Category: Promotion37eb4ea826

Dos and Don'ts of Personal Branding with AI

11/18/2023

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

AI’s meteoric rise has encouraged companies to quickly embrace the transformative technology while countries have raced to erect guardrails on the all-powerful algorithms. These strategies are critical, yet such collective actions are often a function of individuals’ attitudes, which prompts the question: What's a personal approach for ethical use of AI?

If your newsfeed is like mine, it overflows with articles describing organizations’ creative and sometimes controversial use of artificial intelligence; for instance, recent news stories have included:

A Beatles song made with AI
Results showing that ChatGTP makes up things 3% of the time
Tom Hanks disavowing a deepfake dental ad video
Empathetic AI helping to heal broken office relationships

By now, AI has touched most industries in more ways than one, which is part of the reason the U.S. government and those of several other nations are taking more active and deliberate approaches to support AI development. By doing so countries can gain competitive advantage, enhance national security, and reduce negative impacts on their citizens.

On a personal level, parallel goals should motivate individuals’ use of AI. I’m not a tech expert or an authority on artificial intelligence, but several years ago I suggested a simple model for personal branding that might also serve as a useful guide for individual AI use. The 3Cs of personal branding – competencies, character, and communication can help frame how individuals should and shouldn’t use AI.

1. Competencies: What a person can do well; their skills, talents, and aptitudes.

The ability to use AI is already a competency that many employers want and that many more will demand over the coming months and years. However, experience alone with AI won't suffice. Competent users of AI should be able to:

Choose the right AI tool – since the rapid ascension of ChatGPT, a variety of other chatbots and AI tools have emerged, some of which are tailored to particular types of information, e.g., Jasper for business and marketers and Chatsonic for news content creators.
Ask AI the right questions – ones that effectively and efficiently enable the chosen chatbot to locate the right information and offer truly helpful responses
Identify errors – those that use AI often mention times when the technology makes mistakes, sometimes retrieving the wrong information and other times even fabricating facts.

2. Character: The kind of person someone is – Are they decent, fair, and honest? Do they show others respect and demonstrate social responsibility?

While personal branding for AI competency primarily involves what people should do, AI-related character largely describes things that individuals shouldn’t do, such as:

Suggest that work is one’s own when it was created largely or entirely by AI
Fail to give proper attribution, or credit, to others whose work AI appropriated
Forward AI results not checked for accuracy or that contain known mistakes
Share indecent content such as profane language, crude pictures, or other offensive subject matter generated by AI

3. Communication: How a person informs, persuades, or reminds others about their brand

There’s a growing number of AI products that can help users communicate more effectively. In a recent LinkedIn article, James Lusk highlighted several of the tools. The ones that seem best suited for positive personal branding are:

Grammarly – to improve one’s writing mechanics. But users shouldn't use it to write substantial content then claim authorship.
Zoom.ai – to manage communication tasks, including scheduling meetings and sending reminders. The tool also can be used to draft emails, so again, users should be careful to not give the impression they’ve written something they haven’t
Chorus.ai – to improve communication skills by analyzing one’s communication style, including interruptions, tone, and speaking pace

AI users also should be careful not to give others a false impression of what they’re like physically or otherwise, which can happen when using apps such as AI face enhancers.

Like other technology, AI is tool that can be used in good ways and in bad ways. As its rapid evolution continues, there’s no guarantee that AI will hold itself to any compelling moral standards. More likely, it will be individuals who accept personal ethical accountability and model it for others, thereby guiding AI's “Mindful Marketing.”

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

22 Comments

No Shorts, No Sunglasses, No Service

10/4/2023

1 Comment

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

We’ve all heard that our nonverbal communication conveys more than the words we speak. That saying is easy to embrace in principle, but it can become harder to accept when senators and sports legends seem to suggest otherwise. How might marketing, the banner carrier for image-building, inform the current debate of what people wear at work?

In his first year of service from Pennsylvania, U.S. Senator John Fetterman’s casual attire (sweatshirt, shorts, sneakers) was the apparent impetus for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to relax the chamber’s formal dress code. However, that choice was negated a week later when the Senate passed a resolution that formalized the requirement for business attire on the chamber floor.

Meanwhile, Deion Sanders, former MLB player, NFL Hall of Famer, and head football coach of the University of Colorado, has grabbed headlines with his trademark attire, specifically his shades. His propensity to continually wear sunglasses, even during interviews caused Colorado State football coach Jay Norvell to comment, “When I talk to grown-ups, I take my hat and my glasses off. That's what my mother taught me.”

At first glance, Fetterman spurring the Senate to button up its dress code and Sanders sporting sunglasses during interviews have little to do with each other. However, both headlines are case studies in nonverbal communication – People’s clothes and how they wear them often portend their personalities and purposes; similarly, individuals’ eyes often signal what they’re thinking and feeling.

Still, what do a couple of guys wearing shorts and sunglasses to work have to do with marketing? They’re relevant to the field in at least two ways:

Internal marketing: Organizations market to their employees by trying to meet their needs, which can involve the policies they set and the procedures they follow, including ones related to work attire.
Personal branding: Each person has a unique brand, or identity, which is based on their character and competencies and is communicated to others through their words and actions, including what they wear.

Although I feel like I know something about nonverbal communication from my business, teaching, and life experiences, I wanted to talk to someone who is truly an expert, so I reached out to Mike True, a former coworker of mine who is an internationally renowned authority on career development and an in-demand speaker on many related topics, including professional etiquette.

When I asked for his thoughts on the U.S. Senate’s dress code decision, the main word that came to his mind was “decorum,” or setting high standards in specific settings. He continued that in the senate setting, professional business attire “speaks of order, neatness, and structure,” while very casual dress “speaks of a breakdown in respect for order, neatness, and structure – It speaks of lower standards.”

Knowing the high standards True sets for himself and encourages for others, his response about Senate attire was not unexpected. However, his analysis of Sanders’ sunglasses surprised me:

“Sunglasses are part of Deion’s persona and have been for many years. He has an eyewear deal with Blenders Eyewear, so it's a ‘product placement’ gig for which he is paid. The non-verbal here seems to be practical (protecting his eyes from the sun in outdoor practices and games, and from camera flashes and bright lights in interviews) and a brand of sorts. He is Coach Prime, and as such he seeks to project ‘coolness’ for himself, his players, and the whole Colorado football program. It's working!”

I wasn’t surprised that True knows marketing and recognized successful branding and product placement. He’s a student of business and surely read of how within one day of announcing its collaboration with Sanders, Benders “received $1.2 million in pre-orders.”

I thought, though, that he might take exception with the eye contact that Sanders’ dark sunglasses eliminate. As the saying goes, the eyes are the window to the soul. When our eyes widen and our pupils dilate, we communicate interest and excitement, whereas a furrowed brow can suggest worry or concern.

However, having enjoyed True’s etiquette dinners and other events in which he detailed appropriate professional behavior from handshakes to table conversation, I know he would never advocate wearing sunglasses to a job interview or networking event. So, why the apparent double standard? Similarly, why doesn’t he cut some slack for Fetterman or other senators who might feel more comfortable in more casual attire?

First, True did identify practical reasons why Sanders might want to wear glasses to shield his eyes from bright light, while also suggesting they’re not the only reasons. In short, as True alludes, Sanders’ personal brand, even for a coach at a major college football program, is a very unique one that dates back 35+ years when he first earned the nickname “Prime Time” for his exciting play and exuberant personality at Florida State University.

As I'm sure True would never advise emerging or seasoned business professionals to emulate Sanders’ dark shades in their interpersonal dealings, the standards for Sanders’ nonverbal communication are in many ways are a category of one.

Then, why doesn’t Fetterman, who probably has a more compelling reason for wearing sweats and sneakers, get a similar pass? After all, his battle with clinical depression led him to seek treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. There may be a few reasons for a different standard:

No slight on college football, but the business of the U.S. Senate is more important: nation- if not world-shaping policies vs. recreation or entertainment.
Attire often reflects expectations for the level of quality of work. Even in a football game, if players wear worn-out or mismatched uniforms, fans will take them less seriously, and the players may start to feel the same way about themselves.
Clothing needs to fit the setting and related cultural norms. People wear bathing suits on beaches not in boardrooms. People who work in and around football, like many sports, are accustomed to very casual attire.
Dress that’s deemed inappropriate in a given situation can become a distraction. It also could be offensive if the attire reveals body parts that others don’t care to see but can’t avoid looking at when interacting with the person.

So, the U.S. Senate does have reasons for maintaining a dress code that aren’t easily transferrable to football. However, that doesn’t mean that the policies must stay the same forever: Almost two-and-a-half centuries ago, powered wigs and ruffled shirts were the style. Any organization’s dress code needs to evolve with the times.

Having a dress code also doesn’t mean that special accommodations can’t be made for specific individuals who warrant them. Those individuals and the policy also might meet somewhere in the middle, e.g., instead of shorts, full-length open-leg sweatpants, and instead of sneakers, very comfortable, sneaker-like shoes.

As has happened for me many times in writing this blog, the assumptions I had at the outset of this piece are not the same ones I have at the end, which leads me to two key takeaways that extend beyond best practices in nonverbal communication:

Although there are certainly generalizations that can be made for personal branding, everyone’s brand is unique and there can be special circumstances that warrant some people acting differently than others.
Make your brand a malleable one, or more specifically, allow knowledgeable others to inform your beliefs such that when fitting, you are willing to adapt judgments.

Understanding and employing effective nonverbal communication is important whether you’re calling plays or proposing national policy. Just as important is the ability to understand others’ perspectives and learn from them. Both life skills are critical inputs for “Mindful Marketing.”

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

1 Comment

What's to Like about Twitter's Rebrand

8/6/2023

9 Comments

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

“There’s nothing I like about it,” said a family member after seeing a large brown sun sail I bought to shade our backyard patio. I actually appreciated the blunt assessment because I also had misgivings about the tarp-looking sail, which fortunately was easy to return. Many have similarly bemoaned Twitter’s unexpected rebranding, which won’t be as easy as the unappealing patio shade to retract, but are there actually things to like about “X”?

Like a quick-moving summer thunderstorm that seems to emerge from nowhere, Twitter’s announcement that it was replacing its acclaimed name and famous bird with the moniker/graphic “X” seemed to catch even the most astute business analysts by surprise.

In reality, the curious move was several months, if not years in the making. This past April new-owner Elon Musk formally changed the company’s legal name to X Corp. He also had gained ownership of X.com six years earlier, which makes one think that the rebrand was more of a long-term plan than a knee-jerk reaction to Musk-revival and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent launch of Threads.

Regardless the timing or the reason, to say the response to Twitter’s rebrand has been critical is certainly an understatement. Some of the criticism has included:

‘”Completely irrational’: By changing Twitter’s name, Elon Musk is wiping out $4 billion to $20 billion in brand value” – Fortune

“This sudden transformation poses a significant obstacle for marketers who had been relying on the platform as part of their social media strategies.” – Digiday

“It’s rare for corporate brands to become so intertwined with everyday conversation that they become verbs. It’s rarer still for the owner of such a brand to announce plans to intentionally destroy it.” – AdAge

“I am concerned that Musk will continue to make random changes to the platform, either alienating more casual users of the service who tend to be people my company would market to, or change the advertising tools that allow us to target users.” – Brian Chevalier-Jordan, CMO at National Business Capital

All of the above seem like valid criticisms; however, the last one appears to have forgotten the remarkable number of successful business innovations Musk has to his credit:

The Boring Company
Neuralink
PayPal
Tesla
SpaceX

In addition, Musk founded OpenAI in 2015, and more recently he launched a new AI company xAI.

All this to say, Musk and those who work with him are likely extremely competent people. You can’t build the world’s leading brand of electric vehicle and launch people into space without having significant engineering and business acumen.

Given Musk’s elite team members and track record, maybe the rebrand from Twitter to X is some kind of marketing rocket science that’s beyond the ability of casual observers and even most marketing professionals to understand.

I have no inside information on Musk’s strategy, but here are a few considerations that may have gone into the surprising decision:

1) Appeal to Gen Z: Overtime, virtually every brand loses followers simply because its core demographic’s wants and needs change as it gets older and those consumers age out of the market. So, companies constantly need to be making inroads with the next generation, which is about to age into the market.

As someone who works with many Gen Zs, my sense is that Twitter has been falling out of favor with them, not unlike Facebook has with this young age cohort. Maybe a younger, hipper feeling brand would help them reconsider.

2) Restore Relevance: Even consumers whose needs haven’t changed can grow tired of a brand over time. Most of us experience this kind of satiation effect whether it’s with the music we listen to or the food we eat.

To avoid stagnation or worse, customers switching to other firms’ products, brands sometimes will attempt a refresh so they’re perceived as new and exciting, like Jell-O did recently for the first time in ten years.

Aside for some minor tweaks, it didn’t seem like Twitter had changed much over the last decade, so maybe a major brand refresh was in order, not just for Gen Zs but for every user who was growing bored with the brand.

3) Regain Attention: Brands want to be top-of-mind, which helps in their ongoing efforts to retain and grow business. When consumers stop hearing about them, they may stop thinking about them and purchasing from them.

Simply slipping out of the news cycle is bad enough; it’s even worse to be replaced by a competitor, which is what happened to Twitter thanks to Meta’s new Threads.

These three are realistic reasons for Twitter to consider rebranding, but as the earlier criticisms implied: Was this refresh worth the very high costs?

Perhaps no cost loomed larger than this one AdAge and others identified: Abandoning the verb to “tweet.” Very, very few organizations are ever so fortunate as to have their brands turned into verbs, e.g., Google, Photoshop.

Of course, firms need to be careful that their brand names aren’t used generically to represent the entire product category (e.g., calling any brand of tissue a Kleenex), which can lead to a firm losing its legal trademark protection.

Still, there is tremendous value to having so much mindshare with consumers that they turn the noun of a company into an action. It’s hard to imagine that any or all of the three refresh reasons would warrant Twitter abandoning that extremely unique competitive advantage.

There’s also a perceptual disconnect between what social media typically stands for and the psychological meaning of “X.” Social media such as Twitter, tend to be about connecting people and having conversations, whereas “X” often represents the opposite. For instance, an “X” is often a person with whom one no longer associates, e.g., X-spouse, X-roommate, etc.

Ironically, “X” is also the tiny symbol that people often click on to close a webpage or an app. In fact, if someone says, “X out of that,” we know they’re giving a command to close something digital. In short, changing people’s existing interpretations of “X” from negative to positive is a very tall order.

Musk is among the most talented entrepreneurs of this generation, and he may deserve to be counted among humanity’s most innovative thinkers, but even business savants sometimes make mistakes, for instance:

Henry Ford’s first automobile firm, the Detroit Automobile Company, failed miserably, leading him to bankruptcy.
Walt Disney was fired from his job at a newspaper because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”
Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple, the company he co-founded.

Perhaps hindsight will prove 20/20, and history will exonerate the Twitter/X rebrand a few years or more from now. Now, though, it looks like it may go down as one of Musk’s bigger mistakes and an unfortunate instance of “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

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

9 Comments

A 3D Approach to Corporate Social Media Responsibility

6/6/2023

5 Comments

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

Most of us receive warnings during our lives whether they’re about talking in class, highway speeding, or forgetting to pay a bill. When the U.S. surgeon general issues a warning, it’s a serious admonition for everyone, usually about some potential physical harm. So, when the physician in chief warns about the dangers of social media, what should the organizations that use it do?

The New York Times has called U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy’s most recent warning “an extraordinary public advisory,” which is saying something since warnings from the nation’s top doctor are uncommon and have included some grave concerns like AIDS, drunk-driving, obesity, video game violence, gun violence, and, of course, cigarettes.

How could social media possibly warrant the same level of concern?

Gen Z uses Instagram to share fun videos, parents turn to Facebook to celebrate family milestones, and professionals leverage LinkedIn to post and find job opportunities, all of which seem like positive and productive things. Unfortunately, though, most of us also have read about, if not experienced, social media’s negative impact.

I teach about sociological and psychological influences on behavior, but I don’t use social media much, so I’d like to believe I’m above its affirmation-seeking lure. However, I have to admit, there are times I’m disappointed that my posts don’t receive the numbers of likes and shares that those of others do.

Putting too much weight on other people’s reactions can be problematic, but it’s just one of social media’s potential pitfalls. As the following two lists suggest, misuse of social media can impact individuals’ well-being mentally (M), physically (P), and socially (S) in many different ways.

First, Entrepreneur identifies four other pitfalls in its list of five social media dangers:

Real-life interaction is replaced if you allow it (M, P, S)
Feelings of envy emerge based on fabricated lives (M, S)
Moments are missed and memorable experiences are diluted (M)
Addiction (M, P, S)
It can ruin your sleep, impacting your physical health (P)

Still, others suggest many more potential perils. For instance, McMillen Health identifies 15 social media dangers:

Sedentary behavior (P)
Less sleep (P)
Social Media addiction (M, P, S)
Cyberbullying (M, S)
Missing out on face-to-face relationships (S)
Less time for other activities (M, P, S)
Social comparisons (M, S)
Affecting self-image (M)
Damaging online reputation (M, S)
Harmful to mental well-being (M)
Misleading information (M, S)
Scams (M, P)
Normalizing risk-taking behaviors (P)
Misleading marketing (M, P)
Inappropriate content (M, P, S)

Although anyone can be negatively impacted in these ways, children and adolescents tend to feel social media’s impacts most acutely, partly because they’re heavy users of the platforms but mainly because individuals’ formative years are ones in which they often look to others for validation, and they more easily feel ostracized from their peers.

Mayo Clinic cites many studies that found evidence of adverse effects of social media on teens, including the following:

12- to 15-year-olds in the U.S. who used social media for more than three hours a day were at greater risk of mental health problems.
For 13- to 16-year-olds in the U.K., using social media more than three times a day was associated with poor mental health and well-being.
Various studies have found links between social media use and symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Even with this evidence, it’s important to note that social media is not inherently bad. As suggested at the onset of this piece, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others provide very worthwhile services that range from connecting people, to offering entertainment, to delivering education.

It also bears emphasizing that ultimately people are responsible for their own social media use. Even in the case of so-called ‘addictive’ apps, like TikTok, people have the ability to stop using them without experiencing physical withdrawal symptoms associated with trying to stop smoking or doing drugs like cocaine and heroin.

One qualification, however, is that parents share some responsibility for the social media use of their children, especially younger ones. Unlike adults, children can’t necessarily comprehend the potential risks because they lack life experience and knowledge of social and psychological phenomenon. It’s up to parents to help moderate their children’s social media use.

Notwithstanding the preceding points, if companies care about their own consumers and people in general, they should want to contribute to their well-being and help them avoid harm.

Here are three “Ds” every organization should do to make their social media use more responsible.

1. Discourage divisive content: This is understandably a difficult phenomenon to police, but companies from the largest social media platforms to the smallest should work to eliminate content that unnecessarily pits people against each other.

While social media platforms shouldn’t be in the business of monetizing such content, all businesses should model civil dialogue and discourage polarizing posts.

2. Don’t allow abusive behavior: The social media communication that likely weighs heaviest on young people’s mental health is the communication that involves bullying and/or shaming. Yes, freedom of speech is important, but it shouldn’t mean that anything goes, particularly when that anything involves demeaning dialogue and personal attacks.

Smaller companies also can monitor their social media pages for abusive posts, removing them as they see them and banning users who make them.

3. Decrease overuse: Bars stop serving patrons who have had too much to drink. Social media platforms can at a minimum notify users of their time on the platform, similar to Apple’s screentime notifications. Beyond that, platforms could also ask people to set their own time limits, before they start using the app, when they’re still thinking about their use rationally and objectively.

Of course, most business that use social media aren’t platforms or major apps. Still, even small businesses can discourage social media overuse by limiting their posts to reasonable numbers, e.g., one or two a day versus four or five, which communicates to followers that they can and should have lives outside of their interactions with a single business.

Companies don’t need to stop using social media because of the U.S. surgeon general’s warning, but they should reassess how their use may be impacting people. The three Ds described above don’t represent a comprehensive plan for responsible social media use, but they are important steps toward more “Mindful Marketing.”

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

5 Comments

The Pros and Cons of Artificial Influencers

5/7/2023

2 Comments

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

Who would you ask for an important restaurant recommendation? You might turn to someone who knows the local area well, eats out frequently, or has discerning taste. What about asking someone who’s never been to a restaurant or ever eaten food? That seems like a silly suggestion, but with companies increasingly offering advice through artificial endorsers, the notion of consulting a ‘tech expert’ has taken on a whole new meaning.

I recently received an email from OpenTable in which the well-known reservation app announced an innovative partnership with the suddenly famous AI bot ChatGPT:

“We’re collaborating with the internet’s favorite chatbot to make finding the perfect table as easy as texting your best friend. Soon you can ask ChatGPT for restaurant recommendations for the perfect family brunch spot, a lively rooftop for a big group, or a romantic table for 2, and you’ll received recommendations with a direct link to book in seconds.”

It’s an intriguing proposition – asking a chatbot that doesn’t have tastebuds or emotions, let alone a significant other, to suggest a restaurant for a romantic dinner.

Virtual beings aren’t just recommending what to eat; they’re also suggesting what to wear. The 170-year-old jeans maker Levi’s recently grabbed headlines when it announced plans to increase diversity in its advertising by employing AI clothing models.

But wait, there’s more! Marketing technology guru Shelly Palmer has compiled a list of companies using virtual influencers to build their brands, which includes many notables such as Alibaba, IKEA, League of Legends, Lux Shampoo, Pacsun, and Puma. As the science and acceptance of AI continues to advance, all signs point to a baby boom of virtual brand endorsers.

Over the past few months, millions of people have turned to ChatGPT and some similar AI bots for answers, often to factual questions about:

general knowledge and information, such as definitions, historical events, and scientific facts
technology, such as how to use a particular software or troubleshoot a technical problem
health and medicine, such as symptoms, treatments, and side effects of various conditions
current events, such as news updates and breaking news

For those kinds of objective answers, it certainly makes sense to leverage machine learning, which can scour “a colossally large repository of text” and very quickly and adeptly “parse queries and produce fully-fleshed out answers and results based on most of the world's digitally-accessible text-based information.”

There’s a difference, though, between returning a list of “all fine-dining restaurants in Denver” and recommending a few that seem like the best fit for the particular diner’s occasion, palate, price range, and other personal preferences.

Companies wouldn’t use AI-powered artificial endorsers if they didn’t have advantages, but as this piece has already suggested, they also have disadvantages. Here’s what this human marketer sees as the pros and cons of virtual spokespeople.

Pro 1 – Affordability: Firms don’t have to pay artificial influencers, but they do need to pay for 3-D modeling which can be about $75,000 for a six-month contract. That’s not cheap but it is cost-effective compared to the deals demanded by A-list celebrities like Taylor Swift ($26 million from Diet Coke) and David Beckham ($160 million lifetime from Adidas).

Con 1 – Apathy: Jobs for humans are often an issue in conversations about AI. Virtual spokespeople don’t care that they might be replacing people. The companies that make and use the avatars may or may not feel conflicted, but at least some humans are needed to do the 3-D modeling and help manage the virtual endorsers.

Pro 2 – Adaptability: Firms can program an artificial endorser to do and say anything they want, as well as look anyway they want. These spokesbots will always deliver their lines perfectly, they’ll never cause PR headaches because of missteps in their social lives, and they’ll always maintain the ‘ideal’ weight, hair color, and skin tone.

Con 2 – Inauthenticity: Because they’re nonautonomous beings that speak others’ words, virtual endorsers can’t be truly authentic. One might argue that human spokespeople also parrot what they’re told to say , but at least they have a conscience and can decide, ‘The money is very attractive, but I can’t support this company/product.’

Pro 3 – Omniscience: As suggested above, AI-powered applications can scan and assimilate incredible amounts of information. Although they can’t literally know everything, and they sometimes make mistakes, their knowledge and accuracy will keep getting better and exceedingly surpass that of humans.

Con 3 – Inexperience: Even as virtual endorsers may have unparalleled knowledge, they have no real experience. As mentioned above, ChatGPT can’t eat food or wear jeans, so how can it really recommend restaurants or clothing?

Pro 4 – Disclosure: When we see ads with endorsers, whether they’re real people or digital beings, we instinctively know that they’re sharing a perspective that’s at least somewhat biased toward the advertised product. In some ways, the presence of virtual beings, which are still relatively uncommon, makes it even clearer that the communication is not impartial.

Con 4 – Deception: Although leading people to believe that their endorsement is unbiased is a possible problem for both human and animated beings, artificial endorsers hold greater potential to mislead, to the extent that their very life-like looks and mannerism make them seem real. This realism ties back to the issue of inauthenticity (Con 2) and represents the greatest potential ethical issue for spokesbots.

As described above, their lack of volition means artificial endorsers can never really say what’s on their mind, or be totally truthful. When people know a spokesperson isn’t human, they can account for that inauthenticity by raising their perceptual defenses and being more leery of what’s said. However, if consumers believe a spokesbot is a real person, that added skepticism will never arise.

Right now, most artificial endorsers still appear fake, although some, like Puma’s Maya look and act incredibly real. In fact, many have wondered if she is human, and some have even expressed a romantic interest in her.

As time goes on and technology advances, spokesbots will become more and more indistinguishable from real people. Organizations that employ artificial endorsers should let the public know that their digital creations aren’t real through some kind of disclaimer (e.g., “Maya is a virtual person”). Otherwise, consumers may give the bots’ communication more credence than it deserves since they’re not real humans who have genuinely judged companies’/products’ merits and made deliberate decisions that they are worthy of endorsement.

Over millennia of buying and selling products, people have known that it’s difficult for sellers to be truly objective about their wares, but buyers also know that spokespeople must make a conscious choice to endorse. Organizations that attempt to sidestep those consumer perceptions by passing off their spokesbots as real, autonomous people are endorsing “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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

2 Comments

Is it Time to Retire Roasting?

4/23/2023

15 Comments

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

Roasting is a nice way to bring out the natural flavors of things like meats, vegetables, and coffee, but does it bring out the best in people? A well-known fast-food chain seems to think so, or at least it believes roasting others is a recipe for building its brand.

Given everyone likes to laugh, people tend to appreciate individuals and organizations that add humor to their lives. Insurance companies like Aflac, Geico, and Progressive are well-known for luring consumers with levity via advertising slapstick, usually at the expense of their own corporate characters: Duck, Gecko, and Flo.

However, for five years, another company has taken a more aggressive comedic approach – Wendy’s, the ninth largest fast-food chain in America, has reasoned, ‘Why should we just laugh at ourselves, when we can laugh at you?’

To be fair, Wendy’s uses more than one type of humor. Like the insurance companies, the fast-food chain has characters – actors pretending to be Wendy’s employees – doing and saying silly things in what are pretty appealing ads. However, the company also uses comedy that very few organizations are bold enough to try – roasting others, even their own customers.

Wendy’s has long been known for using social media to spar with its burger competitors. Typical of the trash talk that Wendy’s aims at McDonald’s is this tweet from a few years ago: “Hey @McDonalds, heard the news. Happy #NationalFrozenFoodDay to you for all the frozen beef that’s sticking around in your cheeseburgers.”

However, those periodic jabs pale in comparison to what Wendy’s did in 2018, when it created its only holiday of sorts, “National Roast Day,” during which it invites individual and organizations to volunteer themselves to be roasted by the restaurant. Most recently, an animated version of its redhead, pigged-tailed namesake Wendy, the daughter of Founder Dave Thomas, imparts the insults.

Over the past few years, Twitter served as the platform of choice for most Roast Day putdowns, but this spring Wendy took her talents to TikTok and also tripled the length of the ribbing from one day to three.

A review of the video shorts shows that the roasts vary in their acrimony. Some are pretty benign, for instance:

To a young woman wearing considerable eye makeup and applying lip gloss: “Hey, it’s the girl that walked the track in Cookie Monster pajamas during gym class.”
To a young man who asks Wendy to roast his band’s music: “I’d roast your music, but just like everyone else on earth, I’ve never heard it.”

Other roasts are more acerbic:

To a heavy-set young man: “I didn’t know someone without a neck could have a neck beard, but here we are. You learn something new every day.”

To a thin-framed young man who recalls Wendy’s once wrapping “underwhelming” single burger patties in foil: “Should have expected a weak punchline from someone who looked like they’d lose an arm-wrestling match to a seven-year-old.”

To a young man wearing sunglasses and a hat with a Pizza Planet logo, who speaks with a slight Southern accent: “Kids, this is what happens when you’re born in a truck stop bathroom.”

Of course, Wendy’s didn’t invent the roast. For that starting place, some point to 1950, the New York Friars Club, and roasts of comedians Sam Levenson and Joe E. Lewis. While the Friars Club has continued roasting one member a year since, others also have gotten into the act, namely Dean Martin’s celebrity roasts from 1974-1984, and Comedy Central. From 2003 through 2019, the cable channel aired one or two roasts a year of musicians, actors, and comedians, including David Hasselhoff, Charlie Sheen, and Roseanne Barr.

It’s unclear why Comedy Central stopped its roasts. Some on social media claim COVID killed the biting humor, while others note that the frequency of the channel’s roasts already had started to decline. There also were several very awkward exchanges along the way, including a roast in 2016 when instead of belittling roastee Rob Lowe, many of the roasters heaped brutal insults on fellow roaster and conservative commentator Ann Coulter. Retired NFL quarterback Peyton Manning compared her to a horse.

It might be naïve, but maybe Comedy Central’s cancellation of roasting had something to do with heightened sensibilities and introspection – i.e., What exactly are we doing here and what it’s greater social impact?

Understandably, some would want to push back on such criticism of Comedy Central’s specials and Wendy’s National Roast Day with plausible arguments like:

Don’t take it so seriously; it’s comedy; it’s supposed to be funny!
Everyone needs to laugh at themselves.
Those people volunteered to be roasted.

Although each of those arguments has some merit, overall, they lack a good read of the room. In other words, they miss the bigger picture of what’s happening in our world, the tenuous turn society has taken, and how roasting provides poor but enticingly imitable examples of how people might interact with each other.

Even a casual observer can see that society has become increasingly divided ideologically and in other ways. Although such schisms have likely always existed, what’s new is the freedom and numerous ways people now have to berate not only individuals who think differently but also those who fail to act and look like they do.

Of course, social media has been a main conduit for that verbal abuse, allowing people to unfurl personal attacks with the protection of partial, if not complete, anonymity and to do so at physically, psychologically, and socially safe distances, i.e., without meeting their ‘adversaries’ face-to-face, learning their stories, and truly understanding them.

Many young people, in particular, seek validation from social media, allowing their self-image to rise and fall based on likes, shares, and comments, often from people they don’t know. Those fleeting rewards teach them what’s valued and motivate future behavior, often aimed at realizing similar temporary validation.

What’s more, people also learn social norms vicariously, or by observing others and seeing how society responds to their actions. So, if caustic criticism of a person gains thousands of likes on social media, thousands of others may reason, ‘I’d like to receive that kind of response; I think I’ll try that.’

There-in lies the real danger of Wendy’s roasts: They’re invitations to imitate derisive communication at a place and time when society is already deeply divided and young people feel stigmatized by social media.

Fortunately, some other organizations not only recognize these serious societal rifts, they’re trying to remedy them. One such company is the global consumer goods producer Unilever. In keeping with its aim to be “purpose-led,” its personal care brand Dove has taken special efforts to battle the culture of criticism by doing things such as:

Challenging TikTok’s bold glamour filter, which “sets unrealistic and harmful beauty expectations for girls and women.”
Pushing for legislation to protect kids’ self-esteem, given the rise in mental health issues associated with social media use.

As someone who uses humor generously in his classes, I probably should be one of last people to criticize anyone who seeks to leverage the very legitimate value of laughter. However, roasting breaks the boundaries of what can be considered socially beneficial “playful teasing.”

From my 30+ years on the frontlines of customer interaction and college education, a little good-natured ribbing is not just tolerated, it’s often very desirable, provided the teaser:

Already has a good relationship with those being teased
Teases themself, or uses self-deprecating humor
Pays many more compliments than teases
Never teases about things that are sensitive or cannot be changed
Doesn’t focus the teasing on just one or two people

Regrettably, Wendy’s roasts fulfill few of these criteria. Also, given the nasty nature of animated Wendy, the company’s website description of how its founder Thomas chose the logo is both ironic and sad: “He felt that the logo of a smiling, whole-some little girl with the name ‘Wendy’s Old-Fashioned Hamburgers’ would be the place where you went for a hamburger the way you used to get them . . .”

Given the expansion of its self-made holiday, the fast-food chain’s burger sales must be benefiting; however, the butt of the joke is a society that shouldn’t have to tolerate more divisiveness or attacks on individuals’ self-esteem. Wendy’s deserves kudos for wanting to make people laugh, but unfortunately it has cooked up a biggie serving of “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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

15 Comments

AI Ethics Need Time

4/8/2023

4 Comments

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

At the same time Major League Baseball (MLB) has made a revolutionary rule change to speed up America’s pastime, some renown business leaders have called a timeout to slow down the planet’s hottest new technology. In a world that places a high priority on time, is it fair to ask organizations to hit pause on artificial intelligence (AI)?

With many believing that notoriously long baseball games have outlasted the attention spans of fans now conditioned for shorter bursts of entertainment, MLB made the game-changing addition of a pitch clock, which already seems to be serving its purpose of expediting play.

However, sports don’t always imitate life. Concerned about the meteoric rise of AI and its potential abuses, over 18,000 people have signed the Future Life Institute’s open letter that asks all AI labs to “immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.” Among the notable signatories are tech leaders Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

Most of us have heard of at least some ethical infractions attributed to AI that range from the art tool Midjourney slyly outfitting Pope Francis in a longline white puffer coat to complaints that an uncensored chatbot continually offends human decency.

In light of such concerns, some marketing professionals have joined ranks with their tech colleagues and said that the proposed pause on AI development is, akin to Keebler cookies, “an uncommonly good idea.” On an even larger scale, Italy recently became the first western nation to ban ChatGPT.

However, not everyone agrees that an AI pause is necessary. While major brands like Coke, Duolingo, and Expedia are increasingly leveraging the power of ChatGPT for their digital marketing, Microsoft has gone much further, making multimillion dollar investments in Open AI, the app’s owner.

Also questioning the prudence of the open letter and proposed AI pause are “some prominent AI ethicists” and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who has said, “I don’t really understand who they’re saying could stop, and would every country in the world agree to stop, and why to stop.”

Gates’ issue with the AI pause doesn’t seem to be so much that he believes it’s a bad idea in principle as he fears its unilateral implementation, i.e., many around the world won’t honor the halt. As Microsoft’s largest single stockholder, Gates understandably doesn’t want the company to fall behind in the AI race.

Gates elaborated on his AI perspective saying, “Clearly there’s huge benefits to these things… what we need to do is identify the tricky areas.”

Coming from someone who is a prolific reader and arguably one of humanity’s greatest intellects, “tricky” is a very interesting choice of words.

Gates probably didn’t mean “tricky” in the sense of sly or deceptive, but rather he chose the adjective to convey that AI issues are complex, delicate, and intricate. Either way, the word is very informative for the approach to ethics that should be taken with AI.

When a bomb squad comes upon an unrecognized incendiary device that it needs to deactivate, and one of its members says, “This is going to be tricky,” it’s probably not code to pick up the pace and rush headlong into the defusing process. Instead, “tricky” would likely signal to everyone on the team that they should slow down and think, “How exactly do we want to go about this?”

Based on the educated opinions of tech experts who know much more about the potential risks and rewards of AI than do most of us, the transcendent and ever-evolving technology is potentially explosive, or “uncommonly” “tricky.” Some of the potential pitfalls include information accuracy, privacy, intellectual property, offensive content, attribution, and impact on humans' livelihoods.

When it comes to tricky ethical issues, it’s not only okay to pump the brakes, hit pause, and take a beat – it’s desirable. Moral choices shouldn’t be rushed; rather, they often benefit from more time to allow for:

Consideration of other opinions: Any given person’s, organization’s, or industry’s perspective is naturally limited and usually biased to some extent. It’s very helpful, therefore, to engage other stakeholders who can offer divergent views, or at least ask good questions.
Better projection of likely outcomes: A danger of rushing through a product trial is that some consequences only become known over time, after they happen. Such a long-term delay of launching may not be practical, but additional conceptual testing is usually possible and is likely to identify other probable occurrences.
Deeper reflection on pertinent principles: Identifying what specific moral issues are at play in a given situation requires very intentional analysis. Determining what particular courses of action are decent, fair, honest, etc. requires even greater contemplation.

Unfortunately, a MLB pitcher facing a full count on a prolific home run hitter can no longer take extra time to gather himself before throwing the next pitch. However, even though the game of high tech is moving at a very rapid pace, there is no pitch clock on AI ethics.

Gates is right that not everyone in the world will hit pause on AI development at the same time, which is concerning. But why, then, not apply the same logic to an issue like greenhouse gases? Certainly not every organization or nation is working to reduce their CO2 emissions; yet, Gates is, thankfully, a vocal advocate and large financial supporter of mitigation efforts.

In ethics, it’s not only tenuous to try to think too fast, it’s also ill-advised to reason: “Others won’t take a stand, so why should I?” Pumping the brakes on new technology is not always needed, but given AI’s life-altering potential, some extra time to talk and reflect equals “Mindful Marketing.”

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

4 Comments

Higher Ed's Big Gamble on Sports Betting

3/26/2023

6 Comments

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.”

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

6 Comments

Why So Many Super-Beer Ads?

2/12/2023

8 Comments

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.”

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

8 Comments

Ensuring Ethical Advertising

12/18/2022

3 Comments

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.”

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

3 Comments

<<Previous

Dos and Don'ts of Personal Branding with AI

No Shorts, No Sunglasses, No Service

What's to Like about Twitter's Rebrand

A 3D Approach to Corporate Social Media Responsibility

The Pros and Cons of Artificial Influencers

Is it Time to Retire Roasting?

AI Ethics Need Time

Higher Ed's Big Gamble on Sports Betting

Why So Many Super-Beer Ads?

Ensuring Ethical Advertising

Editor

Archives

Categories