Marketing and Advertising

Ethics Dunces (All-Star “Shut Up And Sing ” Edition): Cher, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Billy Joel, Paul McCartney, Jackson Browne,Nick Jonas, Sia, Zayn Malik, Barbra Streisand, Beck, Questlove, Pusha T, Ringo Starr, Sting, Ricky Martin, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Selena Gomez, Stevie Nicks, Michael Bublé, Melissa Etheridge, Trent Reznor, Kesha, Katy Perry, Tony Bennett, Yoko Ono…

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Billborad letters

A couple hundred famous singers and musicians have banded together to sign a fatuous and misleading “open letter” to Congress dictating U.S. gun policy. The letter which is being used as a publicity gimmick by Billboard (and the stars, of course), reads:

As leading artists and executives in the music industry, we are adding our voices to the chorus of Americans demanding change. Music always has been celebrated communally, on dancefloors and at concert halls. But this life-affirming ritual, like so many other daily experiences—going to school or church or work—now is threatened, because of gun violence in this country. The one thing that connects the recent tragedies in Orlando is that it is far too easy for dangerous people to get their hands on guns.

We call on Congress to do more to prevent the gun violence that kills more than 90 Americans every day and injures hundreds more, including:

  • Require a background check for every gun sale
  • Block suspected terrorists from buying guns

Billboard and the undersigned implore you—the people who are elected to represent us—to close the deadly loopholes that put the lives of so many music fans, and all of us, at risk.

The letter is many things:

1. It is scaremongering nonsense. Gun deaths are way down, and the odds of any citizen being killed in a mass shooting is beyond minuscule. Based on 2015 statistics by the broadest definition, you have a 0.00000143% chance of getting killed in a mass shooting. These wealthy and privileged people, who often have bodyguards (with guns) have much less of a risk than that. Nothing is “now threatened.” We are safer from gun violence now than five years ago, ten years ago or 20 years ago. Continue reading →

Final Thoughts On The “Turn Back Time” DirecTV Ad, The Response To My Post, And Callousness Toward Life

/ Jack Marshall / 65 Comments

It’s not on TV any more, but to refresh your memory:

I’m usually a poor judge of the posts that attract controversy here.  The Ethics Alarms commentary about the Jon Bon Jovi DirecTV ad showing the fading rock star singing the virtues of a “turn back time” feature that will allow subscribers to the satellite service to watch shows from the beginning after they have already run is now five weeks old, and it is still drawing traffic and–I also didn’t see this coming—abusive responses. I haven’t changed my mind about the ad being gratuitously and smugly callous and promoting societal indifference toward children, but I have learned some things from the responses to my pointing it out, especially the angry ones.

This blog isn’t called Ethics Alarms for nothing. Its objective is to help people be more sensitive to ethical issues and the right way to handle them, as well as to give them tools to keep their ethics alarms in working order. My ethics alarms were always unusually sensitive–being raised by my father will do that—and have become progressively more sensitive with attention, trial and error, and study. They aren’t perfect, but when they go off, they go off. If I can find out what they are ringing…training and experience help with that…then I will often write a post about the reason they rang out. My alarms went off every time that DirecTV ad came on, but it took me about four viewings to analyze why.  Then I wrote the post.

The commercial has Bon Jovi explaining what’s so great about being able to “turn back time”: in addition to letting you watch the show you missed, he notes that you can have the mild salsa you turned down for a spicy variety, and retroactively decide not to have that second child you now regret. The child is shown drawing on the wall with crayons, and he vanishes as the crayons he was holding fall to the floor. The parents smile. Bon Jovi smirks.

I wrote,

“Why isn’t it immediately obvious that this shows antipathy to children, boys, and human beings generally? The human being who was made to go away because he was inconvenient and burdensome couldn’t have been a girl, because it would be a “war on women,” and the family couldn’t be Hispanic or black, because that wouldn’t have been funny, but a white couple erasing their son from existence because he misbehaves—now that’s comedy gold.”

The comments to the post made me realize that there is antipathy to children, and the concept of turning back time to eliminate an unwanted life is acceptable, and thus no big deal, to a large portion of our culture. Continue reading →

When Big Corporations Act Exactly As Bad As Bernie Sanders Says They Are..

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Thank you city

Banking behemoth Citigroup is suing AT&T for using  “Thank You” in ads, because Citigroup claims that it owns the trademark on “THANKYOU.” See, it’s not enough that corporations want us to think of them when we go to a baseball game or maybe when we are wishing that our children never existed. They want us to think of them when we are being nice, too

No, this is not a hoax. I wish it were.

Law professor/blogger Jonathan Turley, who hates this as much as I do, has kindly provided links to other examples of this nauseating phenomenon (this , and this, yes, and this , don’t forget this, oh, and this nonsense , this ,this too ,here ,here ,another one here, here as well, and this), but this is really the last straw, or should be. Continue reading →

Fair, Accurate, And Devastating: A Hillary Super-Pac’s Anti-Trump Ad

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Donald Trump has said and done so many outrageous things since his November, 2015 mockery of a disabled journalist that many have probably forgotten how ugly, cruel and undignified it was. Trump also, you may recall, denied that he even knew the journalist was disabled—one of his many Jumbos (“Elephant? What elephant?”) since that accursed day that he entered the presidential race. Now a super-PAC supporting Hillary Clinton has taken that moment and employed it to make a vivid point, easily summarized as, “This guy wants to be President?”

Continue reading →

From The “I’ll Take My Tiny Victories Where I Can Get Them” Dept., A DirecTV Update

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

DirecTV is now running a new version of the “Turn Back Time” ad featuring Bon Jovi. It looks just like the earlier one, except that now turning back time re-unites the female side of the satellite TV-watching couple with her old boyfriend, as her current partner looks on in horror. This is a major improvement over the first version, as it doesn’t make a wall-drawing kid vanish into the ether as his parents smile at ridding themselves of an unwanted child.

Maybe this is just an effort to vary the theme. I’d like to think, however, that enough ethics alarms went off among viewers and maybe even DirecTV executives that they realized that the original ad was more ugly than funny, and pulled it for a more ethical version that doesn’t tell us that this corporation thinks vaporizing children is hilarious.

Don’t disillusion me. I can’t always feel like I’m screaming in the wilderness here.

Boy, You’re Gonna Just Hate THIS Ethics Quiz…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Tigers manager Brad Ausmus, the quiet, Ivy League-educated manager of the struggling Detroit Tigers in the American League, snapped in frustration during last Monday’s game. He cursed, he raged, he threw dirt, he threw his cap,  he took off his hoodie and draped it over home plate. Some of his X-rated remarks were captured by microphones and broadcast to the nation. Naturally, such conduct is frowned upon by MLB umpires, so he was thrown out of the game, suspended and fined.

Now he is auctioning the hoodie and cap from his tirade on the web. Here’s part of the description:

” Neither item has been washed since the May 16 game and both items show dirt consistent with being placed or tossed on the field.”

Bidding is approaching  $5000. The auction website adds: “Neither item has been washed since the May 16 game and both items show dirt consistent with being placed or tossed on the field. Both items feature the #7, as seen in the photos.” Bidding will close on Wednesday.

Your annoying Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is….

Is auctioning the items used by Ausmus in his on-field tantrum as unethical, more unethical, or less unethical than George Zimmerman’s auctioning the gun that he used to defend himself against Trayvon Martin, resulting in the teen’s death?

Continue reading →

Ethics Hero, If A Bit Late To The Party: Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Horrified by this story in the Washington Post and others like it,  Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh has filed suit against Access Funding and other viatical settlement companies, asserting that they take advantage of vulnerable victims of lead poisoning by purchasing their structured settlements at less than fair-market value.

Gee, ya think?

I have written about this many times and in other forums, and even been threatened by a few the despicable companies (“It’s your money!”…”I have a structured settlement and I need cash now!”) in this cruel and predatory industry. 

Few in the general public know about it or understand what’s going on. Structured settlement are annuities bought by insurance companies to ensure a regular flow of compensatory damages to personal injury and medical malpractice plaintiffs to cover their medical costs and living expenses. The settlements aren’t given out in lump sums because many such plaintiffs are poor and have no experience handling money. A large payment of millions of dollars guarantees that needy family members and friends will beg, plead for and demand loans and hand-outs, while the recipients themselves are tempted to buy luxuries they have long dreamed about with funds intended to cover lifetime cancer treatments.

As I wrote in a post almost seven years ago…

Once they are on their own, however, the compensated victims are targeted by viatical settlement companies, both those with cute opera-singing commercials and those without. They undermine the sound advice of the attorneys with slogans like “It’s your money!” and try to persuade the former plaintiffs to unstructure the structured settlement by selling the annuity’s income stream to the viatical settlement company at a deep discount. Result: the annuity company gets the regular income at bargain rates, and the victims get a new, smaller lump sum to dissipate in exchange. The statistics say that the customer of the viatical settlement company will run out of cash long before he or she runs out of the need for it. But for the company, it’s a sweet deal.

Continue reading →

A Bait-And-Switcher Is Called To Account

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Reliant

Our small ethics training and consulting business always has cash flow worries, so when an offer arrived from Reliant Funding promising a quick line of credit, my business partner and COO–also known as my wife—leaped into action. She checked up on the outfit, and all indications were that they were legit. Comments about them on the web lacked any red flags.

Then she called the number listed to apply for the loan, a process promised to take “hours not days,” and activate the loan card, which looked like a credit card with my name on it. Our representative was articulate and informative, and prospects looked rosy. Then my wise COO, herself now crippled by the business curse, ethical thinking, heard  “Steve” say ProEthics could probably get a $10,000 loan. She immediately and curtly said that she would have to call him back.

“This mailer says that a $41, 739 loan was pre-approved. She said. He said the most we could get was $10,000. That mailer is a lie!”

“Correctamundo!” I ventured.

Now Steve was in trouble; you don’t want to cross Grace. Really. She called Steve back, and went on the attack: Continue reading →

It’s Gender Issues Confusion Monday! PART 1: Observations On “Sweatergate”…You Know, One Of Those Stupid Social Media Controversies That Has Some Genuine Issues Buried Inside

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

SWaetergate

The 8 a.m. Saturday broadcast on KLTA in Los Angeles area featured  Liberté Chan in a black, shimmery, shoulder-baring  cocktail dress, giving her report on the day’s weather. Suddenly, weekend anchor Chris Burrous’s arm appeared on the side of the screen, holding a gray cardigan sweater.

“What’s going on?” she said. “You want me to put this on? Why? Cause it’s cold in here?”

“We’re getting a lot of emails,” came the offstage voice of her male colleague. Then his hands placed the cardigan on Chan.

“There you go,” he said. “That’s nice.”

“OK. I look like … a librarian,” she says.

Whereupon social media “erupted,” as the current cliche goes, with many on Facebook, Twitter and whatever else there is out there in the social media jungle condemning the station for sexism. Others insisted that Chan’s cocktail dress was inappropriate attire, sending a message that “The Weather Girl is just eye candy, like the women in bikinis at boxing matches.”

Chan, in a post on her own blog, had this to offer…

I …didn’t think there was anything that inappropriate (the beads/sequins were probably a little much for the morning, but what girl doesn’t like something that sparkles?!), so I played along and put on the sweater.

That prompted a barrage of tweets and more emails from viewers, some of which I included below.

To be perfectly honest, the black beaded dress was a backup.  The pattern on my original black and white dress didn’t work on the weather wall (for some reason, it turned semi-transparent), so after my first weather hit at 6am, I changed.

For the record, I was not ordered by KTLA to put on the sweater.  I was simply playing along with my co-anchor’s joke, and if you’ve ever watched the morning show, you know we poke fun at each other all the time.

And, also for the record, there is no controversy at KTLA. My bosses did not order me to put on the cardigan, it was a spontaneous moment..  I truly love my job, I like my bosses and enjoy working with my coworkers.  Since talking to my team, I want our viewers to know it was never our intention to offend anyone. We are friends on and off the air and if you watch our newscast, you know that. More importantly, I hope my viewers were able to plan their Saturday once they heard my forecast and enjoyed the sunny weather after the clouds cleared.

Observations:

1. I was just watching MLB’s Heidi Watney on “Quick Pitch,” where she reviews the highlights of all the baseball games of the previous day, standing up in the middle of a studio. She was wearing a shoulders-baring cocktail dress much flashier than Chan’s,  my wife, not for the first time with Heidi, went nuts, complaining how the outfit was unprofessional and demeaning to women. She has similar reactions to the outfits of the Fox Blondes, and my favorite of the breed, Robin Meade, who frequently looks like she just returned from a wild night after a Vegas party. Is this kind of attire unprofessional? Well, it depends, doesn’t it? It depends if the job being done is seen as informational or  performance. If  it’s performance, then a costume is appropriate. If it is a professional conveyance of information to an audience only, a sound argument can be made that professional attire enhances trustworthiness.

Here’s a typical Heidi outfit: Continue reading →

DirecTV Apparently Thinks Promoting Child-Killing Is A Cool Way To Sell Subscriptions

/ Jack Marshall / 92 Comments

Six years ago, I flagged an ugly series of DirecTV commercials. One showed police casually tasering people, yet another approved of stealing stamps from one’s employer. Then there were a series of commercials promoting the satellite company’s NFL package, with the theme that hate is hilarious. Among the incidents featured:

  • In Wisconsin, a Green Bay Packers fan welcomes her 49er fan neighbor by leaving a cake on his stoop. The cake reads “DIRT BAG.”
  • A group of Patriots fans in wintery Foxboro, Mass. grumble about the Miami Dolphin fan next door (“Moron!” says one woman). One of them throws a shovelful of snow on the Miami fan’s door.
  • A Dallas Cowboy fan sends her dog to trash and pee in her Redskin fan neighbor’s house.
  • In another Dallas setting, a diner, the waitress expresses her contempt for Philadelphia Eagles fans by secretly squeezing her dishrag into their beers.

That was mild, however, compared to the vicious sentiments being sold in a new DirecTV commercial.  A married couple sits down in their living room to watch some television when the husband realizes he forgot to record the show. Jon Bon Jovi appears behind them and sings about the power to turn back time with DirecTV, with its new feature that allows viewers to track down and watch  shows after they have been broadcast. to  That’s not the only magic they can accomplish by turning back time, the aging rocks star sings.  For example, they can go back in time and reconsider having their second child, who looks about 7, and is drawing on the walls.

Poof! He’s gone! His crayons fall to the floor. The boy is erased, and the two parents smile at each other as Bon Jovi smirks. Continue reading →