Mindful Marketing
  • Home
  • About
    • Mission
    • Mindful Meter & Matrix
    • Leadership
  • Mindful Matters Blog
  • Engage Your Mind
    • Mindful Ads? Vote Your Mind!
  • Expand Your Mind
  • Contact

Marketing Violence

6/9/2017

2 Comments

 
Picture

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

Do you have keepsakes that remind you of special life experiences, e.g., the playbill from a Broadway musical, the lunchbox you used in elementary school?  How about the shirt you wore when you had a big argument with a coworker?  Of course, most people want to forget unpleasant incidents like that, but apparently not Major League Baseball (MLB).
 
Even if you don’t follow professional baseball, you may have heard of the brawl that broke out between the Washington Nationals and the San Francisco Giants this past Memorial Day.  The clash occurred in the eighth inning when Giants relief pitcher Hunter Strickland pegged Bryce Harper in the hip with a fastball, which many believe was planned payback for Harper homering twice off Strickland in the 2014 playoffs.

Harper charged the mound, where the pair exchanged a few blows as the benches cleared and players from both teams enveloped the combatants.  The altercation earned Harper and Strickland suspensions of four and six games, respectively, as well as fines of undisclosed amounts.  So, MLB took a strong stance against fighting—well, not exactly. 
 
A few days after the incident, the jersey that Strickland wore during the ruckus appeared for sale on the league’s dedicated auction website: http://auctions.mlb.com.  The site, which is “The Official Online Auction of Major League Baseball,” offers to the highest bidder all matter of baseball memorabilia, ranging from Albert Pujols’s 585th career home run ball, to seats from Wrigley Field.  MLB has a painstaking process for ensuring the authenticity of such collectibles, which includes employing an authenticator at every game who affixes a tamper-resistant, serial-number-linked holographic sticker to each item that may have special future value.
 
Somehow jersey #60 made its way off Strickland, through the authentication process, and onto the auction block.  There the shirt quickly began collecting bids, which rose to $1,500, making it “by far the most coveted game-used Giants jersey” from the Memorial Day game.  Those competing for the collectible were well aware of what they were after; in fact, “the item listing noted that ‘Strickland was ejected from the game after fighting with Bryce Harper.’”

Meanwhile a representative of MLB Auctions told the Washington Post that proceeds from the jersey’s sale would go to the Giants.  The league also listed for sale Strickland’s Memorial Day cap and the shirt that Giants outfielder Michael Morse wore in the same game.  Morse ended up on the seven-day concussion disabled list after the game because he hit heads with one of his own teammates, pitcher Jeff Samardzija, during the scuffle.

Successful businesses and businesspeople need to be opportunistic, right?  They see chances to make money and they take advantage of them.  So, was MLB just following best practices in realizing revenue from the Memorial Day merchandise?  No.

The league’s sale of the memorabilia implied acceptance of the fighting.  Principled organizations and individuals only market products that they feel are good and right.  A firm that sells smartphones believes that the technology benefits its users.  Even owners of preschool lemonade stands believe that their customers benefit from their beverages.  In contrast, we question the integrity of individuals who sell products that they would never use themselves, although they could.

Some may argue that Strickland’s Memorial Day jersey is just a shirt, and that there’s nothing inherently violent about a piece of clothing.  That’s true, but it’s also obvious that the jersey would never have been worth $1,500 aside from its unseemly association.  As the seller, MLB intended to capture significant extra value because of the violence.   
 
Our world is rightly enraged by violence that terrorists, abusive spouses, and school bullies act out on innocents.  In comparison, major league players pummeling each other on a pitching mound seems less severe because they are highly paid elite athletes and baseball is entertainment, but the brutality is still very real.

As angry as individuals may be, belting someone with a baseball and throttling them with fists aren’t ways rational people resolve differences, and they certainly are not behaviors we want young people to emulate.  Yet, selling shirts and other merchandise connected to such incidents legitimizes those actions and even glamorizes the violence.
 
Granted, there’s gratuitous violence in other sports that occurs even more frequently, e.g., the fighting that’s tolerated and even glorified in ice hockey, which is also problematic.  That discussion, however, will need to wait for another blog post.
 
Fortunately, MLB realized the error of its way and closed the auction a couple of hours before it was scheduled to end.  Still, the message had already been sent, and the perceptual damage had been done.  Unfortunately, people will pay to partake in violence in various ways, but the organizations that stoop to satisfy such demand are guilty of “Single-Minded Marketing.”


Picture
Picture
Subscribe to Mindful Matters blog.
Learn more about the Mindful Matrix and Mindful Meter.
Check out Mindful Marketing Ads
 and Vote your Mind!
2 Comments
threesome finder link
7/12/2018 10:20:41 pm

ThreesomeDateWebsites.com provides top 5 threesome sites reviews in 2018. Both singles and couples looking for threesome can find a threesome partner by using threesome dating sites on its list. All the sites selected and reviewed here can help threesome finder spice up their life with local adult dating, hookup, swingers.

Reply
Black Tennessee link
3/28/2021 11:55:26 am

Nice bllog you have

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Subscribe to receive this blog by email

    Editor

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

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

    Categories

    All
    + Decency
    + Fairness
    Honesty7883a9b09e
    * Mindful
    Mindless33703c5669
    > Place
    Price5d70aa2269
    > Product
    Promotion37eb4ea826
    Respect170bbeec51
    Simple Minded
    Single Minded2c3169a786
    + Stewardship

    RSS Feed

    Share this blog:

    Subscribe to
    Mindful Matters
    blog by email


    Illuminating
    ​Marketing Ethics ​

    Encouraging
    ​Ethical Marketing  ​


    Copyright 2020
    David Hagenbuch

Proudly powered by Weebly