This past April, the Journal of Marketing Communications published a study that suggests that men with facial hair were perceived as more credible than men who were clean shaven when endorsing products.
Apparently, bearded men were seen to have "more expertise" and to be "more trustworthy" than the un-bearded men. Important clarification: the study looked only at "neat" beards of medium length. Read more.
This summer, Maryland-based organic tea company Honest Tea's unmanned "Honest Stores" popped up in several major metropolitan areas, including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, DC, and my own hometown, Atlanta.
The "Honest Store" promotion is pretty simple: Honest Tea (owned in largest part by Coca-Cola) set up unmanned kiosks in central city locations, offering their wares at an indicated price of a dollar a bottle. Of course, kiosks unmanned, payment was on the honor system. The catch, as you might expect, was that each kiosk was equipped with hidden cameras to decide which big-city folk are honest enough to cough up for their bottle.
Via NBC Chicago
How "honest" were people? The tallies vary from 75% (Los Angeles) to 93.3% (Boston), with New York and Atlanta falling between at 89%, and DC a nearby second-place at 93%.
We, at DLB, have got a few questions about this promotional scheme. First of all, it seems clear enough that what's being tested here isn't necessarily how honest people are, but — just as likely — people's wherewithal. Nobody in their right mind should be able to see an unmanned corporate kiosk in the age of social media without asking herself what the catch is. I'm inclined to think that the results of this experiment are just as germane to the claim that the citizens of Boston deliberate correctly at 93.3% as they are to the claim that the citizens of Boston act honestly at a rate of 93.3%.
But, esoteric and pragmatic worries to one side, I think the real question is this one: how honest is the honest store? Doesn't it strike a dubious note to test honesty with hidden cameras? Does tricking people into being dishonest for the sake of a promotion undermine the moral authority of the experimenters?
Promotional Video for The Honest Store in Los Angeles
For the record, finally, all proceeds of the Honest Tea Honest Store social experiment are being donated to City Year, a non-profit organization that "unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service" in metropolitan areas. So, on the face of it, that seems good. But, of course, and with Milton Glaser (cf. §2) now, "C'mon!"
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French Elle gives us occasion to imagine that the voracious consumer appetite for newness could overturn unethical design and marketing practices, not because they are unethical, but just because they are yesterday's news.
Another hot tip from Megan this week alerted us to this post about French Elle's First "Curvy" Issue. I quote:
Plus-size model Tara Lynn nabbed the cover and more than 20 editorial pages in the April issue of Elle France. Is this proof that fashion might set its parameters for acceptable female beauty a little wider, or just a fad?
This is an interesting moment, to me, because, no doubt, the introduction of a different body type into the world of fashion is not motivated purely by the editors' interest in the problems caused by unrealistic body image in fashion marketing. Rather, it seems to me more likely that people are just getting sick of looking of a certain body type. And not sick of it like they're sick of the evening news' fear-mongering (i.e. where it causes them a kind of moral revulsion). Sick of it like they get sick of a certain color scheme (i.e. it's not that there is anything wrong with some color scheme per se, people just get overexposed to it).
It's interesting to imagine that the voracious consumer appetite for newness could overturn unethical design and marketing practices, not because they are unethical, but just because they are yesterday's news.
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We were alerted this week (thanks Megan) to an interesting case of marketing/media ethics.
On the night of October 21st last year, Real Madrid played AC Milan in an important Champions League match. Heineken (under guidance of advertising agency JWT Milan, Italy) gave university professors, girlfriends, and various media outlets (hereafter, the foils) tickets to a classical music and poetry a concert that night. The foils, quite naturally, asked or required their students, boyfriends and employees (hereafter, the pawns) to go to the concert. Naturally, many of the pawns were nonplussed. Their (quite strong) preference was to watch Real Madrid/AC Milan, not to attend what they saw as a boring concert. Here's what happened.
Now ask yourself, what is the message to the pawns (the target market) here? I think it has to be this: "Heineken knows you better, and looks out for your interests better, than your professors, girlfriends, wives, and bosses. When your work, education, and family stand in the way of your happiness, count on the Heineken brand to save you."
That, by my lights, is a little perturbing.
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The Store at 826 Valencia is San Francisco's only independent pirate supply store. All proceeds from the store go toward the 826 Valencia Writing Center.
Curbside salvage, trash-picking, junking, dumpster-diving. Whatever you call it, the process of reusing discarded objects (aka Mongo) has become such a norm in NYC, modern furniture design company BluDot is basing a marketing experiment around the act of salvage.
Blu Dot placed twenty-five of their “Real Good Chairs” in random locations throughout New York city, free for the taking, hoping to gain insight into New York’s curb-picking culture by tracking the chairs with GPS, documenting the chair’s journeys on Twitter and Flickr. I like everything about this: the chairs, the project itself, the use of social media, and the project as a marketing effort. Blu Dot plans to follow the chairs to their new homes and release a documentary about the project in December as they celebrate their SoHo showroom’s fifth anniversary.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned.
That's the start of this blog post from Derek Powazek which is currently causing all manner of controversy in SEO circles. He says some things I believe many web professionals have been thinking and I can't help but agree with his conclusion: If you want people to find you make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again..
Danny Sullivan, an SEO professional, has crafted this defense of SEO, which I also like. He shares some of Powazek's concerns, but is careful to draw the important distinction between bad or spammy SEO and good/legitimate SEO.
Both posts may be worth a read if you are new to SEO or just want to brush up on best (and worst) practices before your next job or client meeting.
I've been doing a bit of research on public health-awareness advertising campaigns, and thought I'd share some highs and lows. First, the good: I came across this gallery of compelling, clever anti-smoking ads and installations:
