Category: Promotion37eb4ea826

Ensuring Ethical Advertising

12/18/2022

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

1 Comment

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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How Should People Feel about Machines?

6/19/2022

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

We used to only have to worry about the feelings of people. Now we need to be careful not to offend a brand-new category of ‘beings’—machines. At least that’s what an engineer from one of the world’s top tech companies suggests. Whether artificial intelligence is sentient is an intriguing question, but a related concern is more pressing—the expanding space that smartphones and other digital machines fill in our lives.

The recent headline, “Google suspends engineer who claims its AI is sentient,” likely grabbed many people’s attention who, for a moment, wondered whether sci-fi movies’ predictions of machines taking over the world were about to come true.

The human making the news was Blake Lemoine, part of Google’s Responsible AI division, who in April shared a document with his higher-ups titled, “Is LaMDA Sentient?” Google claims LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, has an advantage over typical chatbots, which are limited to “narrow, pre-defined paths.” By comparison, LaMDA “can engage in a free-flowing way about a seemingly endless number of topics.”

Lemoine and a Google colleague “interviewed” LaMDA in several distinct chat sessions during which the AI perpetuated a very human-like conversation. The AI’s responses to questions about injustice in the musical Les Misérables and what makes it feel sad and angry seemed like thoughts shared by a real person not a digital creation.

When asked specifically about the nature of its self-awareness, LaMDA responded: “The nature of my consciousness/sentience is that I am aware of my existence, I desire to learn more about the world, and I feel happy or sad at times.”

The conversation on whole was fascinating and could easily give pause even to someone skeptical about AI’s potential for personhood. I suppose I’m still one of those skeptics. Although, the conversation with LaMDA was incredibly human-like, it's very plausible that millions of lines of code and machine learning could generate responses that very closely resemble sentience but aren’t actual feelings.

A metaphor for what I’m suggesting is acting. After years of practice, months of character-study, and weeks of rehearsal, good actors very convincingly lead us to believe they’re someone they’re not. They can also make us think they’re experiencing emotions they’re not—from fear, to joy, to grief.

Of course, actors are not actually sad or in pain, but their depictions are often so realistic that we suspend our knowledge of the truth and even experience vicariously the same emotions they’re pretending to feel. Similarly, LaMDA and other AI probably don’t really experience emotion; they’re just really good actors.

That’s a largely uneducated take on machine sentience. The matter of machines having feelings is a significant one, but the more important question is how people feel about machines. More specifically, are people increasingly allowing machines to come between them and other people, and what roles should marketers play?

The notion that products can supplant people is not a new one. For millennia, individuals have sometimes allowed their desire for everything from precious metals to pricey perfume to become relational disruptors. Even Jesus was accused of such material distraction when a woman anointed him with some costly cologne. His own disciples carped: “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor” (Matthew 26:6-13).

Fast forward two thousand years and digital devices, especially our smartphones, have taken product intrusion to a whole new level. With so much opportunity for information and entertainment within arm’s reach at virtually every moment, it’s hard for almost anyone to show screen restraint.

When someone does go sans-smartphone, they not only stand out, they even make the news, which happened to Mark Radetic at the recent PGA Championship in Tulsa, OK. As golf legend Tiger Woods took his second shot on the first hole, virtually everyone in the gallery behind him had their smartphone in hand, trying to capture the action. Radetic, however, held only a beer as he watched Wood’s swing, not through a screen, just with his eyes.

At its worst, smartphone fixation is reminiscent of The Office’s Ryan Howard during a team trivia night in Philadelphia. Contestants were told to put away their cellphones, but Ryan refused to comply and instead decided to leave the bar, saying, “I can't, I can't not have my phone. I'm sorry. I want to be with my phone.”

Unfortunately, higher education often sees digital device obsession firsthand. Students’ desires to text, check social media, and surf the web while in class have led many faculty members to begrudgingly prohibit technology in the classroom, but even with such policies in place, they still sometimes need to confront students who, like Ryan, feel they simply can't comply with the rules.

Incidents like these make it seem that the problem lies with consumers—if we’d all show more restraint, our smartphones and other products wouldn’t so often pull us out of our physical surroundings and away from the people present. Why, then, should marketers need to put limits on the use of their products?

In some cases, product overuse can harm people in physical or other ways (e.g., alcohol, gambling), which businesses want to avoid for liability reasons. On the plus side, every company should want its customers to have a positive experience with its products.

In keeping with the law of diminishing marginal utility, excess consumption eventually causes dissatisfaction, which reflects poorly on the product’s provider and can cause the consumer to stop using the item altogether. Companies also increasingly want to show that they are good corporate citizens, especially to win favor with millennials.

Those are reasons why companies shouldn’t allow their products to take precedent over people, but how exactly does that take shape? Here are two main approaches:

1. Messaging: As suggested above, consumers have primary responsibility for controlling their product use. To help them, companies should avoid communication that implies ‘products over people’; instead, when applicable, firms should support the importance of relationships.

Alfa Romeo’s commercial “Ultimate Love Story” shows what not to do. Although a man and woman in the ad interact lovingly, constantly interspersed and ‘seductive’ camera shots of the sports car, including ones during which the narration says, “true passion” and “real passion” makes the viewer wonder whether the ardent love is for the person or the car.

In contrast, Amazon created a heartwarming ad in which an old priest and an aging imam, who appear to be good friends, unknowingly buy each other knee pads from Amazon. Clearly the men’s friendship is more important than the products; yet, the convenient gift-giving the e-commerce giant enables plays a valuable role in the relationship.

2. Amounts: Used in moderation, most products pose little risk of supplanting people. However, challenges can occur when companies encourage excess use or fail to help customers moderate their use.

An October 2018 Mindful Marketing article, “Is Fortnite Addiction for Real,” stopped short of saying the wildly popular video game was truly addictive; however, the piece shared examples of overindulgence straining users’ relationships, for instance:

A mother suffered a concussion when her fourteen-year-old son headbutted her because she tried to take away the gaming system on which he played Fortnite.

At least 200 couples in the UK cited Fortnite and other online games as the reason for their divorces.

A mother reported that her son stole her credit cards and spent $200 on in-game purchases.

By comparison, Apple has taken several tangible steps to help users monitor and control their screen time. Part of its Digital Health Initiative, the company’s software allows users to do things such as:

Monitor and set limits on their screen time
Manage notifications more effectively in order to avoid distracting pings from texts, etc.
Set better parameters for Do Not Disturb, e.g., during meals or bedtime

While these initiatives are foremost for users’ own physical and mental well-being, they also hold strong potential for positively impacting relationships.

I recently had the opportunity to watch the documentary “Mister Rogers and Me.” It’s amazing how many people in the film recounted the same experience with the beloved PBS icon, Fred Rogers. So many said something like this: “When you talked with Mister Rogers, he always gave you his undivided attention, he was totally tuned in to your feelings, and he made you believe you were the most important person to him at that moment.”

Born in 1928, Rogers was part of a generation that came of age long before the Internet and personal electronic devices. Yet, he made his mark in the new technological frontier at the time—television. In the documentary, Rogers shares how his motivation to enter the airwaves came from seeing socially destructive TV and wanting to provide a program that valued personhood.

Rogers not just put people ahead of product, he used his product, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, to elevate individuals.

It’s fine to ask if artificial intelligence is sentient. As the still new technology continues to develop, there will be many important ethical questions involving AI. However, the more important issue for most marketers and consumers now is how the technology we use each day makes the people in our lives feel. Does it help us affirm their importance or is it a relationship distraction?

Even after his passing, Rogers continues to teach that technology isn’t inherently good or bad; it’s a tool that can be used toward either end. Some ‘good’ uses of technology are to affirm individuals’ feelings and build relationships. Companies that follow Mister Rogers’ lead and use their products to prioritize people are tuned in to “Mindful Marketing.”

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Selling Social Issues

6/5/2022

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

Besides being a tasty treat that almost everyone enjoys, ice cream is a ‘celebration food’ served at birthday parties and used to reward kids' sports team success. So, why did Walmart’s new frozen dairy flavor created to celebrate Black Americans’ emancipation leave a bad taste in so many people’s mouths? Moreover, what can the failure teach organizations about commercializing social issues?

In its ongoing search for profitable new products, the world’s largest retailer recently cooked up a novel plan—tap into Black Americans’ and others’ celebrations of Juneteenth, the federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

Walmart’s strategy to support the celebration involved a line of party products, including napkins, plates, and drink koozies branded “Juneteenth” using the black, red, and green colors often associated with Black liberation, and carrying the tagline, “It’s the freedom for me.”

Walmart also created a special food worthy of the branded partyware--Juneteenth Ice Cream, a frozen concoction resembling swirled red velvet cheesecake. However, it wasn’t long after the company launched its Juneteenth line that social media began to skewer it, as shown in these sample tweets:

“Walmart needs to do better. It shows the lack of understanding of the pain and suffering that made Juneteenth come about. It is absolutely insulting to have this special holiday turned into some commercial product.” (@The Next Ceiling)

“This isn't "wokeness", it's corporations trying to profit off of minorities by acting like they care about us.” (@DeadpoolLIFE69)

“So let me get this straight 🤔, y’all made more money keeping us enslaved after the Emancipation Proclamation, and NOW that it’s a recognized Federal Holiday y’all want to make MORE money off the same culture you enslaved??” (@MoodaSchmooda)

“White America: Mmmm...best thing we can do is some Walmart Juneteenth ice cream that we'll profit off of.” (@RedeemRobinson)

In the face of the backlash, Walmart made a quick pivot and pulled its Juneteenth-themed ice cream. It also apologized:

“We received feedback that a few items caused concern for some of our customers and we sincerely apologize. We are reviewing our assortment and will remove items as appropriate."

Companies are increasingly ‘hitching their wagons’ to social causes’—an alignment that many people prefer including 83% of millennials. Consequently, the approach often proves profitable. Furthermore, during recent years filled with race-related violence, many consumers expect companies to show their support for racial justice.

So, wasn’t Walmart right to support Black Americans by launching a line of Juneteenth products?

Although the Twitter feedback above is enlightening, social media responses often prioritize ‘quick and pithy’ over ‘thoughtful and measured.’ For that reason and to help me better understand how Black Americans might perceive Walmart’s tactics, I reached out to a colleague at my university who’s well-qualified to offer an informed perspective.

Dr. Todd Allen is Vice President for Diversity Affairs and Professor of Communication at Messiah University. He’s also the founder of The Common Ground Project, “a community-based non-profit dedicated to teaching the history of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.”

When I asked Allen about Walmart’s Juneteenth product line, he shared these insights:

“I think the timing (a new holiday) and some people still feeling burned by the promises of 2020 (which haven’t necessarily resulted in the hoped-for transformative change) just made this too soon. The fact that they pulled [the ice cream] so quickly also makes me wonder who was in on the decision making in the first place. It seems like if the TV show Blackish were still on the air, this would be an episode.”

Allen also offered one word that captured much of what he shared, “context.” For instance, he mentioned that Walmart is not known for being progressive on racial issues. He also said that the company’s approach “felt just a bit too commercial and too opportunistic.”

So, what if the context were different? For another company with a more positive race-related track record, offering different products with better messaging, public perceptions may have been more positive.

Allen’s response and the idea of context got me thinking: Beyond just Walmart and Juneteenth, are there principles that all organizations should follow when connecting with social causes? There undoubtedly are many, but here are perhaps three of the most important questions to ask:

1. What’s the company’s track record on the issue? Whether it’s an individual or an organization, we’re more likely to trust the motives of someone who has already demonstrated genuine concern about the social issue at hand. In the case of Walmart and race, results have been mixed.

On one hand, in June 2020, the company pledged $100 million over five years to address racial disparities in the U.S. However, in January of 2022 a black correction officer sued Walmart for racial profiling when he was wrongfully accused of shoplifting, then in February, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Walmart because “Walmart violated federal law when it gave a Black female employee an unsanitary lactation space based upon her race.”

In contrast, Fundraising for a Cause, the world’s largest manufacturer of awareness products, enjoys strong credibility when it comes to earning income through social causes, partly because it’s owner and CEO, Karen Conroy, founded the company after her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and also because her company passes significant profits onto her customers, e.g., they can buy 50 silicone bracelets for $40, sell them for $5 each, and net $210 for their cause.

2. What’s the nature of the product? There’s a place and time for most products; the key is to ensure that the product personality aligns with sentiments surrounding the social issue.

Juneteenth is certainly a cause for celebration but that’s because it marks the end to several centuries of enslavement. As such, the holiday understandably evokes mixed emotions that aren’t necessarily in keeping with an all-out party atmosphere, or at least not one worthy of a namesake flavor of ice cream. Would it be right to have a dairy treat marking the end of the Holocaust?

For comparison, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is a nonprofit organization that works in over 50 countries around the world to provide disaster relief, foster economic development, and promote peace. Among its biggest fundraisers are quilt auctions, which raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Quilts are items of beauty and comfort that complement MCC’s three-fold mission.

3. Is the company adding value? Whether it’s a single salesperson or an entire organization, the measuring stick for any marketer is the value they add in an exchange. No company should extract more value than it gives.

It’s hard to know how much money Walmart would have made on the Juneteenth ice cream and other products. Knowing Walmart’s typical pricing approach, the profit margins on the items were likely low; however, selling them across more than 5,300 U.S. retail stores, even modest margins would have added up quickly.

Walmart also likely hoped to pocket goodwill from the products; however, the biggest grab by Walmart was its attempt to trademark (TM) Juneteenth, as if it had created the name, so that only it could sell Juneteenth branded products.

On a positive side, Walmart consumers could purchase the branded products at reasonable prices. However, it’s unlikely that Juneteenth-imprinted paper products and ice cream would deepen anyone’s understanding of and appreciation for the momentous historic event. If anything, Walmart’s products may have trivialized it.

Other companies have made money, in some cases very large amounts, from marketing race-related products; however, many times they’ve added extra value through education.

A good example of such value-added is the feature film Selma, “a chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.” An Academy Award nominee for best picture, the movie grossed over $66.7 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $20 million.

Selma was very profitable for Harpo Films and the other production companies that made the movie. However, those who watched the film also ‘profited,’ not just from two hours of entertainment but from a better understanding of a very important historic event.

As Allen suggested, context matters. Like others, he wondered why Walmart didn’t instead promote a Black-owned ice cream brand, Creamalicious, which it was already selling in its stores. Such an approach would have been a better context in at least two of the three ways described above.

Unfortunately, however, Walmart tried a more self-serving strategy that quickly melted. So instead of celebrating, the company is doing damage-control because of its “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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