Marketing and Advertising

The Milwaukee Brewers’ Unethical Promise

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

It’s one of the oldest and most valid of all ethics warnings. “Don’t make promises you can’t be sure that you can keep.”

In 2015, apparently seeking fast cash, the Milwaukee Brewers , now the 2026 National League Champions, offered a promotion that sold fans a “Timeless Ticket” for $1,000. It would guarantee the purchaser not only admission to any future game,”but the best available seat locations, subject to ticket availability at the time of redemption.” A Timeless Ticket also allowed the holder to buy three additional tickets to the selected game at full retail price.

Well now the Brewers are in the World Series, and it’s time to fulfill that commitment. Many of the “Timeless Ticket” buyers have been waiting to use it for a Brewers World Series if and when one occurred.

TT holder Danny Fochesato is ticked off, and he isn’t alone. He told the Associated Press, “They really touted, ‘Hey, this is going to be the best available seats. You’re getting the priority just behind season ticket holders. Anything the season ticket holders don’t have, you’ll have dibs at it for the World Series.’ That’s kind of the story they sold.” But he was given a choice between nosebleed seats or standing room as his only options for the World Series, and he could not select the specific game he wanted to attend. That wasn’t the deal.

“We subsequently erred in our internal communications on the logistics of fulfilling the requests,” Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger tried to explain. “While we were able to accommodate all with seats, we received feedback from some that they were unhappy with their seat locations. Clearly, even with extraordinary limitations on available seats, we did not live up to the spirit of the program, and we have been working through a resolution.”

No, you didn’t live up to the letter of the program. This was a bait-and-switch.

To attempt to make amends, now the Brewers will allow any fans who accepted the subpar seats through the Timeless Ticket program to keep those seats for the World Series and still use their “Timeless Tickets” for redemption for another game in any future season.

“We regret our mistake and look forward to welcoming them to American Family Field for their World Series experience,” Schlesinger said. Their crummy World Series experience that they paid $1000 bucks for based on the team’s promises.

Not good enough.

The last time the Brewers were in Series was 1982, 44 years ago. The next time the team will be in the Fall Classic may be even a longer wait than that. It will be 55 years from 2015 in 2070, and most of those Timeless Ticket holders will be out of time.

I have been through this kind of scam myself. I purchased a lifetime gym membership and the gym chain was acquired by another gym company a few years later. They honored my lifetime contract for a while, as they were legally obligated to do, then just told me, “You’ve gotten more than your money’s worth, so get lost.” I was in no position to sue them, so I just joined another gym. But those cash-for-benefits-far-in-the-future deals are unethical unless they include iron-clad commitments to compensate the buyer if the fulfillment of the promise becomes impossible.

The Brewers should refund the full amount of the “Timeless Ticket” to any purchaser who prefers money back to another promise from an organization they foolishly trusted in 2015.

________________

Pointer: JutGory

Stop Making Me Defend Shawn Gillis!

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The wild—and increasingly weaponized—hypocrisy among alleged feminists is not to be borne, and I’m happy to flag it as the unethical—but woke!—cultural poison that it is.

Perpetually unfunny comic Shane Gillis was back for the third (or is it fourth?) time as a host of the now totally ideologically-captured Saturday Night Live last week. During his rambling monologue to begin the show, Gillis said, “I haven’t been to the gym in so long I didn’t know women just dress like whores now? Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe it.” Gillis then went on to describe the ubiquitous tight short-shorts that dominate young women’s attire at the gym as featuring “wrinkles [that] go around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole,” adding, “You’re not allowed to look… because they are filming. I’m in the background of about 10 TikToks right now.”

The Hollywood Left’s explosion of fury, which sure sounds like mandatory feminist outrage from beta males to me, focuses on Gillis’s use of the word “whores”—I even saw it censored on Axis news sources as “wh*res.” Not to go back into the misty past, but as I will always remind readers here, Bill Maher called conservative women like Sarah Palin and others “cunts” and “twats” on his HBO show with nary a peep from feminists. Today, over a decade later, the same people who laughed at Bill’s hilarious misogyny want to cancel Gillis. Here’s Forbes virtue-signaling to the mob:

Pages: 1 2

Speaking of Cheating Democrats…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The New York Times revealed yesterday that a group called Frontier Media has paid TikTok “influencers” to post pro-James Talarico content on social media. Talarico is the Democratic challenger for an open Texas U.S. Senate seat deemed crucial to his party’s chanced of taking the Senate in November. But Talarico’s campaign told the Times regarding the discovery,

.

…so I guess they are as innocent as little lambs. You will recall paying for celebrity endorsements was part of Kamala’s “we go high” campaign strategy. Just for the record since I’m sure you don’t need to be told, this is lying. Such conduct falsely represents to the public that a trusted individual has independently concluded that a candidate deserves to be elected, while the payers do not reveal their influence and the payees don’t reveal their incentives.

This latest cheating to elect Talarico has surfaced nearly a month after an employee for a pro-Talarico PAC was caught on video explaining that the group was “paying people for their votes” through a “paid relational program.” The undercover video resulted in the employee’s firing (for getting caught).

Two related notes:

  • Lest you be overly impressed that the Times reported this story (“SEE?” I can imagine banned commenter and loyal Times bias-denier “A Friend” bellowing in his bunker), the paper buried the lead as best it could. The headline was “On Texas TikTok, it’s all about Talarico,” and there was no mention of the pay-offs until 18 screens into the article.
  • The Times piece also revealed that despite TikTok’s emergence as a social media power (and that young voters increasingly use it as a primary source of news), Republicans lag absurdly behind Democrats in using the videos as a marketing tool. Morons. Being slow to embrace technological and web innovations is how the party managed to lose the 2012 Presidential election. For these mid-terms Democrats have handed them so much ammunition that the GOP should be lapping them in the polls. “The Stupid Party” sobriquet remains as accurate as ever.

Baseball Park Naming Ethics Again: Getting Closer and Closer to “Chico’s Bail Bonds Park”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Bad News Bears

The Detroit Tigers will be playing in a ballpark named “Fifth Third Park” next year.

They have no shame. It’s bad enough that there is a bank with the ridiculous name of “Fifth Third Bank” (In 1908, Third National Bank and Fifth National Bank merged and nobody had the wit to come up with a better name. I wouldn’t entrust my money to a bank run by such dimwits), but a ballpark? What’s a fifth of a third out? A third strike? Houston briefly had its park named after Enron, and San Diego’s ball park is named after supplier of dog and cat merchandise, but at least “Petco Park” is alliterative.

I was sure that I had already written a rueful post about baseball teams that sell out their fans, history, traditions, cities and dignity for filthy lucre and name their home fields after any company who will pay to turn a stadium into its billboard. In 2010 I wrote a  post  about the adultery website Ashley Madison tried to by the naming rights to the NFL Giant’s stadium, and sure enough, decade ago I covered this revolting topic thoroughly. In honor of Fifth Third Park, I’m posting it again below, with a couple of additions and edits.

***

The Washington Nationals announced this week that it has partnered with Major League Baseball Advanced Media and the consulting firm Korn Ferry to sell naming rights to Nationals Park, as the team’s home field has been known since it opened in 2008.

After all, the team explains, plastering a corporation’s name on the ballpark could add between ten and twenty million dollars a year to the team’s revenue, and imagine how much better the team will be with another starting pitcher or slugging outfielder. Why wouldn’t a team sell its home’s name, and a large chunk of its identity, to a bank, a website, or a pet supplies company?

[Update: I am happy to announce that the Nationals did not ultimately give in to greed and name its stadium MSNow Park. It is still Nationals Park.]

I admit it: being a life-time fan of the Boston Red Sox, who play in one of the the ten major league parks ( the others: Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Dodger Stadium, Fenway Park, Kauffman Stadium, Marlins Park, Nationals Park, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Turner Field, Wrigley Field, and Yankee Stadium ) belonging to teams that have not accepted filthy lucre to mar their stadium entrances with the names of companies Bernie Sanders would hate, I find the idea revolting.  A baseball team represents its community; its lore becomes part of the culture and shared memories passed down through generations.. That has value, and symbolic significance. How much is it worth? It’s priceless, or should be. Continue reading →

The Converse Ad Controversy: Oh-Oh…”The Great Stupid” May Even Be Gathering Momentum

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

I wonder if and when enough people will wake up to the fact that when they vote for progressives, this is the kind of culture they are voting to live in. You know: hysterical, power-mad, and insane.

The footwear and apparel company Converse was attacked this week by the woke social media mob for an ad in a new sneaker campaign. It featured the bottom half of a person wearing a white garment and holding a pair of black sneakers.

The shadows that suggest the outline of a long, tapering triangle was obviously reminiscent of the pointed hood of a Klan robe, see. And the lighting makes the black sneakers look like someone is being hanged. The sneakers are black, get it? And have a single leg in two shoes, or something. The alleged lyncher was K-pop singer Karina wearing a skirt and holding a pair of Chuck 70 X sneakers, but never mind: some genius figured out this was another opportunity to hold 21st century America guilty of racism.

Naturally, Converse groveled an apology, thus ensuring more of this crap from the race-baiters and political correctness thugs. “We’re sorry,” Converse said in an emailed statement. “We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong. We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared,” the statement added. “This should not have happened and we will do better.”

I wish I bought Converse merchandise so I could boycott the brand. Their craven behavior harms every American, the culture, society, commerce, kids, brains, everything. Just listen to these idiots:

“As a Black man and someone who loves Converse shoes, I find this very insensitive and distasteful,” Kendall Peacock, who runs the Education Firm, a tutoring and mentorship program in Atlanta, said on social media. “Deliberate racist intent hasn’t been established yet, but that doesn’t erase the impact,” he added.

Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney based in Texas, posted on Instagram that Converse’s apology “doesn’t undo what got past legal, marketing and leadership at every step.”

Stephanie Schwartz, a social justice photographer, wrote on social media, “Every photographer can tell you, whoever did this ad knew EXACTLY what they were doing.”

I discovered the racist sneaker ad because Holly Mathnerd wrote about it on her exotic and eccentric substack. I can’t do better than Holly’s evisceration of the latest woke obsession, and besides, she’s sharp, she’s funny, she writes well, and she deserves attention. She wrote in part,

Pages: 1 2

Ethics Quiz: Sydney Sweeney (Again)

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Sweeney, the shapely and bold young actress who already angered the Left with her jeans/genes ad that supposedly dog whistled white supremacy, is now getting attacked by the Mad Left for the video above. She’s objectifying female athletes, you see. Or something. Because women athletes have never used sexual attractiveness to promote themselves and their sports…

Hey, how did pro-golfer Paige Spiranac get in there? Away with you, Devil Woman!

Now where were we? Oh yes, Sydney Sweeney….

Here’s The Athletic:

Pages: 1 2

Ethics Observations on the GOP Mid-Term Convention

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I could write full posts about many of these, and if I had time, I would. The networks and the Axis want to ignore it and are trying to bury it in negatives, but the event is obviously news, and attention should be paid….

Observations:

1. Competence! If this was the President’s idea, it was a great one. The GOP has to get voters to the polls (or to mailboxes, if he can’t stem mail-in balloting). If the event picks up just one or two percentage points in Republican voter participation, it will have been a success. If Republicans hold Congress, I guarantee both parties will make this tactic a tradition.

Incidentally, adding a mid-term convention is another so-called “democratic norm” that Trump is violating. The Horror.

2. Fetterman! One of the two biggest stories to come out of last night’s opening of the convention was Senator John Fetterman’s surprise video appearance, shot in front of a steel mill. Fetterman praised and endorsed his fellow Pennsylvania Senator David McCormick, a Republican, and said that they would work together “and work with President Trump and defend the steel way of life.” This makes Fetterman the Ethics Hero of the convention thus far. It also tells Democrats that if they are going to try convict Trump after a House impeachment and try to pack the Supreme Court, they will need to flip an extra Senate seat to their side.

Pages: 1 2

Campaign Ad Horrors: Are The Candidates Really So Stupid or Do They Think The Public Is So Stupid or Is The Public Really As Stupid As The Candidates Think They Are?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

One side benefit of having to watch all the Red Sox games as Boston closes in on a serious run for the 2026 World Series is getting a chance to see the various campaign ads for Congressional candidates in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and the other New England states served by the New England Sports Network (NESN) that broadcasts the games to “Red Sox Nation.” Let me rephrase that: getting the chance to see how idiotic the ads are.

The one you see above, by Democrat Chris Pappas, is easily the best of the dozens of ads I have seen, and it’s idiotic—infuriatingly vague, misleading, and using broad innuendos that don’t make any sense.

What restaurant has “VIP sections”? The analogy between a restaurant and Congress is so strained it makes my brain hurt. What does “play by their own rules” mean?

I view any Democrat as ethically estopped from complaining about members of Congress engaging in stock trading. The most powerful Democrat in Congress for decades, Nancy Pelosi, was also the most flagrant beneficiary of Congressional inside trading. The Trump Administration has done a great deal to lower prescription drug prices, but nothing except nationalized health care or government guaranteed income can prevent citizens from having to make choices regarding how to spend their money.

But, again, this is by far the best ad I’ve seen. Several boast that they should be elected to Congress to “stand up to Trump.” What does that mean? The Democrats will vote against anything Trump supports even if its rainbows and lollipops. “Standing up to Trump” means what, making mean faces at him? Insulting him, like members of The Squad or Jasmine Crockett? How does that help constituents? Many also say they will “stand up to” or “oppose” I.C.E. Does that mean they support open borders? Do they not want to get the dangerous illegals out of their constituency? Or are these just meaningless, focus group-tested buzz words? Almost all of them say that if elected they will “bring costs down.” Do they not know that costs as a whole never “come down,” do they think people are so stupid they don’t know that, or are people so stupid they really think that?

Maybe it’s my imagination, but I don’t think so: I remember campaign ads once containing occasional genuine, practical, achievable policy positions. Now its all virtue signaling: Elect me because I hate Trump. Elect me because I don’t like I.C.E. Elect me because I’d really like to do all of these things I won’t have the power to do but at least I have good intentions.

Who are the morons here? Everyone?

Ethics Quiz: The “Racist” Halloween Costume

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Is it stupid woke Halloween controversy season already? Sadly, it is.

Target removed a Halloween clown costume from its website and presumably its stores after social media mobs claimed that it was racist, evoking blackface and minstrel shows. As we know, companies are infamous weenies any time the race card is played against them, and virtually always grovel an apology. Thus Target sobbed on social media this week,

“An apology from us: We removed an offensive Halloween costume that should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer for sale. As a company, we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry. We know this is especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members and partners. Removing the costume is an important first step, and we are looking closely at how this happened and what needs to change to ensure this won’t happen again.”

I am strongly inclined to view this as another “Gotcha!” exercise from the race-obsessed. Talk about a case of “If you hear the dog whistle, you’re the dog” ! Let’s see: what aspect of the costume evokes blackface or minstrelsy? Did blackface performer swear orange costumes like that? Noooo. Did they wear black gloves on their hands? No! Did they wear little clown hats? Ruffles around their necks like Bozo? Also no. So what exactly creates the “minstrel show” vibe?It’s the fact that Target hired a black kid to model the costume! Put a white child in that thing and it looks like what it is: a clown costume.

Let me get this straight: Admirably, Target doesn’t see racist images at every turn, and hired a black model, when it should have hired a white model because the black kid made race-obsessed victim-mongers think of blackface. That wasn’t blackface, that was a child’s black face!

Is it the smile that’s the problem? You know, evoking this…

…? Again, it’s the actual black face wearing that smile that triggered the easily race-triggered. As for the smile , which the race-hustler think deliberately evokes “Mr. Bones” above, it is a creepy, killer clown smile, as worn by the murderous clown in Season 4 of “American Horror Story”…

Does that character evoke blackface and minstrel shows?

We are never going to get out from under the iron boot of race hustlers until companies and celebrities stop capitulating to race-baiting like this. On the other side of this ugly coin, what realistic, sound business options did Target have? Well, it could have asked whether its critics want the company to discriminate against black models. It could have educated the public and its customers about what is and isn’t blackface and minstrel imagery. It could have put a warning in the constume’s package, “Do not buy if your kid is black. The Woke and wonderful will think he’s in blackface.”

Or is this another example of the ditty, “He was right, dead right, as he sped along, but he’s just as dead as if he were wrong”? If standing on principle loses a company sales and public support, is it ethical?

Your Ethics Alarms Early Halloween Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Was Target right to apologize and pull the offending costume?

Ethics Dunce: Dan Koh (& Head-Exploding Campaign Video Of The Year So Far)

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Wow.

Dan Koh is delusional. The frightening thing is that the there are a lot of brain-washed progressives in Massachusetts who are so far gone that they won’t realize how crazy and hypocritical that ad is.

First of all, to lead with dead-eyed Joe Biden saying Koh’s name because two syllables is probably all they could get him to utter after 34 takes and maybe some AI dubbing, isn’t what I would call a boffo opening. Then to follow with Kamala Harris—why would anyone vote for someone Harris endorses? She picked Knucklehead Tim Walz as her running mate! Next Koh boasts about being a senior White House advisor who was either so dim that he didn’t realize the President was a rutabaga, or so corrupt that he was part of the cover-up of Biden’s dementia. There is no third option. Biden’s term was the most disastrous in American Presidential history: what did Biden fix, with Koh’s expert counsel?

Then he ends by saying “Democrats you trust” endorse him, and there are Biden and Kamala again. I can’t think of many Democrats less trustworthy than those two. Oh, maybe Adam Schiff, Jamaal Bowman, Rep. Omar and a few other scumbags, but it’s close. Harris endorsed Black Lives Matter, and said she wanted redirect public resources away from the police but didn’t support defunding the police, a typical muddled Harris policy position. As a Presidential candidate Harris said she wouldn’t change anything Joe Biden did…you know, like opening the borders and appointing a DEI Cabinet of incompetents, lackeys and dolts. Kamal;a also swore she worked at a mysterious McDonalds that apparently appears for day and then vanishes into the mist, like Brigadoon.

Joe let his addict son use him as an influence peddling prop. He promised to be a moderate and to bring the nation together, then allowed the far Left to run his crippled Presidency. He insisted that he was sharp as a tack while refusing to have his cognition tested after his brain had retired to Boca Raton. True, he “beat Medicare.”

That ad is like something out of an alternate universe.

(And Dan Koh looks like Adam Sandler.)