While Critical, Data Alone Cannot Drive Effective Consumer Content

It’s not news to say that the use of data and technology to define and drive marketing strategy is now standard operating procedure among advertising agencies, digital firms and marketers themselves.

And in today’s marketing environment, where people’s attention is splintered and segmented across a vast array of media, devices and experiences, the customer insights derived from data and analytics allow marketers to reach customers with astonishing precision and to deliver just the right mix of paid, owned and shared content across an optimal set of digital, traditional and social channels.

A post earlier this week on Ad Age went as far as to say that 2017 will be a turning point for agencies — and that those agencies that aren’t singularly focused on technology may find themselves up for review.

I can’t argue that point, but I cringed a bit when the author spoke of a singular focus on technology.

From my perspective, the problem with solely relying on data is that the human dimensions of audiences become a secondary consideration. While data will tell us precisely when and where to target audiences for maximum reach and engagement, it alone will not guide the content and creative of what we are communicating or, more importantly, how that content will be received.

I read an interview several months ago with Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman. In it, he talked about the value small data. He defined small data as knowing the consumer on a nuanced and granular level, understanding what motivates and excites them, what makes them tick, what they aspire to, and what makes them concerned or fearful.  These kind of characteristics (and many others) provide a clear picture of who you are trying to influence, the things that matter to them, and how they make decisions. It will steer you to the right messaging to effectively move them to action.  Edelman’s point was that this kind of insight must be of equal importance in establishing marketing and communications strategy as the kind of knowledge derived from big data.

I couldn’t agree more, especially as we move into 2017, a year that is shaping up like no other in the wake of the U.S. election, Brexit and a rise in nationalism in many countries and regions. Understanding consumers’ mindset has never been more important. To varying degrees, people are shell-shocked. Futurist Faith Popcorn sees a desire in people for “safety, privacy and compassion” as they come to grips with a sense of unease and foreboding. She went on to say that consumers will look for those qualities in the brands they favor.

I would add that, as marketers and communicators, we must reckon with the reality that many of our customers sense that their lives are about to become upended in some way; that the life they took for granted a year ago is somehow going to change. This is a fraught environment in which to be marketing.

2017: Are Middle Americans the New Prized Consumers?

 

In his recent post on what to look for in marketing and advertising in 2017, Stuart Elliott noted that the 2016 election is already causing marketers to rethink their approaches to engaging with consumers – in everything from messaging to casting to art direction. You can see his whole post here.

A few excerpts from his piece:

• “The shocking outcome of the presidential election has prompted the pooh-bahs of the marketing world to re-examine their perspectives, starting with a theory that ads may need to speak more directly to the mass audience, i.e., the working-class and rural voters whose support for Donald Trump was underestimated.”

•  “One way would be a return to the days when prosaic mass-market, Middle American brands predominated — in other words, more ads for mainstay pantry staples and fewer ads for fancy-schmancy products aimed at upscale consumers.”

• “Another way agencies and advertisers may redirect their pitches next year is in styling and casting. There could be fewer commercials or ads with a look and feel appealing to urban consumers on the coasts and more with an all-American, back-to-basics attitude intended to be embraced in the so-called heartland. And if so, what would that mean for a hugely popular recent trend, making ads more multicultural and reflective of the changing demographics of the country?”

I think this is worth watching closely. If there is a lesson to be learned from the 2016 election, it is plainly obvious that that mass audience feels neglected, overlooked and abandoned—by Capitol Hill, Hollywood Boulevard and Madison Avenue. They’ve seen jobs migrate to urban centers and away from rural areas; their standard of living has declined; they are wary of a future in which – judging by what they see reflected in movies, television, fashion spreads and advertising – they seem absent. As Graydon Carter wrote in a recent Vanity Fair post, “(they) feel like diners who have come late to a buffet where all the shrimp and lobster have been taken.”

I’m not suggesting that a knee-jerk reaction is the right response. Our industry has long been a leader in inclusionary imagery and messaging. We can’t step back from that legacy. Quite the opposite; if anything we must double down on promoting and demonstrating the values of acceptance and diversity in the face of rising bigotry. I believe we have a responsibility to do so.

But, if we’re going to be inclusionary, then let’s really be inclusionary.

Now is the time to delve deeper into understanding disaffected middle Americans and welcome them under the tent.  Doing so will require the probing work of understanding them in all their humanness: knowing their pain points, problems and frustrations as well as their aspirations, desires and needs.  It is not enough to characterize them in a marketing manifesto merely by checking the boxes around demographic/ethnographic data and leaving it at that.

If there has ever been a time to do what we do best — being “consumer anthropologists” of a sort — the time is now. Marketers and communicators should look at 2017 as an inflection point like few we have seen before. We’ll have the rare opportunity of watching change writ large as it plays out on the political and cultural landscape.  It’s a rare opportunity to have a front-row seat in a time of significant transformation.

But, watching is no substitute for doing and understanding. We will need to do the hard work to analyze the insights we glean and to translate them into actionable and inclusionary strategies and approaches.

Still Questioning After All These Years

Let me start this post with a full disclosure…this blog has been dormant for over four (four!) years. There are numerous reasons that it did its best impersonation of Rip Van Winkle, but I’ll save those details for another time.

But it is back and I hope you will find it to be a worthwhile source of information, points of view and opinions that are useful and valuable from a marketing, communications and brand reputation perspective.

I started this blog as a way of communicating my core passion as a brand marketer: specifically the art and science of gleaning, utilizing and mastering consumer/stakeholder insight as a means of influencing and cementing consumer-focused marketing and communications strategies.

I named it Questions and Insights because I believe that job one for any marketer is to understand consumers in all their complexity, contradictions and humanness. We can only get to that level of understanding if we let consumers speak. We need to ask smart questions then step back and listen.

As I began to think about how this blog can thrive in 2017 and beyond, I first wanted to look back to its origins in late 2011/early 2012 and ask myself some tough questions.

•  Is its premise still relevant today?
• Has the way we influence consumers and audiences changed so markedly that a full reboot is required?
• Has my perspective and point of view changed? Do I still stand by the recommendations and approaches I advocated four years ago?

A Look Back

There is no question we’ve undergone huge change in the last four years.

When I began this blog, Obama was in the last weeks of his reelection campaign. Donald Trump was famous primarily for hosting a tacky reality show.  ISIS was still known as a shadowy terrorist cell if it was known at all. The world was just beginning to witness a wave of mass shootings/terror attacks characterized by increasing violence and frequency. Millennials were just beginning to exert their values and priorities on the culture at large. And we were four years away from an election that opened the chasm that exposed the deep divisions among our citizens.

In marketing and communications we experienced our own share of upending transformation. The rise of influencer marketing turned the tables on traditional media influencers. Visual storytelling on platforms like Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram are now consumers’ first choice sources of information and influence (well, except for Vine which died on the vine). The death throes of print and the alarming trend of fake news are causing audiences to rethink and question its reliance on media of all kinds.

To me, the development that has the greatest impact upon us as marketers is that of the “bubble phenomenon”. We’ve heard plenty about this lately. It’s what happens when our digital behavior (personal preferences, search results, likes and priorities) combines with social media platforms’ algorithms and ad-tech to create those hermetic bubbles in which we see and engage primarily with people, media, organizations, advertisers and ideas that reflect ourselves and our thinking.

Dozens of analysts and commentators have pointed to this phenomenon as a key contributor to the outcome of the Presidential election.  Supporters of both camps saw their own points of view and prejudices amplified by others in their social universe (hosannas for your candidate of choice; a slashing and trashing of the opponent). The larger picture got lost in the haze. By the time the debates arrived and the two candidates were more or less on equal footing, minds were already firmly made up.

Of course, political campaigns and consumer marketing campaigns are two different animals. But if there is a consistent theme, I think it is that of splintering: audiences are splintered into micro-factions based upon shared interests. And the influencers who hold sway with these micro-factions are able to narrow their message, focus and endorsement in a way that mainstream media simply cannot. The result is a much more informed, opinionated and empowered consumer than we have ever encountered before.

So to come full circle to the questions I posed above, I say yes…resoundingly! Yes: insight has never been more important in knowing how to reach increasingly segmented and empowered consumers through a splintered influence universe. Understanding them from a qualitative standpoint – their likes, dislikes, affinities, values, aspirations, affiliations, etc  – become as important (perhaps even more important) than the standardized demography and ethnography data we have relied on for years.

It’s all about relationships. Never before has that been more vital. In marketing as in life, knowing the other person is essential to a rich, two-way relationship.

Gleaning consumer insights and knowing how to apply them is as much an art as a science, but the richness, specificity and validation that insights provide is essential and pays off with truer and more lasting engagement with audiences and their key influencers over time.

Next Up: The Splintered Influence Universe

 

Is “Mission Marketing” the New Cause Marketing? (Part Two)

Last week, I began this two-part post with some of the results of a survey by Boston-based marketing consultancy Cone Communications that irrefutably shows that the annual onslaught of pink products to support breast cancer awareness is backfiring among customers.

I posited that consumers see these efforts as what they really are:  a short-term promotion designed to drive a bump in sales, but without any long-term commitment to the cause.

To see what I mean, take a look at online retailer Etsy’s “Tickled Pink” campaign.

The atrocious title aside, the site is remarkably long on pink product, but virtually lacking in any specifics about how much of a donation would be made to breast cancer charities, or even which charities would be the beneficiaries.  One blogger dug deeper and found that of the 24 products listed, only eight actually claim to support breast cancer organizations.  To my mind, this is far from anything resembling cause marketing.

I remain a fervent believer in the power of cause, not just as a way to drive sales and build brand trust and affinity, but also as a means of visibly and concretely demonstrating what the brand/company – and its people – stand for.  But, to do so, cause must be looked at seriously and strategically, with an allocation of significant resources, a long-term view, total transparency and specific and measurable metrics. (See Part One, for two sterling examples from Avon and AT&T).

In the midst of this October’s breast cancer campaigns, I was delighted to see another kind of purpose-based marketing initiative emerge:  Red Bull Stratos and its sponsorship of Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking fall to earth from a height of 24 miles above the Earth.

I have read several posts from marketing commentators and columnists that called this a terrific example of corporate sponsorship.  And, I would agree.

But, I think there is more to it than just sponsorship.  I would call it “mission marketing”.

It was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime event viewed by many millions around the world.  It also resulted in breaking such records as free fall from the highest altitude, longest free fall time, and fastest acceleration (by human or object) to the speed of sound.  But Red Bull Stratos focused on the even bigger idea:  that this was also a meticulously planned and executed mission with a goal of delivering substantive scientific data.

Red Bull’s sponsorship included the deployment of a team of the finest aeronautics and medical professionals who studied the jump for its scientific value.  According to the Red Bull Stratos website, that included:

• Aiding development of a new generation of space suits (including enhanced mobility and visual clarity) to aid passenger/crew exit from space;
• Developing protocols for exposure to high altitude/high acceleration
• Exploring the effects on the human body of supersonic acceleration and deceleration, including innovations in parachute systems.

In my opinion, this is big – huge – thinking at its best.  It is also in complete support of the kind of benefits that Red Bull aspires to represent:  energy, concentration, focus and determination.

Appropriately and refreshingly, it was a low-key – dare I say humble – partnership.  Take a look at the website at the center of the campaign.  The brand is almost nonexistent in its presence, just enough to inform the visitor of its sponsorship.  The event and the science constitute the visitor experience.  And Red Bull underwrote lots of digital content for deep immersion.

What I also found rare was Red Bull’s exceptional patience for the payoff.  The jump was first announced in early 2010, over two-and-a-half years before it actually occurred.  But once Baumgartner jumped on October 14th, the world turned to the Red Bull Stratos site, the official home of all information related to the jump.  The media coverage alone must have numbered in the billions of branded impressions.  Red Bull made excellent use of its social media properties to drive engagement and consumer connection.

Is that enough?   Will it drive sales and closer brand affinity?  It may be too early to tell and will certainly depend upon how Red Bull continues to find ways to extend its connection to the event and to the scientific mission.  But, given how well the brand has succeeded to date, I have every reason to believe they will.

Is “Mission Marketing” the New Cause Marketing? (Part One)

It’s October.

And again this year, as in every October in the past ten years or so, consumers are inundated with every sort of beauty, fashion, household and entertainment product you can imagine — even cupcakes, disposable pens and smart phone covers – all emblazoned in pink to show support and/or funding for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Now, I am all for the color pink as an awareness tool.  It’s become a vivid icon for eradicating this disease.  Its symbolism is galvanizing, especially when it shines on the crown of the Empire State Building or is worn by both Michelle Obama and Ann Romney at this past Tuesday’s debate.

But are pink products the be all and end all for brands that want to jump on the cause bandwagon?

Not necessarily, says a new study from Cone Communications, a Boston-based consulting firm that has razor-sharp insights into consumer attitudes around cause marketing.  Cone’s survey showed that 77% of consumers believe that companies engaging in October “pink” marketing are doing so “solely for corporate gain”.  Only 26% believe that such support has made any real difference.

Can these types of one-month one-offs even be defined as cause marketing?  Most cause marketing advocates – and I consider myself one of them – would say no.  I’ve long believed that cause marketing must be a strategic endeavor that partners brands with causes over time (like the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, which is entering its third decade of continuous 365-day-a-year support).  Best-in-class cause campaigns harness the full resources of an organization – its people, top executives, intellectual property and marketing muscle, and may also fund research and advocacy.  All of these efforts work together in the service of specific, well-articulated and measurable objectives and outcomes.  And, of course, the cause must align with the brand’s or company’s ethos, the passions and interests of its customers and employees, and its larger philanthropic goals.

One superb recent example (though not breast cancer-related) is AT&T’s long-term effort to persuade drivers to stop texting while behind the wheel.  It’s “It Can Wait”campaign has been vigorously promoted by AT&T’s top executive, Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson.  It is fully obvious that this is an issue Mr. Stephenson cares about passionately.  The campaign has an extensive digital and social media presence, has partnered with such organizations as the DOT and FCC to amplify its messages, has sponsored summits for teen drivers, has commissioned research studies and has produced a documentary and television ads that ran during the Summer Olympics.  This clearly is an immense undertaking that requires a significant investment in financial and human resources.

Now, just compare AT&T’s campaign to the “here today, gone tomorrow” approach seen in the annual “pink parade”.  The pink products are the stuff of promotions, nothing more.  They really the same as just another date on a marketing calendar:  no different from a back to school circular or a holiday shopping in-store promotion.

Consumers get that.  They are increasingly seeing through the pink haze.  According to the Cone study, 90% want to see corporate support all year long, not just for a few weeks.

A year or so ago, Fox Home Video released pink-ribbon adorned versions of such DVDs as “An Affair to Remember” and “The Best of Everything” as part of its “DVDs for the Cure” campaign, with a promise of some portion of proceeds benefiting breast cancer charities.  It struck me that these two films were made in the 1950s.  None of Fox’s much more recent releases, such as “The Devil Wears Prada” were anywhere to be found in the promotion.  To me, it smacked of opportunism: a way to sell dusty back-list titles that otherwise would languish. From the best of my research, it appears that Fox has no other connection to the breast cancer cause.  This promotion begs the question, “was there any meaningful goal applied to this effort other than a bump in monthly sales?”  If so, that is exactly what drives the kind of consumer doubts that the Cone study reveals.

The Cone study emphasizes that, in the case of breast cancer support, only 6% of consumers are satisfied with such broad, generalized objectives as “improving awareness”, or vague statements about benefiting charities.  They want to see specific, meaningful, measurable goals such as medical research (46%), screenings and prevention (26%) and support to patients and their families (22%).

In part two of this post, I’ll share my thoughts on what I call “mission marketing”, best exemplified by the Red Bull Stratos project.

Advertising, Public Relations, Digital: Who Should Lead?

On the same day Facebook announced that the billionth person has joined its social network, the company also debuted its first-ever TV ad.  And it’s one that is quite a head scratcher.   If you have not seen it yet, here’s a link:

Facebook — “Chairs”

For a company that champions, celebrates and facilitates action, connection and engagement, the spot does nothing of the kind.   Rather, it is kind of a tortured metaphor that likely has viewers dumbfounded and muttering “huh”.  Sure, some of the imagery was beautiful and inspiring, but on the whole it hardly does anything to foster engagement and excite new users to join the fold.  As one online commentator put it, “imagine you’re watching it on the couch next to a few people who’ve never used Facebook, book-ended by two other product commercials.”  In other words, more white noise?

It’s as if Facebook’s ad agency forgot who their client is, namely the largest and most groundbreaking multidirectional communications and engagement platform ever.  And yet the ad is a throwback to the pre-digital world:  a one-way message designed to be received passively.

To further the contrast, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg made the rounds of the talk shows today, describing how last night’s Presidential debate was the third most conversed about event in Facebook’s short history.  Now, that’s engaging!  If you are a non-user, which will make you the most curious:  a beautiful but somewhat indiscernible spot, or Sandberg’s promise of the network’s ability to let you tap into hundreds of opinions, conversations and memes?

Is an advertising agency the right partner to lead the marketing charge for a brand like Facebook?  It’s a fair question to ask.

In today’s Huffington Post, Porter Novelli’s Acting CEO Michael Ramah makes a strong case that the mix of tools, resources and expertise within ad agencies may not necessarily be what’s right to lead in a new environment where connection, dialogue and two-way engagement are demanded.  It’s an insightful read that posits that public relations firms, with their historic focus on influence, relationship-building and storytelling, are perhaps best situated to lead.  Read Ramah’s thoughts here:

Porter Novelli’s Michael Ramah: “It’s Called Public Relations for a Reason”

Great Creative…..

….doesn’t necessarily come from big PR, digital and/or ad agencies.

Sometimes it simply originates from very creative parents.  Check out this preemptive move  from a very smart couple flying with their infant twins for the first time.  Talk about parents with insights about their fellow travelers and taking the initiative to make the flight pleasant (and humorous)!  Genius!

 

Dog Days and Elephant Nights

In these waning dog days of summer 2012, brand marketers are on a short hiatus as their consumer audiences take off for a few final days of vacation, or their attention is otherwise diverted by the political conventions.

So for a blogger like me, who focuses on successes and missteps in consumer insight and strategy, there’s not a lot of fodder this week.

Now, I am far from a political strategist, but I do know more than a little something about consumer opinions, attitudes and behavior.  So, with that as a disclaimer, I’ll just share a couple of my strictly armchair observations of the Republican National Convention unfolding this week.

                

Consumers Need the Truth…Always

We’ve come to expect – no, demand – truthfulness, candor and transparency from corporations and brands.  And we target our outrage at those that obfuscate, lie or play loose with the facts (BP/Gulf oil spill anyone?).  It is alarming, therefore, that the Republican Party is misrepresenting facts and stretching the truth repeatedly at this convention.

We’ve gotten used to a kind of flawed rhetoric for years on the GOP side of the aisle, but it tended to emanate from partisan commentators such as Limbaugh, Drudge and their cohort.  Then around about 2008, it migrated to the tea party.  But, this year, such communications tactics seem to be front and center at the dais in Tampa.  Here’s what the New York Times had to say about Paul Ryan’s speech last evening: “he made several statements that were incorrect, incomplete, or incompatible with his own record in Congress.”   The details are here:  New York Times Fact Checks Ryan.

Is it zealous party loyalism that allows such misstatements to survive and thrive on the convention floor?  Of course.  But, I think it sets a dangerous precedent for political discourse, particularly as social and digital communication have the power to share factual errors far and wide.  “Spinning” a message is one thing, as long as it is rooted in fact.  But, unless we as voters demand a no-tolerance stand against manipulation of facts, we ultimately harm ourselves as a nation.  We end up voting for or against fictions and half-truths.

A Consistent Narrative is Critical

As marketers, we have always understood the importance of a brand narrative and message platform that, though it is always evolving, is consistent across platforms, vehicles and among varied interested parties/spokespeople within the organization.  The reasons for doing so are obvious:  it engenders trust in the company or brand, amplifies core propositions and selling points, and provides a “north star” to share our stories of growth and innovation.

The Republican Party is the most fractious it has ever been, with tea partiers, other extreme special interest factions, and mainstream Republicans singing from vastly different hymnals.  From where I sit, I think that the inability of Republicans to get a handle on their narrative is disastrous.  While, they may be in lockstep on certain core platform planks, the side issues and stances (Missouri Rep. Todd Akin on rape and abortion, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on immigration, just to name two) have caused the GOP narrative to get sidetracked and drive into the breakdown lane on an increasing number of occasions.  These side issues  rear themselves repeatedly and dominate the news cycle where they take the focus off of Mitt Romney or, to his detriment, force him to detour way off-topic.  Is it any surprise then that commentators — some of them conservative — have remarked that the GOP is not appearing to fully coalesce around Mitt Romney?

Perhaps because it is less splintered and extreme, the Democratic Party seems to have the winning hand here.  But, let’s see if the week in Charlotte proves me right.   But, the Republican Party’s fractiousness has seriously undermined any last shred of reputation it has as a credible political force and may well be its undoing.

Enjoy your last few days of August.  In the spirit of full bipartisanship, I’ll comment on the Democratic National Convention next week.

Ham-Fil-A

… as in ham-handed/ham-fisted.  Take your pick.

I realize I am just the latest in a series of bloggers/commentators to weigh in on the Chick-Fil-A debacle.  But, I wanted to take this opportunity to share my position that, if this saga is any indication, then Chick-Fil-A is the most egregious example of a company misusing the tenets of social media that I have ever witnessed.

I need not reiterate to anyone reading this blog that social media requires transparency, honesty, truthful engagement and humility.  In creating the fake teenage Facebooker “Abby Farle” the company violated each one of those attributes and now, to my mind, has become an untrustworthy, deceptive corporation.  (More on “Abby” in a moment).

But, first let’s set the stage.  Earlier this month, Chick-Fil-A’s CEO Dan Cathy made anti-gay/anti-same sex marriage remarks in the July 16th issue of the Baptist Press.  He also acknowledged that the company makes financial contributions to such anti-gay organizations as Exodus International and the Family Research Council.  Shortly therafter, as we know, Jim Henson Productions (which until last week had an in-store toy deal at the chain) pulled further partnership opportunities with the chain, citing disagreement with CFA’s extreme stances. As they posted on Facebook:

“The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors. Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-Fil-A to GLAAD.”

Now this is where it gets interesting and where Chick-Fil-A’s public relations judgment and truthfulness become doubtful.

 Questionable Move # 1: Chick-Fil-A announced only early this week — DAYS after the Henson announcement — that IT — not the Henson Company — had pulled the Henson toys from stores due to “safety issues”, and that they did so way back on July 19.  But, oddly, they never announced it publicly at that time.  In fact, they announced nothing until  after the pot of public comment started to boil over.  A search of their corporate website shows no news announcements of any kind.  Considering that the rationale the company cited was children’s safety, the lack of an immediate  announcement at the time seems odd.  If the company was so concerned about children’s safety, wouldn’t they want that message out there broadly ASAP?  Smells of rewriting history to me, especially when Tiffany Greenway, Chick-Fil-A’s spokesperson, was unable to cite any specific safety concerns.

Questionable Move #2: Here’s where we come back to the fictitious Abby Farle.  If you’ve missed this part of the story, Chick-Fil-A…or, well, somebody… created a teen-aged “advocate” who shared her support of Chick-Fil-A and specifically noted that when she was in a store on the 19th, no toys were available.  But, ham-handed, laughable  tactics came into play here.  First “Abby” had joined Facebook only eight hours before her first post.  Her profile picture was a stock photo (the truth of which was exposed within minutes by a doubting poster who found it in a quick online search).   Greenway maintains that CFA had nothing to do with the creation of “Abby”.  I find that hard to believe.  Is there truly anyone else other than Chick-Fil-A who is that passionate about the issue to create a fake person?  And, if somewhere out there IS that passionate, wouldn’t they want to post under their own name?

What an insult to the intelligence of Chick-Fil-A’s customers and Facebook fans!  It’s laughable.  What teenager is going to sign up to Facebook for the first time and immediately post about this issue?  All teenagers I know would fill their first hours on Facebook to friend their chums and family and get the conversations and photo posts up and going.  Let’s not even get into the idiocy of a teenager using a stock photo for herself.

More importantly, it’s clueless, incompetent and, worst, deceitful. If indeed Chick-Fil-A did want to defend their stance on the Henson Company issue, why not transparently respond themselves?  Why didn’t they?  I think it goes back to questionable move #1.  They never made an announcement on the 19th and, therefore, did not want to go on Facebook to say they did.  I’d go as far as to say that the toys may not actually have been removed from stores on the 19th, so they could not count on a real person to say they were.  So what are Greenway and her cohort to do?  Well, maybe, they’ll just make up somebody!  A model-pretty teenager with no Facebook friends.

The upshot?  Chick-Fil-A violated what social media stands for:  honest, truthful communication and engagement.  Instead, they used it in an amateur attempt to manipulate public dialogue and sentiment.  They have lost public trust and respect.  Countless blog posts and comments across the web, Twitter and Facebook have called them out on their deceptive communications almost as much as they’ve been called out on their bigotry.

In trying to use social media as a manipulative tool, Chick-Fil-A has made a bad situation much worse.

(Big) Gulp: Thoughts on Mayor Bloomberg’s Proposed Soft Drink Ban

With Independence Day approaching and with extreme heat in much of the country, people everywhere are going to be reaching for a cold, brisk beverage to keep cool and hydrated.  That got me to thinking about Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent crusade to ban those gargantuan sugary soft drinks (16 ounces or more) that are available everywhere from fast food chains and convenience stories to movie theaters and sports venues.

It’s a laudable goal to reduce consumption of these nutritionally-useless sugar bombs.  As we well know, they deliver no benefits (other than hydration — and with the caffeine content, even that’s debatable) and directly contribute to diabetes, obesity and other health ills.

But, I’m not sure that the Mayor’s outright ban is the way to go about it.  There’s no question that consuming vast amounts of these beverages is bad for you, but Bloomberg’s seeming lack of understanding of his constituents’ sentiment and opinion has rendered the effort appearing flat-footed and tin-eared.  Consumer studies tell us time and time again that people don’t like being told what to do.  And, this move reeks of a superior-than-thou, “we know what’s best for you” kind of nannyism, a charge that’s been leveled at the Bloomberg administration in the past.

In the end, the decision to consume or not consume these drinks is a personal choice.  This is very different from the Mayor’s smoking ban which sought to protect hapless bystanders from the effects of other people’s second-hand smoke.  In that instance, the ban was not only the right thing to do, but was a public health imperative.  But, when it comes to soft drinks (and butter, pizza, fries, you name it) many people can successfully follow Julia Child’s advice of “moderation in all things.”  Why shouldn’t the many responsible, health-aware individuals be allowed one every week or so, if they balance it with exercise and sound eating habits?   The beverage industry is already using that approach as a potent counteroffensive, including reaching out to citizens via lean and fit canvassers like the woman below petitioning for signatures.

But, on the issue as a whole, Mayor Bloomberg IS right: this is indeed a public health issue.  A significant one.  Obesity and diabetes rates are soaring in New York City, particularly among under-served and economically disadvantaged populations.  Rather than a ban, I think the Mayor should have proposed a tax on beverages over 16 ounces…and the tax would escalate with the size of the drink.  Tax revenues would be allocated to the public health coffers to offset the increasing numbers of uninsured people being treated for obesity-related ills.  It could also fund a public education campaign on the order of the graphic smoking cessation ads currently seen across the city and state.

Speaking of which, we still sell cigarettes in this state (which have far greater health consequences than beverages), but we have taxed them to the stratosphere for just the same reason.  Why not do the same for monster beverages?

It would allow consumers to buy (and allow beverage companies/restaurants, etc. the freedom to sell) what they choose, but still communicate a firm, clear and pretty irrefutable stance: if you choose to consume something that will cause harm over time, you will pay for the care you will need in the future.

That’s not nannyism.  That’s pragmatism.  And it’s good government.