Category: Simple Minded

Is Netflix Content 'Good Enough'?

4/23/2022

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

How old were you when you made your first solo shopping trip? If you’re a Boomer, Gen X, or Gen Z, your answer might be 8, 12, or even 18. Japanese youth apparently run errands much earlier—as in age two—to the amazement of many Americans who are now streaming the cultural curiosity. Whether toddlers should be by themselves on road-trips is a worthy question, as is why people a half-world away are watching a decade-old television show.

From ‘Stanger Things,’ to ‘Bridgrton,’ to ‘Squid Game,’ tastes for Netflix series change like the seasons. Now, one of the streaming giant’s popular properties is an unlikely reality series that comes courtesy of East Asia and the 1990s.

‘Old Enough!’ is a documentary-style television program in which Japanese parents send their toddlers on their first independent errands. Camera crews capture the highly cute and often humorous action, while witty narration added in editing gives viewers a window into what the tots may have been thinking at the time of their adventures.

In light of today’s often hovering helicopter parents, it’s refreshing to see young people given real responsibilities and freedom to act independently. However, it’s also kind of unnerving to watch a kid, who’s still wearing diapers, wander by himself more than a half mile to a grocery store to pick up ingredients for dinner.

In terms of social skills, these parents are placing their children far ahead on the developmental curve. Given what these kids are doing under age four, there’s no telling what they’ll be capable of by the time they’re 10 or 20 . . . if they live that long!

In terms of safety, there’s likely little danger to the children. Camera crews are filming them the entire time, so in some sense they’re safer during shooting than they may be any other day. However, no camera operator could intervene in time if a three-year-old suddenly skipped off the sidewalk, into the path of a moving vehicle.

Another issue to consider any time children are placed in media roles is informed consent. How can a child under the age of five possibly understand what they’re doing: the risks they’re incurring at the time and the implications their ‘celebrity’ may bring in the future? Most fathers and mothers pursue their children’s best interest; yet there are always unfortunate cases in which parents become blinded by their offspring’s potential popularity and prosperity and intentionally place them in harm’s way.

This potential may be even more of a concern in today’s social media infatuated society. Now any parent with a smartphone can capture their child doing ‘something special’ and broadcast the clips or stills to anyone in the world.

All the above are real moral concerns; however, it’s hard to paint ‘Old Enough!’ as irresponsible entertainment. Most parents who aggressively promote and profit from their children probably have never seen the show. Also, given the series’ longevity and apparent track record of ‘safe success,’ the show seems like acceptable diversion.

So, back to the second question posed at the outset of this piece: Why have so many Americans suddenly been smitten by a decade-old Japanese documentary featuring toddlers running errands? ‘Seinfeld’s George Costanza’s gave a reason for watching ‘a show about nothing’ that may help answer the question: “because it’s on TV.”

Of course, there’s sarcasm in that answer, but there’s also truth. Although the increasingly competitive streaming market is saturated with shows, after spending 18 months or more homebound in a pandemic, many people feel they’ve already seen everything worth watching on Netflix, which has left the company scrambling for new content—scouring space and time for entertainment that will keep people from unsubscribing.

Speaking of subscriptions, during the first quarter of 2022, Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers and even more staggering, it expects to lose 2 million more by July—an announcement that has precipitated a decline in the company’s stock price of more than 30%.

During video rental era and in the early years of streaming, competitors had largely the same video libraries, so cost and convenience were key to attracting customers. Now content is the most important differentiator, as evidenced by the rapid rise of relatively new competitor Disney+, which has ridden the popularity of proprietary shows like ‘The Mandalorian,’ ‘The Beatles: Get Back,’ and a long list of Disney movies.

Netflix needs original content. Over the past five-to-seven years, it’s certainly had success creating content, but subscribers burned through that content with a flurry of pandemic-prompted binge-watching. Creating compelling original content takes considerable time, money, and expertise, but even then, there are no guarantees it will be well-received.

These reasons are likely why Netflix acquired the streaming rights for ‘Old Enough!’—a show the company could make available immediately to a subscriber base that, by and large, had never seen it, but would find it at least a little entertaining, since reality TV still resonates and people like cute kids.

Netflix also probably didn’t overpay for those rights. True to the show’s name, the 20 episodes now on Netflix were produced in 2013, nearly a decade ago, giving ‘Old Enough!’ a double meaning and likely meaning that the series was a bargain. Unfortunately, inexpensive does not necessarily mean good.

My wife and I are not representative of all Netflix subscribers, but after watching three episodes of the grocery-toting toddlers, we had our fill. The children were cute, and the scenarios were kind of funny, but reading the subtitles made the entertainment feel a little like work. Even though a fourth episode promised a different kid in a unique situation, it didn’t seem like we’d really see anything new.

Perhaps ‘Old Enough!’ has outperformed Netflix executives’ expectations. Still, the show can’t be more than a bandage on the company’s expanding wound of subscriber attrition, which will only be healed by a more drastic strategic prescription.

Interestingly, Netflix is now looking to incorporate advertising. Such sponsorships could help contain, if not lower, the cost of the platform; however, people won’t stay subscribed just because rates don’t rise, any more than they'll watch shows ‘just because they’re on TV.’ Subscribers of any streaming service must believe there’s enough new, engaging content to warrant whatever amount they’re paying.

There are no serious moral concerns over a show about toddlers ‘doing nothing,’ but there’s also little economic upside for a streaming giant that desperately needs more compelling original content. For these reasons, Netflix’s ‘Old Enough!’ is good enough to be “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

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Mascot Madness

3/27/2022

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

When people mention products they see advertised all the time, “insurance” is often top-of-list. Insurance ads are virtually inescapable and stick because of clever humor and silly brand characters. One lesser-known competitor now claims to be better because it forgoes such foolishness, but is throwing shade on the big players’ branding the way to ensure it wins?

Today, the mascots of insurance companies are better known than those of many colleges. To test that claim, try the following two-part quiz. The answers appear a few paragraphs below:

1) What are the mascots of the five largest U.S. public university campuses by enrollment?

Texas A & M University
University of Central Florida
Ohio State University
University of Florida
Florida International University

2) What are brand characters of the following insurance companies?

Aflac
Allstate
Geico
Liberty Mutual
Progressive

If you’re like me, you know more on the second list than the first. Granted, I pay more attention to commercials than most people do, but I’m also a significant fan of college sports who works in higher education, which are good reasons why I should know list #2 too.

So, here are the answers:
1) Aggies, Knights, Buckeyes, Gators, Panthers
2) Duck, Mayhem, Gecko, Emu, Flo

The point of this exercise is to underscore how effective many insurance companies have been at familiarizing us with their brands’ personalities.

Despite the old adage, “You can’t argue with success,” one insurance provider is doing just that, making a very public case that all the time and energy its competitors spend building brand characters is wasted.

Unlike Geico or Allstate, the company with the hot take is not a household name for most people. It’s New Jersey Manufacturers Casualty Insurance Company, or NJM.

NJM began in 1913 by providing worker’s compensation to New Jersey businesses and a couple of decades later started to offer commercial and personal auto insurance and homeowners insurance. Over the last 100+ years it’s expanded its offerings even more, while extending into other states.

Only recently, though, did the company decide to redefine the acronym that’s represented its name for more than a century. Now, at least for the purpose of some contrarian marketing communication, NJM purportedly stands for “No Jingles or Mascots, Just Great Insurance.”

Why would NJM want to throw shade on several of America’s most successful insurance providers? The easy answer is it wants to be big like them but believes that its path to greatness must come not by copying their recipe for success but by being different.

NJM is a sizeable insurer; however, it’s scope and scale are small compared to the mascot-using competitors mentioned above. NJM only markets its products in New Jersey and five nearby states. Similarly, while NJM has about $8 billion in assets, the other firms boast much bigger asset totals:

Aflac: $165 billion
Allstate: $126 billion
Geico: $71 billion
Liberty Mutual: $145 billion
Progressive: $64 billion

Positioning against the brand, as it’s called, is not necessarily a bad idea. Avis succeeded with the strategy in the early 1960s, using the tagline “We try harder,” –a clear slight against the number one car rental company at the time, Hertz. Similarly, in 1967 Seven-Up tapped into countercultural sentiment by branding itself as the “Uncola” versus the soft drink “Establishment” that was Coke and Pepsi.

However, there are two important factors that dilute NJM’s claim to be different by not using ducks or geckos.

First, there are plenty of other insurance companies that can make the same claim that they’re more serious about insurance because they don’t use mascots. In fact, they represent the nation’s five largest insurers:

Prudential
Berkshire Hathaway
MetLife
TIAA
AIG

To be clear, Berkshire Hathaway does own Geico; however, it also owns these mascot-less insurance firms: National Indemnity Company, General Reinsurance, and Berkshire Hathaway Life Insurance Company of Nebraska.

Also, in case you’re thinking that Snoopy is MetLife’s mascot, the dog is gone. The company dropped the beloved beagle more than five years ago in an effort to reflect “a clean, modern aesthetic.”

Second, in its television commercials trumpeting its decision to not use mascots, NJM uses, of all things, mascots!

To be clear, the mascots in NJM’s commercials are not its own but ones it’s fabricated for fictitious competitors. The commercial characters include an alpaca, a jingle-singing entertainer, an elephant-giraffe-eagle-horse-octopus, a big blue bear, a narwhal, and a ferret.

Again, none of the mascots belong to NJM, but by using them in its humor-infused ads, the company is not so subtly doing the same thing it accuses its competitors of doing—prioritizing playfulness over serious insurance.

It’s kind of like one person scolding another for their profanity by swearing at them, “You s#@% h#@%, you’ve got to stop the b*#&#% cursing!” The point, of course is if the words are bad, no one should be using them.

So, if mascots don’t make for serious insurance, why is NJM using them in its ads?

That question is kind of a rhetorical one, but I can’t resist trying to answer it. It could be that NJM suffers from some mascot-envy and may even be using its commercials as a way of auditioning characters to see if any stick.

More generally, NJM must recognize that using mascots in marketing works. This piece began by identifying several insurance competitors’ well-known characters. Over the years, organizations in other industries also have reaped similar branding benefits from their own creations, such as:

Energizer – Energizer Bunny
Keebler Company – Keebler Elves
Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes – Tony the Tiger
McDonald’s – Ronald McDonald
Michelin – Michelin Man
Pillsbury – Dough Boy
Planters – Mr. Peanut
Procter & Gamble’s Mr. Clean – Mr. Clean
StarKist Tuna - Charlie

Of course, characters aren’t good fits for every industry. We don’t see luxury brands like Cartier, Gucci, or Mercedes employing mascots because they want to be seen as elegant and refined—images that characters can undermine. Likewise, some organizations’ missions are simply too serious to be connected with anything that might come across as irreverent, e.g., the American Lung Association.

But for many companies, mascots serve helpful purposes like giving brands more personal connection and communicating whimsy. But even more basic, the characters often capture our attention, keep our interest, and help us remember what can be easily forgotten products . . . like insurance.

Given the quest for Mindful Marketing, the other important question to ask is whether mascot use is ethical. Two areas that demand special attention are how certain mascots portray people groups and how some characters are used in marketing to children. Otherwise, it’s hard to identify any broad prohibition of mascots for branding.

NJM’s claim that ‘We’re more serious about insurance because we don’t use mascots,’ doesn’t make much sense since its own ads have mascots. Some might call that use disingenuous or deceitful, but it’s unlikely there’s any ill intent.

No, NJM is just searching for a strategy that can lift it to the level of Aflac and Progressive, but such a leap won’t happen by using an eclectic cast of ‘other insurers’ mascots’ and talking more about what the company isn’t than what it is. This specific claim for positioning against the brand should be assessed as “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

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Cutting Out Weight Loss Ads

8/15/2021

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

Have you ever felt self-conscious about your weight? Most people probably have, perhaps because of someone’s casual comment or from comparing their figure to those of their friends. Maybe an ad even contributed to the unease. Marketers increasingly seek to affirm all physiques but is their support of body positivity delivering an unhealthy message?

It’s hard to think of inclusiveness of physical form without remembering Dove. Through its 2004 “Real Beauty” campaign the personal care brand pioneered promotion based on the reality that beautiful people come in all shapes and sizes.

Since then, many other organizations have mirrored Dove’s body-positive approach. Retailers like Kohl’s and Old Navy, routinely include plus-sized models in their ads, while Target and Macy’s employ variously proportioned mannequins to highlight similarly sized clothing.

Last month, the picture-lovers site Pinterest took body positivity a step further by announcing it would ban weight-loss ads. The social media platform explained that its decision was in the interest of individuals “facing challenges related to body image and mental health,” especially those suffering from eating disorders.

The first major social media platform to take such action, Pinterest’s unprecedented decision quickly received wide news coverage ranging from Fortune to NPR.

Most media cast Pinterest’s ban of weight loss ads in a positive light. For instance, an NBC News opinion piece called the choice “a glimmer of good news” amid more typically troubling stories.

It’s very encouraging that people increasingly recognize that everyone is different and that those differences can be celebrated. But are all differences good differences? Aren’t there certain behaviors that are objectively better for people to do, and others to avoid? Furthermore, are some marketers, like Pinterest, encouraging people to celebrate differences that could actually be harmful to them and to society?”

These are difficult questions to answer in any context, and they become especially tenuous when treating a topic like body image, which so directly impacts everyone, both in individual, psychological ways and in social, relational ways.

In my early years, I was a somewhat ‘chunky’ child and experienced, more than once, critical comments about my weight, which were hard to hear. As I grew older, taller and became more active, I lost weight, or maybe more accurately, didn’t gain much more. Ironically, I now sometimes receive unsolicited comments about being thin, which admittedly are easier to accept; although, they still make me feel uncomfortable.

Despite, this personal experience, a middle-aged man like me is probably not an ideal person to offer insights about body image and the social norms that surround it. When I feel ill-equipped to tackle an ethical issue on my own, which occurs often, I reach out to others who have different and frequently more informed perspectives.

In this instance, I needed as much help as ever, so I contacted several people who I knew would expand my perceptions by hearing their thoughts about Pinterest’s ad ban. Here are highlights from three interactions:

1. A veteran registered nurse, and Baby Boomer, who works in adult primary care as a nurse practitioner posed two important questions that also have been on my mind: 1) How effective are weight loss ads, and 2) “Do they promote healthy behaviors or unhealthy ones?” In answering both questions, she pointed me to a study published in npj Digital Medicine, which found that “online advertisements hold promise as a mechanism for changing population health behaviors.”

She also referenced CDC statistics that show that from 1999 to 2018, the prevalence of obesity in the United States increased from 30.5% to 42.4%. In her work, she sees firsthand how the effects of obesity, including diabetes and hypertension, can lead to “even more life changing complications.” She added:

“Weight loss is usually part of the treatment, and avoidance of obesity is usually preventative. So, if clicking on weight loss ads is a behavior that leads to seeking out more information on healthy behavioral change, then by all means, keep the ads.”

2. A member of Generation Y who works in the food marketing industry had a somewhat different take on weight loss ads. She said that her online scroll speed increases significantly in order to avoid the ads, which she says, “feel more personal as they poke at my self-esteem.” However, she qualifies her aversion to the ads, adding:

“I believe that weight loss products/services deserve to be advertised, but maybe in a way that’s sensitive to the cultural climate of body positivity/neutrality. I’m hopeful that these organizations could use that mindset as a framework guiding their ads, in a way that’s still effective at stopping someone’s scroll but acts as an invitation rather than a confrontation.”

3. A college student and member of Generation Z told me about his very significant weight loss: In just five months, this 6’ 3” young man lost 60 lbs., dropping from 260 to 200 lbs. Given that his accomplishment came mainly from “drinking plenty of water and exercising 4-5 times a week,” it’s not surprising that he emphasized the importance of approaching weight loss as a serious undertaking that requires perseverance:

“It is important to draw the connection between weight loss and hard work, the latter which must come first. It's about discipline, research, and taking your own personal initiative to develop an interest in personal fitness. You cannot simply buy a weight loss program and expect fat to magically remove itself from your body.”

Although he had no concern that society would suddenly become heavier if weight loss ads disappeared, he did express concern about any messaging that might normalize obesity:

“We will lose the idea of what is acceptable and what is not if we desensitize ourselves to what is normal. Being overweight is not a ‘normal’ state to be in, according to health professionals regardless of what ‘body-positivity experts’ have to say. It is common, but not healthy . . . It is ironic that the body-positivity movement promotes every body type more frequently than the ones deemed most healthy by scientists and health professionals.”

Of course, the opinions of these three people don’t represent the full spectrum of perspectives on weight loss and body image. They didn’t speak much to issues like anorexia and bulimia; however, I know each of them understands and empathizes with all who suffer from such eating disorders, as well as those who have been shamed because of their physique.

At the same time, these three voices have expressed important points that perhaps seem contrarian, probably because they tend not to receive the attention they deserve. For instance, they emphasized:

The right type of weight-loss advertising, that’s affirming and realistic, can be effective and beneficial.
Weight-loss is more a function of hard work and self-discipline than any quick fix.
No one should be made to feel bad about their body, but normalizing obesity is not helpful.
Although eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are fairly common (1%-4% of the population suffers from them), obesity is much more prevalent: As mentioned above, in the U.S., 42.4% of adults were obese in 2018. Also, unfortunately, the pandemic has seen an increase in obesity, with an average weight gain of 29 lbs., making people more susceptible to the dangerous effects of the virus, as well as other serious illnesses.

It’s unfortunate that we live in a weight-obsessed society. Some marketers bear responsibility for helping to cultivate that preoccupation, e.g., by promoting unhealthy lifestyles that lead to excessive weight gain. Others are culpable for perpetuating unrealistic physical ideals and impossible ways of achieving them.

Pinterest is right to act against specific advertising abuses that cause others to feel shame and that encourage eating disorders. However, in embracing body positivity, the social media platform and others should be careful not to inadvertently endorse what is objectively one of world’s biggest problems, obesity, as doing so weighs in as “Mindless Marketing.”

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More Diversity Won't Mean More Dollars for Häagen-Dazs

6/5/2021

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by Emilie Rush - digital media major and student director of The Pulse media hub at Messiah University

As a student of marketing and a person of color, Häagen-Dazs’ new diversity-driven ad campaign quickly caught my eye. It reminded me of a very different campaign from 2013 that featured actor Bradley Cooper seductively spooning vanilla indulgence from the same premium ice cream company’s pints. Unfortunately Häagen-Dazs’ recent move from ‘entice and excite’ to ‘racially right’ is unlikely to sweeten its bottom-line.

The firm was founded in 1960 by Polish-Jewish immigrants Reuben and Rose Mattus, who prided themselves in not cutting corners but rather using the purest and highest quality ingredients to make their premium ice cream. Häagen-Dazs has a history of authenticity, but the firm’s current ad campaign, which highlights people of color sharing what luxury means to them, comes across as artificial compared to the company’s own past social responsibility and branding, as well as to other organizations’ diversity initiatives.

In 2008, the company launched “Häagen-Dazs loves HB” (honey bees), a campaign focused on fighting Colony Collapse Disorder, a serious problem responsible for the decline in the global bee population. Given that bees directly impact Häagen-Dazs’ ingredients and the brand’s “all natural” value proposition, the campaign connected with consumers in a genuine way, while also being the first to put the ‘bee’ cause on radar screens. The campaign made sense, given the company’s values and goals.

Häagen-Dazs undoubtedly hopes its new #ThatsDazs diversity campaign will produce similar positive social and company impacts: building its brand reputation, reaching a wider audience, and connecting with younger generations. However, as Häagen-Dazs’ own honey bee campaign showed and as other organizations’ diversity initiatives illustrate, such strategies must have meaningful connections to the company’s products and overall value proposition.

As an example, Ben & Jerry's has been very outspoken on Instagram about causes like social justice, the support of black communities against police brutality, the school-prison pipeline, and white supremacy, as well as supporting other marginalized communities like LGBTQ+, indigenous people, and Asian Americans. It even created a social justice-inspired ice cream called Justice ReMix’d. The company also runs traditional product-focused ads, which perform better than its social issue posts. Still, the cause-related conversations stimulate significant audience engagement and overall support for the brand.

Other companies that choose to integrate inclusion and diversity in their advertising are often clothing brands, home decor product lines, and cosmetics. Compared to ice cream, these types of businesses have more obvious lifestyle-related reasons for showing diversity, as doing so lets people know that anyone can use their products and that no matter who you are, the brand has included space for “you” and your lifestyle.

For instance, many cosmetic companies have been publicly shamed for not offering makeup that suits darker and richer skin tones, making everyday products hard to track down for millions of consumers. Fortunately, a few brands like Fenty Beauty are known for their more inclusive product lines, so that when a customer sees Fenty in stores, they can feel confident that they’ll find something to suit them, just as those with lighter skin can.

Researchers and marketing professionals from Learn Hub, Black Girl Group, and Marketing Schools all agree that diversity marketing has more pros than cons, such as increasing brand loyalty and expanding customer bases, but because #ThatsDazs seems disconnected from Häagen-Dazs’ brand and doesn’t directly integrate with its products, it’s unlikely that the ice cream maker will savor any significant sales increase.

Instead of #ThatsDazs, a more authentic marketing campaign could aim to change people’s perceptions of the firm as being Scandinavian owned and operated and help them see Häagen-Dazs as more genuinely diverse, by showing the people of color responsible for creating its ads and making its products. It could also hold a contest for other creators of color, challenging them to create commercials that highlight why they love Häagen-Dazs.

A more deep-reaching diversity campaign can be great, but ultimately Häagen-Dazs must recognize that it’s an ice cream company that has established itself as a luxury brand. That positioning, more than its stance on diversity, may be hindering the company’s sales because people associate premium products with high prices, but many Häagen-Dazs products don’t deliver on that level.

So, is Häagen-Dazs too expensive? The most popular pints of ice cream in Target and Walmart are Ben & Jerry’s and Halo Top. These brands retail for about $4.50, while 14 ounces of Häagen-Dazs sells for $3.79. The other brands offer their ice cream by the pint, but by ounce their prices are virtually the same.

So why aren't people eating as much Häagen-Dazs? As the Bradly Cooper commercial illustrated, over the years the company has placed more emphasis on its plain ice creams, over their specialty creams with chunks and swirls. Vanilla Häagen-Dazs 14 oz. costs $3.79, while a 1.5 quart of Breyers vanilla (a regional brand) only costs $4.49. At less than ten cents an ounce for comparable vanilla cream, Breyers is the better deal.

Simply said, Häagen-Dazs ice cream isn’t the best on the market for the price and flavors it offers. Diverse ads can’t distract from those basic consumer economics.

As mentioned above, there are several strategies Häagen-Dazs could pursue to make its brand more desirable to consumers, especially those who value diversity. Although the company’s current inclusivity campaign is admirable, surface-level attempts at seeming diverse are always “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

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When TV Commercials Wink

2/14/2021

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

As a Seinfeld fan, one of my favorite episodes is when George’s eye catches a piece of flying grapefruit, causing him to confuse everyone with his involuntary winking. Such hijinks are funny for a television sitcom, but what happens when commercials use conflicting verbal and visual cues, particularly on TV’s biggest stage?

Before the recent big game, a friend graciously invited my analysis of the ads—You don’t have to ask twice for my opinion on advertising, especially Super Bowl commercials, so I shared thoughts about one particular ad that seemed strange.

Toyota’s “Upstream” commercial featured the adoption story of Jessica Long, a 13-time gold-medal-winning Paralympic swimmer. Long’s rise to success despite severe adversity was inspiring; however, there was also something unsettling about the ad.

Pushing against the positive verbal messages of parental love and athletic achievement was a literal stream of cold, dark water that ran through every scene, including the family’s home and other indoor places. That’s a disconcerting sight that can cause anguish for anyone, especially those who have experienced floods in their home, school, or work.

The negative visual of flood water worked against the ad’s affirmative verbal messages, significantly diluting the positive affect Toyota likely wanted for its ad, and making it “Simple-Minded Marketing.” The automaker certainly had good intentions, but I doubt the inadvertently somber spot did much to boost the company’s brand.

I remembered this ad partly because of its unpleasant aftertaste but also because I’ve studied such verbal-visual disconnects before. Several years ago, I did research on the same phenomenon found in pharmaceutical ads, which are probably the worst offenders when it comes to sending mixed commercial messages.

When we watch a prescription drug ad, we usually hear a list of the medication’s side effects, which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandates. However, as a narrator recites those potential negative outcomes, the commercial often shows very pleasant visuals, like the ones seen in this ad for Lipitor. At about 33 seconds into the spot, a narrator starts to quickly read several serious warnings:

“Lipitor is not for everyone, including people with liver problems and women who are nursing or pregnant or may become pregnant. You need simple blood tests to check for liver problems. Tell your doctor if you are taking other medications or if you have muscle pain or weakness. This may be the sign of a rare or serious side effect.”

Ironically, the visual backdrop for these weighty words is a guy and his dog taking a pleasant walk through the woods and later jumping into a lake for some swimming fun. Yes, we hear the side effects in such ads, but are we really listening to and understanding their gravity, given that very positive visual scenes distract us from those negative verbal messages?

That’s the question I set out to answer through research that began with a group of students in an Advertising Ethics class I was teaching. In a controlled empirical study that involved commercials for fictitious pharmaceuticals, we found that people do indeed discount drugs’ negative side effects when shown positive “dissonant” visuals at the same time.

I presented those findings at the American Marketing Association’s Marketing & Public Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., where a member of the FDA commended the research and asked for a copy of the presentation. Health Marketing Quarterly later published the study.

So, one “Simple-Minded” Super Bowl ad failed to make effective use of reinforcing, or “redundant,” visuals—no big deal. Actually, several other $5.5 million+ spots made the same mistake in similar ways and in doing so conveniently completed the other three quadrants of the Mindful Matrix:

“Alexa’s Body” - Amazon claimed the steamiest spot in this year’s Super Bowl. For nearly sixty seconds, a female Amazon employee fantasized about handsome Black Panther star Michael B. Jordan, who replaced the smart speaker in her lustful daydreams, which included Jordan removing his shirt and joining her in a bubble bath for two.

The commercial was uncomfortable to watch in mixed company and may have posed problems for parents, but the real issue was the spot’s repeated sexual objectification of Jordan. Role-reversal (a woman mentally undressing a man) may have seemed funny, but no one should be reduced to their body parts or have their personhood downgraded to a “vessel.” Similarly, it’s dangerous to objectify men as doing so suggests that it’s also okay to objectify women.

The ad involved dissonant visuals in that images of a sexy superstar have nothing to do with voice commands about ‘the number of tablespoons in a cup’ or ‘turning on the sprinklers.’ The pairing of an A-list celebrity with Alexa probably has helped keep Amazon’s smart speaker top-of-mind, but all the gratuitous sexual innuendo made the ad “Single-Minded Marketing.”

“Happy” - In its “Ultra” light beer ad, Michelob employed an entire lineup of past and present all-star athletes. For instance, there were still shots and/or video clips of Serena Williams, Mia Hamm, Anthony Davis, Usain Bolt, Billy Jean King, Arnold Palmer, Wilt Chamberlain, Jimmy Butler, Peyton Manning, and more.

I wonder whether Michelob got permission from all these athletes, or their estates, to associate their images with its brand, but assuming it did, there’s still another problem that directly involves dissonant visuals: People don’t ascend to those kinds of athletic heights by downing much beer. There’s little to suggest that alcohol enhances athletic performance; in fact, alcohol has exactly the opposite effect: It reduces aerobic efficiency, impairs motor skills, decreases strength, disrupts sleep, and slows recovery.

Michelob’s suggestion that happiness helps athletes win may have some truth to it, but there’s clearly much more to athletic achievement, namely physical and mental discipline both of which alcohol easily impairs. For that reason, it was irresponsible of Michelob to show images of athletes in uniform, on their courts, fields, etc., along with alcohol-friendly soundbites such as, “fueling the run toward greatness” and “something more vital.”

How ironic and tragic it was that Kansas City Chief’s outside linebacker coach Brit Reid, son of head coach Andy Reid, caused a multi-vehicle accident days before Super Bowl, apparently due to alcohol impairment. The accident caused him to miss the game and left a young girl fighting for her life. Alcohol and athletics definitely don’t mix, and it’s doubtful that such precarious positioning will give Michelob’s brand much boost, which makes the beermaker’s ad “Mindless Marketing.”

“Get Back to Nature” - After the three commercials just described, it’s easy to be suspicious of all Super Bowl spots, believing that most played with consumers’ minds and sacrificed social mores. Thankfully however, the preceding ads were exceptions. Most of the commercials employed redundant, not dissonant, visuals that appropriately reinforced their verbal messages.

One of the best examples of such visual-verbal consistency was Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s 60-second spot that featured clips of ordinary people planning for and enjoying beautiful places in the great outdoors while hiking, fishing, camping, and more.

Sprinkled into some scenes was gear that one could probably purchase from the outfitter, but none of the product placement was overdone; rather, all subtly and artfully supported the simple call to experience nature. Consequently, viewers were likely both to remember the firm’s ‘enjoy the outdoors’ value proposition and to believe its closing promise, “We’re there for you.”

Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s commercial wasn’t the only advertiser to hit a home run in terms of verbal-visual consistency that was both effective and ethical. A couple of other best-practices ads belonged to Huggies for “Welcome to the World, Baby” and to Indeed for “The Rising.”

A wink is the epitome of a dissonant visual—it slyly states, “Don’t believe what I’m saying.” Advertisers shouldn’t ‘wink’ with their ads, i.e., use dissonant visuals that contradict their spots’ verbal messages. Instead, commercials should enlist strategically-chosen redundant visuals that reinforce the right verbal messages. In Super Bowl ads and in other communication, that consistency makes for “Mindful Marketing.”

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Did Apple Make a Debundling Blunder?

12/21/2020

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

It’s a parent’s classic Christmas morning fail: After having the foresight to purchase the holiday’s hottest new toy, they forget to buy the batteries! By not including a charger with its newest ‘toy,’ has the world’s most valuable brand set up its customers for gift-giving/getting failure?

The introduction of almost any new Apple product, particularly an iPhone, is newsworthy. Even people who don’t buy Apple are interested in the features the firm unfurls in its latest phones. This time, though, it’s what Apple hasn’t included that’s made headlines.

The iPhone 12 packs many impressive features including an A14 bionic chip, an edge-to-edge OLED display, a ceramic shield, and night mode, but consumers won’t find in the box two items they’ve come to expect with any iPhone: EarPods and a charging adapter.

Given that many people are particular about what they put on/in their ears, and some wanting wireless, it’s not surprising that Apple decided to forgo ear accessories with its new phone models. What is surprising, though, is that the iPhone 12 comes sans charger—something everyone needs in order to use the product.

A main reason Apple has omitted the charger is that it believes people already have one, which probably is true for many of those interested in the latest iPhone. At the same time, if someone is willing to pay $800+ for the base model iPhone 12 or $1,000+ for one of the Pro versions, shouldn’t Apple oblige by including a comparatively inexpensive power supply?

Apple’s omission has challenged me to think of precedents for such a strategy, which seems akin to an automaker selling cars without spark plugs. As suggested at the onset, some companies market toys and other low-end electronics with the package disclaimer “batteries not included,” but that’s increasingly rare. Plus, batteries are inexpensive and easy to find . . . at least most are, which reminds me of a shopping experience I had a few months ago.

With both my gas-powered leaf blower and string trimmer on their last legs, I started searching for battery-powered replacements. In the process, I noticed several units labeled “tool only,” which were often priced $100+ less than what looked like the same models. I soon realized that some people only buy the implement because they already have one or more batteries and chargers from prior purchases of tools that use the same power system. For those individuals, the manufacturers’ “unbundling” of the battery and charger from the tool is a big benefit.

We’re used to seeing companies bundle products, i.e., market related items together and, in doing so, offer consumers an overall lower price, e.g., value meals at fast food restaurants, home and auto insurance policies. Unbundling is the opposite: A company realizes that consumers dislike paying for products they don’t want/use, so it deconstructs the bundle and sells products separately, usually at somewhat higher individual prices.

There’s a significant cost difference, however, between power supplies for yard tools and those for iPhones. A battery and charger accounts for about half the price of a yard tool package, while the phone charger represents just a fraction of an iPhone’s cost.

That discrepancy suggests that, unlike most unbundling strategies, Apple’s approach was not driven by consumer’s desire to save money. Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy, and social initiatives explained how the company had, instead, sustainability in mind:

"There are also over 2 billion Apple power adapters out there in the world, and that's not counting the billions of third-party adapters. We're removing these items from the iPhone [12] box, which reduces carbon emissions and avoids the mining and use of precious materials."

Apple’s website elaborates on the environmental ends the company aims to accomplish by omitting the iPhone 12 charger:

Carbon savings equal to 450,000 fewer cars on the road per year
Reduced mining and use of precious metals
A smaller phone package, allowing more boxes per shipment and fewer overall shipments
The elimination of 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions each year

Those intentions are certainly admirable. It’s questionable, though, if that projected positive environmental impact will actually occur, given that consumer behavior will likely adjust as a result of the iPhone 12 coming without a charger.

Of course, some iPhone 12 buyers won’t have a workable adapter and will have to buy one, either from Apple or a third party. However, even if customers already own a serviceable power supply, they still might decide to buy a new one for one or more of the following reasons:

If they sell or gift their old iPhone, the recipient will probably want the charger.
It can be convenient to have more than one charger (e.g., one for home, one for work).
Consumers don’t usually want to use old accessories with new products. For instance, few people want to put used tires on a new car or old laces in new shoes.
The old chargers are not completely compatible with the newest iPhones. Although one can connect an iPhone 12 to an old power adapter using an old lightning to USB-A cable (the USBs with the large, wide connectors), the new iPhone won’t charge as fast as it will by plugging the included lightning to USB-C cable (small, compact connector) into a new adapter, purchased separately.

In sum, many people will still want or need to buy an adapter, which “will now need to be packed and shipped separately from the phones, thereby increasing the environmental consequences.”

The change in buyer behavior is coupled with the fact that chargers from smartphones, tablets, etc., account for a very small percentage of all e-waste. Ruediger Kuehr, head of the Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme hosted by the United Nations University, estimates that Apple’s move could save at most 25,000 metric tons, or .05 percent of annual e-waste.

Granted, any e-waste avoided is a good thing, but the packaging and transportation costs from secondary market charger sales could erase some or most of the environmental gains of keeping the charger out of the original package.

Apple is an environmentally-conscious company with a continually-improving track record for sustainability, which includes reducing toxic components in its hardware, nearing 100% use of recycled materials in its phone manufacturing, and aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030.

Still, omitting an iPhone 12 charger doesn’t promise to be the “boon to the environment” that the company has suggested.

Apple’s unbundling was likely well-intended, but the reality of little environmental impact and negative consumer reaction, makes the strategy a case of “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

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Capri Sun Practices Child’s Play

9/5/2020

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

Have you ever been food pranked? Someone gives you something to eat and “Yech!” it turns out to be much different than you expected—toothpaste inside an Oreo is a classic gag. Kids love to prank each other, but should the maker of one of the world’s most popular kids’ drinks fool its biggest fans?

Capri Sun, internationally-renowned producer of juice pouches, has decided to prank not just a few kids but a big portion of its target market by filling select silver packages with water. The company filmed reactions of several pint-sized punk’d consumers, who were given unmarked pouches and asked to test “a new flavor” of juice. It then edited the outtakes into a few video promotions.

Compared to most food pranks, which often elicit expressions of disgust, the responses to Capri Sun’s ruse were rather subdued. Perplexed young taste testers made comments like, “It’s very plain,” “tastes a little bit bland,” and “it doesn’t have any flavor.”

What made Carpi Sun’s prank poignant is that the company’s juice pouches are familiar to so many. Since its introduction in Germany in 1969, the company has expanded distribution of its drinks to 119 countries. According to its website, “ In 2014, our fans all over the world drank 6 billion pouches of Capri-Sun!”

One significant serving of drink sales have come from the greater Chicago area, where Kraft Heinz acts as distributor and a newly-formed advertising firm, Mischief at No Fixed Address, produced the prank. The campaign’s full scope includes distribution of five million filtered water pouches labeled, “We’re sorry it’s not juice,” to Chicagoland schools for free. Also appearing prominently at the top of each package is “Capri Sun” in 70-point all capital letters.

Given the immense physical, mental, and financial stress the pandemic has placed on kids and their parents, it’s kind of Capri Sun to help schools, where fountains are shut down and children need other ways of getting water. But, will the company’s corporate social responsibility really remedy that problem, and what’s likely to be the long-term impact on the brand?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city of Chicago, not including the greater metropolitan area, has a population of 2.69 million, of which 21.2% are under the age of 18 and 6.5% are younger than five. Those stats suggest that there are nearly 400k school-age children in Chicago (570,280 - 174,850 = 395,430).

Providing all of those children with a drink a day for a week would mean 1,977,150 water pouches. A full month of water would entail a total of 7,908,600 (2.9 million more than Capri Sun’s pledge). Keeping kids hydrated from September through December would require about 31,634,400 pouches.

Of course, no one company should be expected to satisfy so much demand for free. Meeting massive public needs tends to take a team effort—collaboration among the public sector, for-profit companies, and other organizations.

Still, although it may seem cynical or even ungrateful, it’s reasonable to wonder whether the social impact of Capri Sun’s philanthropy is proportional to the promotional benefits the firm may receive: Do a few drinks of water warrant the brand splash in front of hundreds of thousands of captive young consumers?

When a company gives away something significant, it’s fair for its brand to benefit. However, the amount of that benefit should be on par with the amount of social good done. The rationale is analogous to a firm needing to ante up millions of dollars, not thousands, for naming rights to a building or stadium.

It’s hard to know Capri Sun’s costs in producing and distributing five million pouches of filtered water, but an estimate of .10 per packet would put the total cost at $500,000. That’s a significant spend, but not that much for a firm with annual revenues of about a half billion dollars. A few other issues further complicate the equation.

First, Capri Sun’s promotional benefits might be multiplied in that it seeks to put pouches with its name into the hands of the most impressionable of consumers—children. Kids are understandably less discerning of promotional messages than are adults, which is why the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) prioritizes protecting children.

Second, it seems that there should be some subtraction from the social good Capri Sun portends because of the message emblazoned on the foil pouches: “We’re sorry it’s not juice. [It’s just] Filtered Water.”

Is Capri Sun dissing in front of kids one of the most important substances for human existence? Of course, the company is trying to be funny. There is, however, the unhumorous reality that many children consume far too much sugar, much of it coming from sugary drinks. (1) To its credit, Capri Sun Fruit Punch contains a relatively low 13 grams of sugar. That’s not much compared to some drinks, but it is high compared to water.

Then, there’s an even more intriguing twist . . .

On August 5, the Chicago Sun Times announced major Lori Lightfoot’s decision to close Chicago Public Schools due to worsening coronavirus conditions—the city’s children will be learning online. That news would seem to punch a hole in Capri Sun’s water pouch plans; however, over two weeks later, on August 21, an AdAge editor’s pick article described the campaign with no mention of the district’s pivot away from in-person education.

Maybe AdAge missed the mayor’s announcement, or perhaps Capri Sun has found another way to distribute the water without access to kids in classrooms. Assuming the later, there’s still one more potentially serious flaw in Capri Sun’s ‘Got Juice?’ strategy:

By associating its iconic packaging with a less desirable drinking experience, the company risks leaving a bad taste in the mouth of young, impressionable consumers.

Can you imagine sipping a Starbuck’s coffee and discovering it was only warm water, or biting into a Hershey’s Bar and finding it was sans-sugar? It’s doubtful either company would intentionally give even one consumer such an indelibly unpleasant experience, let alone broadcast the negative reaction for millions of others to see and learn from vicariously.

As suggested at the onset, a large part of Capri Sun’s food prank success was the fact that so many people, including children, recognize the straw-impaled drink packs and associate them with sweet refreshment and other pleasant sensations. Those positive associations can be easily washed away, though, by even one unfavorable brand encounter that one experiences him/herself or sees others endure.

Of course, a natural retort is, “It was just a joke!” That’s true, and the prank itself was kind of funny. However, there are some things that food and drink companies just don’t joke about, a main one being the taste of their products. Any such negative association is too risky.

It’s a little like when Watergate-embroiled president Richard Nixon infamously declared, “I am not a crook.” Regrettably for him, many people forgot the words “I am not” and remembered Nixon and “crook.” Any negative frame is inherently precarious, particularly when it involves food.

Advertising humor can be very effective, and who loves to laugh more than kids? However, although Capri Sun’s water switcheroo may have been well-intended, the campaign threatens to spill much of the brand equity the drink maker has built over fifty-plus years, making “I’m sorry it’s not juice “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

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Does Using “Shuffle” Mean You’re Already ‘Stuffed Full’?

8/23/2020

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

“What do you want to watch?”
“I don’t know; what do you want to watch?”

That conversation must be happening in more homes than just mine, which probably inspired Netflix to introduce its new “Shuffle” feature, aimed at defeating this common viewing dilemma. But, should people who have to ask their TVs to “play something” even be watching television?

This past July, the entertainment-streaming icon started testing a new “Shuffle Play” button, placing a familiar-looking shuffle icon on select users’ accounts. Those who have the feature might find it below their user profile icon or on the left side of the home screen. When Shuffle is selected, Netflix serves a chef’s choice of shows “based on viewing history, preferences, and playlists.”

Problem solved: No more aimless scrolling and probably fewer arguments began by “Anything but that.” It’s nice to have choices. It’s also nice when someone/thing helps identify them.

But, will Netflix’s Shuffle keep people too tied to their iPads and cemented to their sofas? Does imploring one’s device to “play something . . . anything” signal digital drunkenness and suggest that the streaming service should stop serving?

In the midst of the pandemic, Netflix has been a hero for the homebound, keeping many a step away from wit’s end with easy access to inexpensive entertainment and even educational content. In the second quarter of 2020, the streaming service added an impressive 10 million new subscribers, bringing its worldwide total to about 193 million.

With so many customers already contently streaming, why does Netflix even need to add a new feature? Well, like any successful organization, it wants to keep its value proposition fresh and exciting. As a Netflix spokesperson says, “We’re always looking for better ways to connect members with shows and films that they will love.”

The company also needs to keep pace with competitors’ offerings, like HBO Max’s recommendation engine and NBCUniversal’s random play on Peacock. Likewise, Comcast’s Xfinity has integrated creative voice commands, such as “Surprise Me” and “Happy Stuff” in order to serve up spontaneous and hopefully stimulating shows.

In varied marketing roles, I’ve come across a couple of closely related psychological concepts that help describe the consumer itch Netflix and its competitors seem to be trying to scratch:

Satiation effect: people eventually grow tired of things they initially liked.
Variety-seeking behavior: enjoyment often increases with different experiences.

So, Shuffle might pull Netflix users out of their streaming ruts by providing them with an endless array of custom-curated and personally-satisfying program choices.

However, whether it’s taking excessive vitamin C or bingeing The Office, too much of even a good thing is too much. At some point, people need to turn off their TVs, put down their iPads, and move on to other things. The question, then, becomes: Does a shuffle feature make streaming too tempting and difficult to deny?

Pulling oneself away from an interesting program can be hard, which I experienced firsthand earlier today. In order to do some “research” for this piece, I turned on our TV to check out Xfinity’s voice commands. The channel happened to be on a high-diving competition, held on a beautiful stone bridge, over a river somewhere in Europe. I sat memorized for at least 10 minutes before returning to my senses and remembering why I was sitting there.

The bottom-line, though, is that I was able to break free from the screen without any extraordinary effort. Most people can muster at least the same amount of resolve, even when specially-selected programs are shuffled at them.

Speaking of resolve, I recently wrote an article that asked whether TikTok is addictive. The conclusion (spoiler alert) was “No.” When compared to commonly accepted addictions like alcohol and gambling, the app is not addictive in any scientific sense.

TikTok’s screen-swiping and Netflix’s Shuffle are similar in that both deliver virtually infinite, individualized video content. However, 15-second smartphone clips from ordinary people are much different than 2.5-hour professional-produced films. Is one spontaneous selection harder to resist than the other?

There should be a study, but it seems that TikTok's bite-sized content could be harder to forgo—like eating potato chips versus stuffed baked potatoes. Both are good, but eating an additional stuffed baked potato is a big commitment, whereas popping one more potato chip, then another, is easy to start and sustain. So, if longer programs have even less allure for consuming ‘one more,’ it seems that neither Netflix nor TikTok is truly addictive.

Having cleared the ethical hurdle, there’s still one more important consideration—effectiveness: Will people really want to use Netflix’s Shuffle? So far, reviews of the feature appear tepid; for instance, some have tweeted:

“Interesting new feature @netflix ... but what kind of insane person just says, “yolo, let’s spin the Netflix wheel of fortune”? (@TurnerLevison)
“they been testing this for months on mine and it’s trash, they put two things on your recently watched and if u shuffle again it’s just Netflix Originals.” (@BlondDaya)

Unfortunately, Netflix didn’t include me in its test market, so I haven’t been able to try the feature, but I have a hard time seeing many people using it. First, Netflix already curates at least somewhat customized selections that users can see at a glance on their home screens. Second, it may be frustrating or even mildly offensive to receive specific recommendations that make one wonder, “Why are they suggesting that for me?!”

To that point, after I stopped watching high-diving, I asked Xfinity to “Surprise Me.” It suggested Hallmark Channel’s “Tulips in Spring.” I had no problem declining that recommendation, which must have been meant for someone else in this house.

Given TikTok’s ‘swiping’ success, it wasn’t a bad idea for Netflix to test a ‘surprise me’ feature for its streaming service. It seems unlikely, though, that the same consumption behavior will transfer to considerably longer program content, which makes Shuffle Play a fitting selection for “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

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The Impossible 'to Stomach' Whopper

2/22/2020

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

Green bumps, black specks, white fuzz. You saw the telltale signs when a piece of once fresh fruit or an edible vegetable fell to the back of a refrigerator drawer where it laid low for a few months. It took a deep breath and all the courage you could muster to pick up the nauseating produce and pitch it into the trash. So, why would one of the world’s leading fast food restaurants want consumers to see its most iconic menu item in a similarly sickening state?

Few food companies have the mettle to play with such fire, but one known for flame-broiling and often flagrant marketing does: Burger King. The fast food icon recently launched a “global, integrated advertising campaign showing its iconic Whopper® sandwich covered in mold.”

A video from the company begins with the staging of a very attractive Whopper. Then, against a music bed of “What a difference a day makes,” filming turns to a rapid time lapse and the burger ages abhorrently before our eyes.

First, the lettuce starts to wither. Then the bun sags and mayonnaise melts. Before we can look away, white fuzz flows over the beef patty and a green/blue ‘foam’ appears, making a cross-section closeup look like a storm at sea. Thankfully, the camera pans out, but only to show a bun enveloped in mold with some black substance oozing from the burger’s epicenter.

The visual agony eventually ends as a text overlay briefly appears: “The Whopper DAY 34.” The grotesque burger vanishes into an all-black screen that frames the tagline “THE BEAUTY OF NO ARTIFICIAL PRESERVATIVES,” followed by an all-white Burger King logo.

Most organizations agonize over advertisements, trying to ensure that their products are presented in the most positive light. Those in food industries seem especially attuned to their ads’ optical appeal, and for good reason: Studies have found that visual stimuli such as color, evenness, and shape “exert cognitive top-down influences that can and sometimes do alter assessments of taste and flavor.” In other words, there is truth to the old adage: ‘We eat with our eyes.’

So, why would Burger King flame-broil conventional wisdom by plating a burger that could make the Geico racoons retch?

The main reason stems from the spot’s tagline, “The beauty of no artificial preservatives.” The company wants consumers to realize that it has made a clean-break from past practice and it no longer uses nonorganic life-extenders, at least not in “most European countries and select markets in the United States.” Furthermore, according to Christopher Finazzo, Burger King’s Americas President:

“The Burger King® brand is currently rolling out the Whopper® sandwich with no preservatives, colors, or flavors from artificial sources in the U.S. The product is already available in more than 400 restaurants in the country and will reach all restaurants throughout the year.”

Unfortunately, in terms of touting “real food,” Burger is painfully late to the game. Chipotle, Panera, and a crowd of fast-casual restaurants have been making that claim for a few decades. Even many processed food manufacturers, like General Mills, have kept better pace with consumer desires for healthier food. The company has already removed artificial ingredients from most of its cereals.

So, maybe Burger King needed to do something shocking to grab the attention of a populace likely to overlook or be unimpressed by what is an increasingly common change. The promotion certainly has gained the company free media exposure and gotten marketers like me talking about it.

A similar tact also must have worked, at least somewhat, when the firm unearthed its Halloween-inspired “Nightmare King” in the fall of 2018. Although it never seemed that the green-bun burger was a big seller, it did grab headlines and likely helped keep the restaurant top-of-mind among those who frequent fast food.

It’s also possible that the Moldy Whopper promo resonates with Gen Zs and Millennials, who are used to unconventional advertising and who demand transparency from the brands they buy. These age cohorts might uniquely appreciate the combination of candor and irreverence.

Still, the avant-garde ad campaign takes an extraordinary and nearly unprecedented risk by essentially forgoing the Maslow-level-one appeal of appetizing food. Maybe having “no artificial preservatives” hits a higher tier of the hierarchy, such as safety or self-esteem, but according to the theory, people’s desires will never ascend to those upper levels if their hunger is unsatisfied.

Burger King apparently is banking on viewers remembering the pristine burger that appears at the beginning of the ad for a few seconds, rather than the progressively repulsive Whopper that fills the other forty-five seconds. “Negativity bias,” however, upends that hope: Our brains are “simply built with a greater sensitivity to unpleasant news.” Said another way, there are some things we simply can’t ‘unsee’ and a mold-covered Whopper is probably one of them.

Although few organizations are so daring as to cast their products in a negative light, many do fall into the same general AIDA-defying trap: In an all-out effort to grab attention and retain interest, they sacrifice desire and action. As evidence, recall all the commercials you can from the last Super Bowl, then try to remember the companies responsible for each of them.

Like many other restaurants, Burger King is in an existential battle with all kinds of new competitors, especially those in the fast-casual space. It’s great that the fast food icon has taken steps to make some of its menu items more user-friendly, but those health benefits will never accrue to people who are put off by what they see in the company’s stomach-turning promotion. The new burger may be better for you, but etching the image of a moldy Whopper onto people's minds must be “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

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Burberry after its Burning Ban

12/28/2019

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

Did you give or receive clothing this holiday season? You may not know that if that sweater, jacket, or hat hadn’t been purchased, it might have been burned. In an age of increased environmental consciousness and frequent corporate cutbacks how can companies tolerate such waste? It has to do with building brands.

In 2017, the upscale British fashion label Burberry destroyed over $38 million worth of its own clothing, perfume, and accessories. BBC News says that over a five-year period, the brand scrapped products worth a total of about $121 million. Fortunately, Burberry announced last year that it would stop the ‘self-destructive’ behavior; although, it hasn’t said how it will handle the excess product. Unfortunately, Burberry isn’t the only brand known for trashing its own inventory.

According to Vox, other participants in the practice include luxury labels like Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors, and Cartier. However, even basic brands such as Eddie Bauer, Nike, and H & M, have been cited for incinerating unsold merchandise.

Why would any company destroy products it spent valuable time and resources making? Motives may vary for such a seemingly inexplicable practice, , but the main reason seems to be that high-end fashion brands, especially, need to preserve perceptions of exclusivity.

Some manufacturers, e.g., makers of snack foods and soft drinks, would like as much of their products sold as widely as possible. Certain other brands, however, seek to create an air of exclusivity in one of three main ways, either by not making the products available: 1) all the time, or 2) everywhere, or 3) for everyone.

For instance, although McDonald’s Shamrock Shake is available all over at a price that most people can afford, the ice cream is only sold for a limited number of weeks each year. Notwithstanding ever-increasing ticket prices, Disney positions its theme parks as entertainment for a very wide range of people, year-round, but it maintains ‘the magic’ by limiting the number of locations to just a few around the entire world.

Upscale fashion brands like Burberry, in contrast, place no real time restrictions on purchase of their products. Likewise, although they’re not as ubiquitous as MacDonald’s restaurants, these fashion retailers tend to have a decent number of brick-and-mortar locations. Burberry has about 50 stores in the continental U.S. in addition to its easily-available online storefront.

The main difference is that Burberry and similar luxury fashion brands aim for exclusivity by positioning their lines as prestige products sold at premium prices. For instance, a search for “all bags” on Burberry’s website returns a low price of $490 for a “Grainy Leather Card Case with Detachable Strap” to a high price of $2,750 for a “Medium Quilted Monogram Lambskin TB Bag.”

Of course, price alone excludes most people, who can’t afford to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a handbag, from buying Burberry; however, other positioning of the products also adds to their exclusive appeal: They’re not the purses we see shoppers carrying into the average supermarket.

‘Mousingover’ specific products on its website, reveals images of the kinds of people Burberry envisions owning its bags: ultra- stylish, impeccably-attired, young, affluent, runway-model types. That description probably doesn’t apply to most people reading this blog, nor does it apply to the person writing it, but Burberry doesn’t mind.

While MacDonald’s considers it a win if hundreds of millions of people eat its hamburgers, and Disney is delighted to have an even wider variety of people visit its theme parks, Burberry and other luxury labels don’t covet consumption of their products by the masses. Their brands’ allure is based largely on limiting availability to the relatively few people who can afford their products and who live the more lavish lifestyles associated with their use.

If somehow ‘average people’ began buying Burberry’s bags, the brand’s true target market would be turned off. Though its loyal customers may not articulate it, one reason they like Burberry is because very few people own the brand. Burberry banks on feelings of exclusivity, allowing its users to assert, "I own something that not everyone else has."

That brings us back to the issue of over-supply and what companies like Burberry should do when they’ve made too many handbags, hats, etc. In the past, Burberry has justified burning excess inventory, saying that it captured the energy from the burning, making the annihilation environmentally-friendly.

Unfortunately, though, “the energy that is recouped from burning clothing doesn’t come anywhere near the energy that was used to create the garment.” In addition, burning garments that contain polyester, which comprises about 60 percent of the fiber market, means the release into the air of harmful CO2, as well as chemicals often present in clothes.

Other ways firms have attempted to destroy unwanted products have included shredding and landfilling. Of course, these methods carry their own negative environmental impacts and fail to qualify as sustainable solutions.

Some may wonder why excess clothing can’t be recycled or donated. Mixed fiber cloth, from which many woven clothes are now made, makes recycling especially challenging, as do buttons and zippers, whose removal is very labor-intensive.

Others may ask “Why can’t surplus clothing simply be donated or sold at a discount?” For many companies, such product disposition ‘makes cents’ (pun intended), but not for high-end fashion labels. These brands can afford to take a hit on their enormous markups, but as mentioned above, they can’t accept dilution of their brands’ images, which occurs if their products fall into the hands of the less-than-modish masses.

So, what can fix this problem that pits environmental stewardship against brand equity? Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a clear solution. In a 2018 interview with Vox, Timo Rissanen, an associate dean at Parsons School of Design and a professor of fashion design and sustainability at the school’s Tishman Environment and Design Center, provided a thorough analysis of firms’ destruction of excess product, but in the end, the best solutions he offered were for consumers to avoid impulse-buying and to instead purchase secondhand products.

Those are valid recommendations for you and me, but unfortunately they don’t really address prevention of the problem, i.e., what companies can and should do. I’m no fashion expert, and the following thoughts are admittedly undeveloped, but I’ll offer two possible ways to decrease the production of excess goods:

Implement quick response processes: Fashion lead-times are often three months or more, making it challenging to match supply and demand. Spanish retailer Zara, however, has developed ultra-responsive production processes that allow it to move from product conception to consumer within a few weeks. If more brands would ‘follow suit’ (pun again intended), it might help to close the gap between what’s made and what consumers want to buy.
Use artificial intelligence: Firms have employed data-based demand forecasting for decades, but even more accurate prediction is now possible through artificial intelligence in which machines learn from past experience and use algorithms to very accurately estimate future consumption. Such technology holds great promise for synchronizing supply and demand.

Burberry’s decision of over a year ago to stop burning its unsold clothes was certainly laudable and might be considered Mindful Marketing if the company were to implement some of the strategies mentioned above or take other consequential action. However, in the absence of a clearly conceived and communicated plan for managing excess inventory, Burberry’s announcement now seems like “Simple-Minded Marketing.”

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