines inexplicably overlook: repetition.

The more often we see or hear something, the more likely we are to remember it, which is why television commercials rarely air just one time. Instead, they run on specific schedules and at particular intervals, which over time serves to affix their messages in consumers’ minds.

With four Super Bowl ads, Michelob Ultra has achieved some significant repetition for its brand. Taking all the game’s alcohol ads together, ten-plus spots during a single television event also has likely increased awareness, influenced perceptions, and impacted intent to consume alcohol for many in the viewing audience, including those under the age of 21.

Can the abundance of alcohol ads and their potential to encourage underage drinking be pinned on any single Super Bowl sponsor? No. The cumulative impact of so many ads is mainly the responsibility of the game’s broadcaster, which this year was Fox.

Fox sold out all of the ad inventory for this year’s contest; in fact, 95% of the available slots were gone by last September, with some 30-second spots selling for more than $7 million. The network did hit some speed bumps, however, when the economy slowed and cryptocurrencies faltered, causing some committed advertisers to ask for relief.

Fortunately for Fox, it was able to rebound, thanks in part to certain existing advertisers’ willingness to buy even more time – maybe that’s what happened with Budweiser and Michelob. So, perhaps Fox didn’t intend to increase alcohol advertising in this year’s Super Bowl by 43%, but it did allow it.

To be fair, 10 or 12 ads for alcohol is still a relatively small number compared to 80 or so total Super Bowl commercials. But what if the proportion continues to creep upward to or beyond 20 ads, making them one-fourth or more of the total? Given the recent growth of hard seltzers and now canned cocktails, more advertising demand from adult beverage makers is likely coming.

At the same time, there doesn’t appear to be any FTC regulation against such alcohol ad creep. The two provisos listed above (no more than 28.4% of the audience under 21 and the ads not primarily appealing to the younger demographic) seem to be the only stipulations.

Of course, the reason for discussing this promotion is that too much alcohol can tragically alter and end lives, especially for young people who are not used to its potency and who tend to underestimate their own mortality.

Over the last decade, “Drink responsibly,” has become a helpful catchphrase for encouraging sensible alcohol consumption. Firms that brew alcoholic beverages and networks that broadcast their ads should think more deeply about what it means to advertise responsibly. Otherwise, an unabated rise in alcohol ads will lead to a stupor of “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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Ensuring Ethical Advertising

12/18/2022

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

We’ve all said things we later regretted. Fortunately, a personal apology can often atone for such individual indiscretions. Advertising gaffes, which may reach millions, are much more damaging and difficult to roll back, so why do some of the world’s most creative companies and brightest people continue to make promotional faux pas, and what can be done to avoid them?

When people think of advertising, they often envision iconic Super Bowl commercials like Budweiser’s Clydesdales playing football, model Cindy Crawford sipping a Pepsi, or basket legends Michael Jordan and Larry Bird competing at H-O-R-S-E for a McDonald’s meal. They probably don’t picture “children holding teddy bears in bondage gear.” Unfortunately, that’s the image that many people now associate with the luxury brand Balenciaga.

The century-old Spanish fashion house recently made headlines for the wrong reasons when it released a series of ads that not only featured kids posed with adult-themed props but also included photos in which appeared “paperwork about child pornography laws.”

Severe backlash against the brand has included stinging social media posts and celebrity condemnations. Balenciaga, however, is no stranger to controversy. Among its other contentious tactics have been “selling destroyed sneakers for $1,850” and “sending models who looked like refugees down the runway carrying trash bags made of expensive leather.”

The company has apologized for its latest gaffes, with representatives saying that they take “full accountability for our lack of oversight,” as well as that they are “closely revising our organisation and collective ways of working.” Balenciaga’s creative director Demna also offered a mea culpa, saying that it was "inappropriate to have kids promote objects that had nothing to do with them."

It would be convenient if Balenciaga could be considered some kind of an advertising anomaly, but unfortunately, over the years, other companies have made their own promotional blunders, some arguably as bad or worse than that of the high fashion firm, for instance:

Dove created a campaign in which Black women pulled their t-shirts off over their heads, transforming into white women.
Reebok put up posters that read “Cheat on your girlfriend, not on your workout.”
In a commercial called “Pipe Job,” Hyundai used a man’s failed suicide to show that its vehicle produced no harmful emissions
A line-up of uniformly thin young female models served as the central visual for Victoria Secret’s “Perfect Body” ad.

It’s easy to scoff at these ads and think, “How could those companies be so rash to release such obviously offensive advertising?” “Couldn’t anyone see the probable PR crises and pump the brakes?”

Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and it’s easier to criticize than it is to create. It’s also hard to know the circumstances surrounding the decisions. Still, here are two misguided motives that probably contribute to what seems like a never-ending series of advertising missteps:

1) Coveting Awards: The goal of any advertising should be meaningful ROI for the client, e.g., brand building, website views, sales. However, those practical objectives can fall prey to creative staffs’ desires to win advertising awards like Clios and Webbys.

To achieve such recognition, some advertisers feel needs to test social norms and push moral envelopes. Meanwhile, consumers sometimes see uber-creative ads but when asked what they’re for, they respond, “I have no idea.”

2) Creating Buzz: Relatively few advertisers compete for major industry awards, but millions would love their organization to be the focus of the next viral video. Unfortunately, the very unique content that people love to share with friends on social media is often not what translates directly, or at all, to bottom-line advertising results.

Worse, things like sexually explicit images may stimulate thousands of shares, but they also have negative impacts on social issues such as body image and gender stereotypes and ultimately backfire on the firms’ brand images.

Those are two of the most likely reasons why morally questionable advertising occurs, but what can be done to avoid it? Here are four strategies that can help:

1. Create a culture of questioning: People at all organizational levels need to feel they have the freedom to ask things like, “Could some people find this offensive”? or “Is there approach that would be equally effective but less risky?” If employees worry they’ll be shunned or punished for raising a red flag, those kinds of questions will seldom arise.

Crafting such an open culture is much easier said than done, but a few necessary prerequisites are top management support, rewarding people for asking hard questions, and continually reminding associates of the desire for moral accountability.

2. Identify corporate values: One of the best reminders of where a company stands ethically is a clearly articulated set of moral standards. Some companies suggest such principles in their mission statements. Other firms go a step further and outline a list of corporate values, such as these that form the foundation for Mindful Marketing:

Decency: avoiding behavior that people tend to regard as crude, heartless, immodest, obscene, profane, or vulgar
Fairness: treating others equally based on their personhood and equitably based on their individual contributions
Honesty: not lying or distorting truth
Respect: holding others in high regard
Responsibility: fulfilling duties to others, especially those that society tends to marginalize

3. Avoid time pressure: Given that most of us don’t do our best work when rushed, a hastily created ad campaign will likely suffer the same results. It’s helpful when there’s time to put new work aside and return to it several hours, days, or weeks later with fresh eyes that can then more clearly see any shortcomings.

Similarly, it’s much better to identify serious deficiencies, moral or other, early in the process. People increasingly resist change as more effort and expense are invested. It’s best to nib potential ethical offenses in the bud.

4. Ask for assistance: After we’ve been exposed to something for a period of time, it becomes harder to see it objectively. In fact, we may even forget about the thing, like a painting on the wall of our home, until a visitor’s comment reminds us it's there.

For any significant work, it’s very helpful to ask others to review it. Inevitably, they’ll see things we missed. For an ad, that should mean at a minimum of others outside the department or division, and perhaps someone outside the organization. Companies ask consultants to advise them on all kinds of business strategies. Given the havoc that an ill-conceived ad campaign can wreak, they also should ask outside experts for ethical input.

Balenciaga wasn’t the first and, unfortunately, won’t be the last advertiser to overstep moral boundaries. However, steps like those above can guide firms around ethical infractions. Making morality an advertising priority alongside creativity is “Mindful Marketing.”

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Financial Stardumb? Celebrities Endorsing Investments

12/4/2022

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

Famous people have promoted products for centuries, encouraging others to buy everything from cereal to cigarettes. Cryptocurrencies recently tapped celebrity associations with great success, but a notable bankruptcy and the industry’s slide have led to serious financial fallout for many investors. Such unfortunate events beg the question: Should celebrities ever play the roles of investment advisors?

Babe Ruth promoted tobacco products. Doris Day endorsed a steamroller. George Foreman may be better known for his namesake grills than for his storied boxing career. Over the past couple of years, many celebrities inked endorsement deals in the new and fast-growing realm of cryptocurrency. Those who have attached their names to the digital dinero include:

UFC superstar Connor McGregor with Tiger.Trade
Tennis great Maria Sharapova with MoonPay
Rapper Snoop Dog with a variety of crypto exchanges
Actor Matt Damon with Crypto.com

However, probably the most infamous crypto partnerships have been between the now bankrupt Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange FTX and a lineup of all-star athletes and A-List celebrities, including: Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Stephen Curry, Kevin O’Leary, and Naomi Osaka.

Even when products have little connection to celebrities’ specific talents, star-studded endorsements are often very effective for a few reasons:

Celebrities grab attention. If you’ve ever seen a celebrity in an airport or walking down a city street, you probably watched them for at least for a moment.
Individuals are very interested in the lives of famous people and those who know them. That’s why there are crowds of royal watchers and television shows like Basketball Wives.
People often want to pattern their lives after those of celebrities. Gatorade famously capitalized on that inclination a few decades ago with its “Be Like Mike” ad campaign, and most other celebrity-based promotion includes a similar inference – if you buy this product, you’ll be at least a little like the star who’s selling it.

While I know a little about advertising endorsements, investing and cryptocurrency are not my wheelhouse, which led me to reach out to two colleagues who have both that skill set and knowledge. I asked each to share his thoughts about celebrities endorsing financial products.

Jansen Hein, is the chief financial officer and chief operating officer at Illinois State Board of Investment (ISBI) where he actively manages all portfolio operations, business operations, and finance/accounting related functions and processes for ISBI, a $24B+ state pension asset investment agency. Before joining ISBI, he served as a certified public accountant and consultant for more than eight years with Ernst & Young.

Dwayne Safer is a finance professor at Messiah University where he teaches courses in Financial Management, Corporate Finance, Security Analysis and Evaluation, Financial Institutions Management, and Investments. He holds the designations of CFA, CFP, and CAIA. Before entering higher education, he was a senior vice president of corporate strategy & development for Citizen’s Financial Group and a director of investment banking at Stifel Financial Corp.

As their brief bios suggest, both men have extensive financial backgrounds that make them well-qualified to discuss what constitutes reliable investment advice, as well as who should offer it. Given those credentials, I was somewhat surprised that in their initial responses, neither expressed absolute objection to celebrities endorsing financial products:

Hein: “An ethically run business could see benefit from getting their message/product out through the use of celebrity endorsements, and I have no issue with that.”

Safer: “I don’t have a problem with celebrity endorsers of financial products and companies; however, the public oftentimes has difficulty separating the popularity and likability of the celebrity personality from their lack of expertise and knowledge in the company or product they’re endorsing.”

While both of these experts are open to the possibility of celebrities endorsing financial products, the preceding qualified responses foreshadow their more fully articulated beliefs, which detail significant criteria to meet in order for such sponsorships to be good for consumers. Together they construct three main hurdles that effective and ethical financial product purveyors must clear:

1) Transparency
To illustrate what celebrity spokespeople shouldn’t do, Safer references the recent case in which the SEC fined Kim Kardashian $1.26 million for her failure to disclose that EthereumMax paid her $250,000 to promote EMAX tokens on her Instagram account. He contrasts her incomplete communication with that of Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, who was upfront that he received an ownership stake in the ETF BUZZ in return for promoting it in his tweets.

Safer similarly contends that organizations must be transparent in terms of whether they are investing individuals’ money, like mutual funds, ETF’s, and hedge funds do, versus simply serving as custodians of those funds, like brokerage firms and banks often do. As an example, he points to FTX, whose clients thought the exchange was only acting as a custodian of their money, when in reality it was investing it in a crypto hedge fund of a sister company, Alameda.

2) Trust
That kind of transparency is key to earning investors’ trust, as Hein shares: “To me, decisions regarding financial services providers must come down to personal trust. Regardless of the product/provider.” He adds that although he is not personally inclined to extend such trust for financial decisions to celebrities, he recognizes that some consumers are, in which case they must understand and accept the risks, while the celebrities and the businesses that employ them are culpable for any deception, intentional or not.

Hein believes that trust of service providers is especially important in the case of investing because laws often lag behind industry practices, legal enforcement is sometimes lax, and many organizations simply choose not to self-regulate. He also emphasizes how the unique nature of investment risk necessitates more than typical trust:

“We are not talking about buying a $100 product, with limited downside, but about investing in ways that may materially impact a consumer's current and future stability. The scrutiny of consumers should be different for any financial services marketing than for other products.”

Safer also underscores consumers’ responsibility for determining who to trust, referencing FTX and suggesting that the exchange’s use of a large number of high-profile “finfluencers,” e.g., Kevin O’Leary and Larry David, appeared to be “a ploy to engender the trust of the public so that they would invest in the growing crypto craze through FTX without doing basic diligence on the company.”

3) Technical Competence
Deciding who to trust is an age-old social challenge that extends far beyond investment relationships. The character of the other person is certainly one of the main trust criteria. Another is their competence, i.e., Are they able to do what their role in the relationship requires?

In the case of celebrities promoting investments, their financial competence is a very legitimate question. It’s not surprising that both Hein and Safer, whose extensive experience and education have provided them with such expertise, wonder whether most celebrities know what’s needed to competently endorse financial products. The two agree that, unfortunately, celebrities’ popularity often appears to be more persuasive to consumers than any financial proficiency they may possess:

Hein says, “Consumers must accept that their willingness to be persuaded to make financial transactions based on a celebrity endorsement may have little/no meaningful merit on the quality of the product or service. Is Steph Curry a financial professional? Is Kim Kardashian an investment professional? I am not saying that these two individuals are foolish or unwise (both are extremely successful at their crafts/professions).”

He continues, “What I am suggesting is that it is very possible that either (1) they are making these endorsement determinations themselves and we must acknowledge their limitations in doing so or (2) they themselves are relying on the advice of other financial professionals regarding the products/companies they choose to endorse — individuals we as general consumers do not know or necessarily trust.”

As shared above, Safer says he has no problem with celebrities endorsing investments, but he is concerned that “the public oftentimes has difficulty separating the popularity and likability of the celebrity personality from their lack of expertise and knowledge in the company or product they’re endorsing.”

He expands that belief with a more specific example: “I may think Tom Brady is the best QB of all time, but I’m pretty sure he knows very little about crypto and how crypto assets should have been custodied at FTX. In fact, he’s likely just collecting a big check from FTX and not caring about the details.”

Should celebrities endorse financial products? Neither Hein nor Safer offer an unequivocal, “No,” but together they use the tools of transparency, trust, and technical skills to paint an exacting picture of investment advice done right that’s undoubtedly very challenging for most famous spokespeople and their firms to replicate.

However, in the rare cases in which such a portrait can be perfected, celebrity investment endorsers can play a supporting role to “Mindful Marketing.”

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When Organizations Give Thanks

11/20/2022

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

At Thanksgiving, individuals often express gratitude for what they’re personally appreciative, e.g., family, friends, health. It’s less common to hear of organizations’ gratitude, but if they were to count their blessings, what would they be? Answers to that question could provide each of us with valuable perspective and perhaps help recalibrate our own thoughts of thankfulness.

These have been tough times for organizations in most industries. Factors such as inflation, natural disasters, health/safety concerns, and supply chain setbacks have made it very difficult to succeed, and in some cases to survive, let alone to give thanks, for instance:

A chip shortage has plagued tech firms and many other manufacturers.
Shipping companies have had to navigate record-high fuel prices.
In the first half of 2022, natural disasters led to insurance losses of $39 billion – 18% higher than average.
The slowdown in the housing market, an industry that impacts many others, shows no signs of subsiding.

This isn’t the kind of news most companies care to celebrate, nor should they. Yet, even under dark clouds, strong organizations see silver linings and reasons to be thankful. Although organizations can’t speak, their leaders have unique vantage points from which they can identify and express genuine collective gratitude.

I recently reached out to colleagues/friends in several industries who lead for-profit and nonprofit organizations, asking each to share something for which their organization is thankful. Their following five responses have enlightened and encouraged this marketer and hopefully will do the same for anyone who looks to see the good in business and other enterprise.

1) Messiah University: I begin with my own organization and employer whose president, Dr. Kim Phipps, reflects, “At Messiah University, we are grateful for increased enrollment, financial stability and a cohort of new innovative partnerships that broaden our institutional scope and impact.”

No organization exists without demand for its products and services. For more than a decade, demand for higher education has declined throughout much of the nation, mainly because of demographic trends. I know many at Messiah echo President Phipps’ deep appreciation for our students as well as other institutional partners who embrace the University’s mission and invite opportunities to extend it.

2) West Shore Chamber of Commerce: The leader of the second organization, another nonprofit, expresses similar gratitude for continued demand for its services. As the president of West Shore Chamber of Commerce (WSCC), based near Harrisburg, PA, George Book, Jr. articulates his organization’s appreciation:

“At the West Shore Chamber of Commerce, we are thankful for our members, first and foremost. We are also thankful for the communities we serve. We have the privilege of being located in South Central PA, which is a very diverse economic region that allows us to reach and help many different types of businesses. I am thankful for the grit and determination of our business leaders to keep our region strong and work together to positively impact our businesses and communities.”

Few organizations were hit as hard by the pandemic as WSCC since the services of most chambers of commerce rely heavily on in person events, which COVID 19 largely cancelled. So, when Book speaks of the dedication and resilience of his Chamber’s members and their communities, he speaks from heartfelt experience and is understandably eager for opportunities that lie ahead.

3) Pierson Computing Connection, Inc.: The first for-profit company of the set is thankful for a different but equally important stakeholder group. Deb Pierson serves as president and CEO of Pierson Computing Connection, which she founded in 1993. She says, “We are primarily grateful for our people. We have a great team that values deep relationships and embraces our core values. Without our people, Pierson wouldn’t be growing and thriving.”

Some may find it ironic that the leader of a company that supplies technological solutions places greatest importance on its people. However, Pierson rightly recognizes that it takes dedicated and gifted people to manage software, install hardware, and train others who will use them. Great technology doesn’t matter much without great employees who are highly skilled in its use.

4) LINKBANK: When people of a certain age think of banks, they likely envision people – tellers, loan officers, etc. When Brent Smith, president of LINKBANK, considers his bank’s people, he sees much more than the roles they fill:

“We are grateful at LINKBANK to have deeply committed staff members who are passionate about our clients, communities, and each other. We are also very appreciative of all the employees’ families and the ongoing support they give, allowing each of us to pursue our passions in the workplace.”

Good leaders know that their staff members are also spouses, mothers, fathers, daughters, etc., with responsibilities outside the workplace. Leaders like Smith also are very grateful for the support that these family members graciously give and, in that way, also help to fulfill their firms’ purposes.

5) Ten Thousand Villages: Finding people who will work for pay and effectively support a nonprofit organization’s mission can be difficult. Identifying dedicated volunteers who will do so can be extremely challenging. The realization of both of these goals has led Dan Alonso, the CEO of Ten Thousand Villages to share:

“We are thankful for the passionate people who are part of the greater Ten Thousand Villages family/network and who go above and beyond to support our mission, often with no direct connection to the organization itself. We also have a core of devoted staff members who want to make a difference and who continue to do so on a daily basis, despite the challenges of being the rare combination of a mission-based nonprofit and a successful retail organization.”

As is the case for many nonprofit organizations aiming to fulfill their unique missions, creating fair trade market opportunities for artisans around the world requires a special combination of devoted staff members and faithful volunteers.

A university, a chamber of commerce, an IT company, a bank, and a fair-trade retailer: One might guess that they would be thankful for very different things, but ultimately the gratitude of each reflects the same priority – people.

Although it should happen each day of the year, in this season of Thanksgiving it is particularly fitting for every marketer and other organizational member to renew their appreciation for the individuals who purchase their products, provide their services, and in other ways partner to help fulfill their missions.

Thankfulness can be a recalibrating factor and a grounding force for each of us. It’s also an important prerequisite for “Mindful Marketing.”

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Marketing Must Fight Fakes

11/6/2022

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

I recently received LinkedIn connection invitations from two different recruiters – It’s nice to be wanted; although, it’s nicer when the people pursuing you actually exist, which I’m certain wasn’t the case for either. As rapidly advancing technology helps blur lines between fact and fiction, does marketing have any obligation to stand for truth?

Deception has been part of human history since the serpent misled Adam and Eve. Over millennia, certain marketers have misguided consumers, whether they were ancient merchants using rigged weights and measures, snake oil salesmen pawning impotent elixirs, or auto dealers turning back odometers.

In recent years, the growth of social media and advances in digital technology have helped deception proliferate like never before, both in volume and sophistication. Most of us are all too familiar with fake news, clickbait, and other forms of deceptive communication that cross our paths dozens of times a day.

The two LinkedIn invitations from imaginary people I mentioned above are cases in point; I’ve received many more, as others reading this piece probably have also. Some telltale signs of the fakes are the model-worthy headshots, scarce background info, few existing contacts, and no recent posts.

These forgeries are fairly easy to spot, but others can be much more challenging. Really good photoshopping can be completely undetectable. Although someone occasionally sees and points out part of an image that was secretly altered, such as a celebrity’s unusual narrow waistline, these detected cases are only a fraction of those in which pictures are materially changed and which sometimes deceives others.

As a user of graphic design software since the mid-90s, I know these techniques firsthand. One of my earliest photoshops involved our family’s promotional products business, which was based in a century-old Victorian house. Unfortunately, a large telephone pole with wires projecting in four different directions made it impossible to get a clean picture of the building, so I used Photoshop’s clone stamp tool to make the pole and wires magically disappear.

While digital manipulations of static images have some potential to portray alternate realities, they pale in comparison to what deepfake video can do. Driven by “deep learning,” a form of artificial intelligence (AI), and using face-swapping autoencoders, these extremely realistic videos can make their subjects seem to say and do things they’ve never done or said, which might be completely out of their character.

Most of us have seen lifelike deepfakes, which are easy to find on the web, but the most eerily realistic ones likely have been created by the Belgian company Metaphysic, whose viral videos employing American actor Miles Fisher to deepfake Tom Cruise were highlighted in an illuminating NBC Today segment about the technology.

In the segment, NBC reporter Jacob Soboroff asks Fisher about the ethics of deepfake video and whether it could be a threat to democracy. Fisher replies that the technology is “morally neutral,” adding, “as it develops, the positive output will so far outweigh the negative nefarious uses.”

Fisher’s response is reassuring, but how believable is it given that he does deepfakes to advance his career, and he has a business relationship with a firm that’s monetizing the trend?

As Business Insider has reported, others are also rightly questioning the potential repercussions of deepfakes:

“Many experts believe that, in the future, deepfakes will become far more sophisticated as technology further develops and might introduce more serious threats to the public, relating to election interference, political tension, and additional criminal activity.”

A recent New York Times article shared similar social and political concerns about deepfakes specific to their unsettling spread on TikTok. Times reporter Tiffany Hsu also suggested another very important reason for pumping the brakes on deepfakes:

“But more than any single post, the danger of manipulated media lies in the way it risks further damaging the ability of many social media users to depend on concepts like truth and proof.”

It sounds cliché, but honesty is a foundation of every strong relationship and of every highly functioning society. Productive interactions become impossible when people are unsure who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.

While it’s true that any individual can potentially get ahead by lying, no one gets ahead if everyone lies. As purveyors of what might be the world’s most pervasive communication, marketers should understand the magnitude of their influence and be resolute guardians of truth, for their own livelihoods as well as for the preservation of society.

Here are three ways marketing should fight falsity:

1. Ensure no harm: Not all digitally altered content is created equal. Some is much more likely to significantly change people’s beliefs and actions, often in undesirable ways, while other tactics are more benign. My analysis is biased, but I would put my telephone pole removal example in the harmless category. It’s doubtful that anyone saw the building photo without the wires and developed a significantly different impression of the business.

2. Reveal the truth: If there’s a compelling reason to alter reality, let people know what’s been done. In cases like the Tom Cruise deepfakes that are so good they fool most people, there should be clear disclaimers, e.g., “This is a deepfake.” In other instances, the unrealistic or playful nature of the altered content is enough of a signal. For instance, this past July I wrote an article titled “Cultures of Corruption” for which I photoshopped a winking/smiling Ben Franklin on the front of a $100 bill. It’s doubtful that anyone believed the comical counterfeit.

3. Avoid a deception arms race: Unfortunately, marketing often involves one-upmanship, e.g., if one advertiser employs sexually provocative content that’s effective in attracting attention, other advertisers will insert even more explicit elements in their ads. Meanwhile consumers’ thresholds of tolerance get pushed higher and higher. There’s a real danger of the same kind of advance occurring with deepfakes unless firms follow the previous two prescriptions and refrain from pushing the envelope on realism past the point of easy recognition.

Fortunately, I’m still able to tell when a LinkedIn invitation is a fake. Regrettably, I shouldn’t have to. Organizations that resort to any form of deception in order to change people’s beliefs or cause them to take actions they wouldn’t otherwise choose are truly practicing “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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Should Consumers Smile at Guerrilla Marketing?

10/9/2022

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

Millions of baseball fans were recently watching televised games when they were unexpectedly hit by a pitch! An errant slider didn’t fly through their screens; rather, they were beaned by a very unconventional advertising curve. The promotional pitch for Smile didn’t leave any bruises; in fact, many even liked it, but is this kind of guerrilla marketing fair or foul? A veteran marketer and an up-and-coming rookie argue the call.

About a week ago, before a Consumer Behavior class, one of my students asked, “Dr. Hagenbuch, I have an idea for a Mindful Marketing topic — Did you see the promos for Smile?” I hadn’t experienced the creepy tactics live, but like many, I was caught in their viral wake.

Smile is a psychological horror movie featuring murders that begin and end with evil smirks. Like most production companies, Paramount Players and Temple Hill Entertainment made the obligatory film trailer and television spots. However, to capture even more interest ahead of the Halloween horror movie season, the film makers executed a truly menacing marketing strategy.

Among other events, Paramount targeted a few specific Major League Baseball games that were being broadcast to national audiences on September 23, such as Yankees vs. Red Sox and Mets vs. A’s, and in each game managed to seat an actor behind home plate, in perfect view of outfield television cameras. Some of the actors stood, while others remained seated; some wore neon “Smile” T-shirts; all “donned creepy, unflinching smiles for the duration of the game.

As television crews zoomed in on the unsettling smirks, social media quickly caught wind, and coverage snowballed into mainstream media, which is where I encountered Paramount’s bizarre promotional play. This wasn’t, though, my first exposure to guerrilla marketing.

Not long after I began my marketing career, I bought one of Jay Conrad Levinson’s books on Guerrilla Marketing. During my time in higher education, I’ve conducted research on shock advertising, which shares some ‘unhealthy’ overlap with guerrilla marketing. I’ve also written about these unusual tactics for Mindful Marketing a couple of other times:

For those new to guerrilla marketing, or anyone wanting a reminder, Investopedia offers a nice description of the strange strategies:

“Guerrilla marketing is a marketing tactic in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a product or service. [It’s] different than traditional marketing in that it often relies on personal interaction, has a smaller budget, and focuses on smaller groups of promoters that are responsible for getting the word out in a particular location rather than through widespread media campaigns.”

In college marketing classes, we don’t spend much time talking about guerrilla marketing, mainly because there are so many other foundational concepts students need to learn, and in many instances, guerrilla marketing isn’t a good fit for brands’ goals. It’s also not easy to teach something that hinges so much on deviant creativity and precise timing. Still, many marketers find it fascinating.

So, when Thomas Murray, the student in my Consumer class, mentioned Smile’s guerrilla marketing during MLB games, I wasn’t surprised for a few reasons. Not only is he a sharp emerging marketer, he’s an NCAA baseball player, and he knows something about going viral: A couple of years ago, he made a TikTok video of himself throwing a football over his house and catching it. Before long, ESPN’s Sportscenter and some other very popular media sites were sharing the clip.

During our brief before-class conversation, Murray told me he appreciated Smile’s unconventional approach. As someone who’s been skeptical of guerrilla marketing on whole, I was eager to hear more of his perspective, so I asked him to share his thoughts for this piece. He did, making several compelling arguments for why the unusual tactics worked for Smile:

Word of mouth marketing: Placing actors in public settings and having them wear bright shirts and creepily smile at baseball and football games and outside the Today Show, was a perfect recipe for attention. People took notice while casually watching those programs and within minutes the actors were all over social media.

Product placement: Part of the genius of the campaign was taking something right out of the movie and putting it into real life. If you watch the trailer, you’ll notice that is how eerily the people are smiling. Both in the movie and in real life it creeps people out, but it also lures them in as they have to look and wonder why they’re smiling like that.

Budget-friendly: The overall cost of this campaign was likely minimal as well. Tickets for high profile seats at top sporting events are expensive, but in a feature film’s marketing budget, they would barely make a dent. The return on investment for this campaign must have been massive given it relied on going viral and certainly delivered as the campaign grew organically throughout various social media platforms.

Great timing: The launch of the campaign meshed perfectly with the release of the movie. By placing the actors in public a week or so before the premiere, the producers were able to build exceptional interest, and excited movie-goers only had to wait until the following weekend to see it in theaters.

That’s some solid support for the campaign’s effectiveness; it’s hard to discredit any of Murray’s points. What I can do is raise what may be some helpful questions/concerns about guerrilla marketing’s morality:

Target market creep: Of course, horror movies are not everyone’s thing, so it could well be that such a broad-reaching campaign creeped out some of the wrong people, like children. The lack of audience selectivity with many guerrilla tactics is certainly something to consider.

However, briefly seeing a few creepy smiles probably didn’t traumatize any adults or kids. Most people seemed to think they were funny. The fact that Smile is a horror movie is another issue, which can be a topic of future analysis since the focus here is not on product but promotion.

Murdering the game: A very legitimate complaint to levy against guerrilla marketing is that it disrupts the natural settings in which it appears. For instance, wouldn’t someone sitting directly behind home plate, wearing a bright shirt and a creepy smile break a pitcher’s concentration?

I threw that question to one of Murray's teammates who pitches. Surprising to me, he said it wouldn’t matter—his focus is entirely on the catcher and batter. Although the Smile actors did draw some camera close-ups and comments from broadcasters, they didn’t seem to significantly detract from the television programs in which they appeared.

Encouraging copycats: Even if a given guerrilla marketing tactic is okay, what about all the other would-be marketers who see it and say, “That’s the kind of thing we need to do”? If every company implemented such strategies, our lives would be awash in a never-ending stream of commercialism.

Realistically, however, such advertising overflow is unlikely to occur. For the vast majority of business-to-business firms, guerrilla marketing is a mismatch for their target markets, and even for most business-to-consumer companies, the tactics aren’t the best promotional option. Moreover, it’s very challenging to create and execute effective guerrilla marketing, which when done wrong, can easily betray a brand – those are natural deterrents for firms that might consider using such strategies.

When I began to write this piece, I believed I had a good case against Smile’s strange promotion, but Murray’s analysis has made me reconsider my views. I still don’t think guerrilla marketing is good in all cases, but I believe the rookie was right to call this specific instance ‘fair’ and for both of us to consider it “Mindful Marketing.”

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Buy BRADY, But Don't Be Like Brady

9/24/2022

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

Tom Brady is one of few professional athletes who transcend their field. While many football players and fans revere him, even those who pay little attention to sports know his name. In a new video ad, Brady surprisingly suggests that aspiring athletes shouldn’t aim to be like him. That advice sounds self-effacing, but how does it fit with other messaging surrounding Brady’s brand?

Sports analysts love to debate who’s the GOAT—greatest of all time. When talking football, it’s easy to make a case that it’s Tom Brady. No one has come close to his seven Super Bowl wins in what might be the most challenging position in all of sports, NFL quarterback. He’s also the all-time leader in passing yards, completions, and touchdowns. Then there’s his incredible longevity—still going strong at age 45.

It’s not surprising that Brady, like other top-tier athletes, has also been a prolific product endorser. He’s promoted brands that include, but aren’t limited to, Beautyrest, Disney, Snickers, UGG, and Visa. Most Brady ads garner little extra exposure, but his most recent commercial for Under Armour has captured added attention.

The ad includes another legend, actor Morgan Freeman, who reads a letter that Brady has purportedly penned to a hypothetical football prodigy who some are calling “The Next Tom Brady.” Brady says to reject any such associations and instead to “compare yourself to nobody but the kid in the mirror.”

One can imagine at least a couple reasons why the GOAT might give that advice: 1) He genuinely wants young players to chart their own unique course and not be saddled with expectations to be someone they’re not; or, more cynically, 2) He doesn’t want anyone matching or exceeding his accomplishments, thus dimming the light of his star.

Each of these motivations is possible, but given that the celebrity friendship and letter are almost certainly contrived, the most plausible motive is the one that drives virtually every commercial — selling product.

Both Brady and Under Armour want people to buy the brand’s athletic equipment and apparel. It’s been their common cause for more than a decade and a partnership that has rewarded Brady handsomely: in the ballpark of $10 million to $15 million a year.

In fact, one might even say that NFL quarterback is Brady’s side-hustle and product endorser is his day job, at least in terms of income. In 2021-2022, Brady’s compensation from quarterbacking was $31.9 million while his endorsement earnings totaled $52 million.

To his credit, Brady has positioned himself well for life after football, as an endorser and in other ways. His ever-expanding business portfolio includes such ventures are TB12, 199 Productions, and Autograph. There’s also his namesake BRADY brand, which takes us back to the central question of this piece:

Does the living legend really want aspiring athletes to avoid comparisons to him?

BRADY, which calls itself “The Next Generation Apparel Brand,” seems intent on living up to that label. From the website’s photos, the brand appears to be targeting young male athletes.

The brand features a wide variety of athletic apparel from underwear and socks, to t-shirts and sweatshirts, to complete training, golf, and lifestyle collections. The common component on each article is the BRADY trademark, embroidered on the front panel of hats, heat-pressed on the left shoulder of training Ts, and silkscreened in 4” high letters across the chest of sweatshirts and hoodies.

Therein lies the advertising irony. Through Under Armour's commercial and the BRADY brand, Tom Brady passes mixed messages to young athletes, telling them:

“Don’t let anyone compare you to me, but please wear my name across your chest.”

Just as basketball players who sport #23 on their jerseys encourage comparisons to another GOAT, Michael Jordan, any high school or college quarterback who wears BRADY emblazoned on his football training shirts invites comparisons to Tom.

These associations aren’t unique to athletics; they occur most times famous people put their names on products. Virtually every celebrity endorsement benefits from such classical conditioning as the admiration that people have for the celebrity transfers onto the product they’re promoting.

Whether it’s verbalized or not, the celebrity in the ad suggests, “I use this product, so you should buy it and be like me.” The consumers' emulation can extend to other products the celebrity endorses as well as to other attitudes and actions.

When I was growing up, some young basketball players wore white and red Converse sneakers, #6 jerseys, and patterned their game after Dr. J, while others wore similar shoes with green trim, #33, and imitated Larry Bird. Aspiring athletes have likely been doing the same for more than a century. So, it’s no stretch to suggest that many young football players who wear the BRADY brand emulate #12 and welcome comparisons to him.

It's fine for Tom Brady and other famous athletes to serve as spokespeople for products they genuinely believe in and that benefit those who follow in their footsteps. However, telling young athletes to buy their branded merchandise but not be like them is disingenuous and a trick play that should be flagged for “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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Should Anyone Advertise Alcohol?

8/27/2022

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

Drive slower, pay taxes, vote — While we expect governments to tell us to do those things, we wouldn’t imagine they’d urge more alcohol intake, yet that’s exactly what one of the world’s leading nations is doing. Why a country would encourage sipping more sake is an interesting question, but it begs a much bigger one: Is it possible to promote alcohol responsibly?

The nation imploring intoxication probably isn’t one you’d expect — Japan. The world’s third largest economy and a leader in culture and industry has uncorked a contest called “Sake Viva” that asks citizens in their 20s and 30s for new ways to make and market alcoholic beverages. The term sake refers to both a Japanese rice wine and to alcohol in general.

Most of us are familiar with the risks of excessive alcohol consumption, which can lead to everything from disease (heart, liver), to poor mental health (depression, dementia), to social problems (broken relationships, unemployment), to DUI accidents (serious injury, death), all of which enact high financial and other costs on a country. So, why would Japan intentionally invite these expenses?

Ironically, the answer is money. As many governments have experienced, Japan is dealing with decreased tax revenue, partly because of an aging population and shrinking tax base but also because consumption of one of its most highly taxed products, alcohol, has been declining.

In the mid-1990s, alcohol consumption in Japan averaged over 26 gallons per person — a number that by 2020 dropped by about a third. What’s more, as younger Japanese are drinking less than their elders, the sobering trend seems likely to continue.

In only one year, from 2019 to 2020, tax revenue from liquor sales fell by $813 million, which was “the largest decline in three decades — and a cause for alarm for a government facing broad fiscal challenges.”

Given that in many countries, alcohol advertising is commonplace – on television, in magazines, and on billboards – why have many taken issue with Sake Viva on social media? The backlash seems to be based not so much on the message but who’s delivering it.

Ryo Tanabe, a Japanese man in his 30s, expressed this sentiment in an interview with NPR: “The fact that the National Tax Agency is doing this makes it a different story. I feel something is wrong with it. I understand they need the tax revenue, but I don't think they have to go this far.”

Tanabe’s reticence about his government advocating more alcohol consumption is easy to appreciate, especially given the increased individual and collective costs excess liquor can levy and the fact that we expect our governments to protect us, not put us in harm’s way.

But, if promoting alcohol is bad, should anybody be doing it? Claiming it’s okay for some to advertise alcohol but not others, seems a little like saying certain people can lie or cheat, but others shouldn’t. If something is wrong for one, shouldn’t it be wrong for all?

I have to admit that alcohol advertising is a difficult issue for me to approach objectively. My personal choice is not to drink, and I work for a university that maintains a dry campus. Over the years, I’ve also written several pieces about potential alcohol abuse by marketers, including:

Still, I have friends and family members who drink, and I respect their choices. I also remind myself and other Christians that Jesus’s first miracle was turning water into wine. There were likely then and there are now many people who subscribe to different worldviews and drink responsibly, in moderation, posing little or no risk to themselves or others.

There’s also scientific evidence that small amounts of certain alcohol, e.g., a glass of wine, hold some health benefits.

So, it’s possible to argue that it’s moral to consume alcohol in moderation, which suggests that it’s also acceptable to produce it for others to consume. But does this moral leeway also mean that alcohol producers can advertise their products?

As I’ve considered advertising, which is paid-for mass communication by an identified sponsor, I’ve often thought that if society allows production of an item, it should also permit its promotion, within reason; otherwise, a moral contraction handcuffs the producer — it’s very difficult for most products to succeed without advertising.

That doesn’t mean, though, that any advertising goes. A product like alcohol, in particular, shouldn’t be promoted to the wrong people (e.g., children), in the wrong places (e.g., near schools), or in the wrong ways (e.g., associated with athletic performance).

Another wrong way to promote alcohol or any product is to suggest its excessive use. Whether it’s food, or clothes, or entertainment, too much of even a good thing can cause people harm.

As suggested above, alcohol poses greater risk when consumed in excess than do most products, which brings us back to Japan’s Sake Viva campaign: Encouraging people to drink more, is tantamount to promoting drinking in excess, given that for most people the middle ground between current consumption and intoxication is likely very narrow at best.

On the other hand, alcohol producers can advertise their individual brands without necessarily encouraging consumers to drink more. The reason lies in the difference between primary and secondary demand, or demand for a product category versus demand for a particular brand.

In this comparative ad for Miller Lite, for instance, the beer claims to have “more taste and only one more calorie than Michelob Ultra.” Miller Lite isn’t encouraging people to drink more alcohol, rather it’s asking them to switch their beer purchases from its competitor.

Given my personal consumption preference, I wouldn’t choose to promote alcohol, but I can understand how others might in order to support demand for specific brands. I can’t comprehend, however, how a country, tasked with protecting its citizens’ well-being, can promote more drinking. Encouraging excessive consumption of any kind equals “Mindless Marketing.”

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Are There Rules When Everyone's an Endorser?

8/13/2022

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

There was a time when only celebrities and aspiring actors were spokespeople. Now the friend you’re having lunch with tomorrow may, unbeknownst to you, have an endorsement deal. It’s nice that company sponsorship has been democratized, but with so many people pushing products, how can consumers survive the promotional onslaught?

The great expansion of spokespeople hit home for me a few months ago during a discussion about personal branding in our university's capstone marketing course. As we considered the notion that those present might be future endorsers, a student in the front row spoke up, “Do you know Rachel Delate? She’s already endorsing products.” A classmate quickly added, “Yeah, she has a deal with Body Armor.”

A year earlier, Rachel was in my intro to marketing class where she distinguished herself as a strong student. She’s also a very good lacrosse player, e.g., first team All-Conference, first team All-Region, third team All-American. After the NCAA’s recent relaxation of rules involving name, image, and likeness (NIL), that talent put her in a position to accept endorsement deals.

Besides Body Armor, Rachel also has enjoyed sponsorship experiences with TreadBands, Barstool Sports, and LiquidIV, which have provided her with a variety of branded gear. She says the experiences have been very worthwhile, as she summarizes in a sentence, “I’ve had the opportunity to connect with awesome brands and people and receive cool stuff!”

Knowing Rachel, I’m confident she’s a responsible influencer, but what about many others who have suddenly become spokespeople and might be looking to make quick money, not caring much about what they’re selling or to whom. How should they see their roles? But first, how did we get to this point of influencer inundation?

The rapid rise in number of endorsers has been the result of a perfect storm of at least three interwoven social trends and economic incentives.

First, over the last several years, new ecommerce platforms and tools have made it relatively easy and inexpensive to operate online shops, which has encouraged many people to start, run, and promote their own businesses.

Second, there’s been a steady increase in influencer marketing due mainly to the seismic shift from traditional media to social media. Advertisers have always needed to be where consumers are, which has recently meant firms moving money from the likes of NBC and the New York Times to an up-and-coming influencers’ TikTok and YouTube channels.

Third, crypto currencies and NFTs, two new categories of virtual products that were virtually unknown a few years ago, have offered an array of endorsement opportunities not only because they’re new but because many people still don’t know exactly what they are and, therefore, lean on endorsers to guide them.

It’s this third trend that recently grabbed product endorsement-related headlines, but not for good reasons:

Bloomberg described “the disastrous record of celebrity crypto endorsements,” such as that of actor Matt Damon who plugged cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, only to see Bitcoin’s price plummet by 60%.
BuzzFeed News reported that the watchdog group Truth in Advertising warned Jimmy Fallon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and fifteen other celebrities that they violated Federal Trade Commission guidelines by failing to disclose on social media their money-making connections to certain NFTs.

The proliferation of new and experienced influencers playing fast and loose with their referral power, makes me wonder: Have we entered the Wild West of product pitching where laws are lacking and consumers must take their protection into their own hands?

Hopefully, most influencers will have the conviction to self-regulate. For those who are so morally and professionally inclined, here are four best practices for product endorsement:

1. Know the product: An endorsement is basically a recommendation. People want recommendations because there’s something they don’t know well, and they’d like someone who’s more knowledgeable to guide them.

For that reason, every endorser should be very familiar with the product and/or company they’re recommending; otherwise, they’ll fail to offer value or worse, they might mislead the people who are trusting them for help.

2. Believe in the product: Although information is very important, head knowledge is only half the product-endorsement equation. Spokespeople should also believe in the merits of what they advocate.

Several years ago, a reporter asked basketball great LeBron James how he had improved his game and physique over the off-season. James unwittingly replied that he stopped eating at McDonalds, which was one of his main sponsors at the time. James’ slip underscores the fact that knowing about a product is not the same as believing in it. Endorsers shouldn’t recommend to others products they wouldn’t want for themselves.

3. Ensure the product is a good fit for the target market: Notwithstanding the previous point, there are instances in which endorsers don’t use the products they’re recommending because they’re not in the target market. In those cases, it is especially important that influencers understand the needs of those who do use the product.

For example, doctors often prescribe pharmaceuticals they’ve never tried. They can recommend them with confidence, however, because they’ve read the drug studies and believe in the companies that provide them; then, knowing their patients’ medical histories and symptoms, they can project with some certainty that their patients will benefit from them.

4. Disclose your relationship with the organization: From native advertising to salespeople acting as if they’re customers, one of the greatest deceits in business occurs when marketing promotion tries to pretend it’s not.

Advertising and personal selling are useful tools from which consumers can gain very helpful information; however, people need to know when the information source is objective (e.g., a fellow transit rider) versus compensated by a company (e.g., an online product reviewer who receives the items for free). It’s difficult for anyone to be unbiased about an organization that’s paying them, which isn’t necessarily a problem provided consumers know the relationship.

Developments in areas such as deepfake video, the metaverse, and NIL, give reason to be both excited and anxious about the future of marketing influence. Endorsers who see their roles as involving both individual opportunity and social responsibility will likely be promoters of “Mindful Marketing.”

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Higher Ed's Big Gamble on Sports Betting

Why So Many Super-Beer Ads?

Ensuring Ethical Advertising

Financial Stardumb? Celebrities Endorsing Investments

When Organizations Give Thanks

Marketing Must Fight Fakes

Should Consumers Smile at Guerrilla Marketing?

Buy BRADY, But Don't Be Like Brady

Should Anyone Advertise Alcohol?

Are There Rules When Everyone's an Endorser?

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