marketing

The Comment of The Day: Yes, It’s About Tide Commercials, But Read It Anyway

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Ethics Alarms reader Lianne Best weighs in on the Tide (with Acti-lift!) ads, with a valuable observation with far broader ethics significance. She aptly describes exactly how norms of appropriate conduct become corrupted and coarsened (or sometimes enlightened and improved!) over time:

“I hope I’m not too late to the Tide with Acti-Lift! party, but for those who say these ads are “just marketing” and don’t have any real impact … the first time I saw each of these ads, I was horrified. With each subsequent viewing I was less and less offended, until they became normal. Participating in unethical behavior starts with it becoming normal, so these seemingly innocuous commercials are actually pushing the snowball down the slippery slope. Those with influence, whoever they may be, must be cautious with its use.”

Comment of the Day: The Tide Mini-skirt Commercial

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Ethics Alarms has been getting some excellently written and reasoned comments lately, and it is time to institute a feature I have enjoyed on other blogs, and that is especially appropriate for this one: “The Comment of the Day.”

There won’t be one every day, of course, and the criteria is variable. In general, a Comment of the Day is one that I feel is especially well-stated rather than one I necessarily agree with—like the first entry, in fact. As I have stated elsewhere on the site, I don’t find the Tide mini-skirt commercial unethical, and would not have featured it on Ethics Alarms had readers not brought it into the discussion. I think it is culturally wrong-headed; I think it is obnoxious; I think the choice of song is in poor taste. Still, if Proctor and Gamble thinks it can sell more Tide by attaching its pitch to the assertion that fathers are boobs to question overtly sexual fashion choices by teenagers, and that mothers who encourage underage daughters (Yes, yes, we don’t know that the “daughter” isn’t 25, but the actress sure is doing her best giggly teen impression. We don’t know the “father” isn’t really the next door neighbor, either.) to wear skirts the size of dinner napkins sure to expose the Britney Zone every time the daughter sits down are being responsible parents, I wish them luck. I buy the detergent in our house, by the way; the commercial is sexist by its assumptions.

Here is the comment… Continue reading →

Tide Commercial Reflections–with Acti-Lift!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This post isn’t going to have any additional ethical musings on the Tide commercials themselves, for I am sick to death of them, and almost as sick of arguing about them. What I have been thinking about instead is what to glean from the fact that an ethics critique of a 30 second laundry soap commercial has become the most viewed post on Ethics Alarms after fourteen months and about 1,100 posts, and has generated more debate than all but a few other issues.

Not that I much mind becoming the apparent ethics authority on Tide (with Acti-Lift!).  It’s a small niche, but at least it’s a niche. If you Google almost anything about the original commercial—“green shirt” and Tide, for example—Ethics Alarms is the first non-Tide site that gets listed. Still, with carefully considered ( and occasionally proofed) posts on politics, immigration, global warming, education, sex, law enforcement competing with it for attention, my ethics review of a TV commercial has attracted far more interest than any one of them.

Why? My thoughts: Continue reading →

Mitt Romney’s Legal, Clever…Deceitful and Unethical Speaking Deal

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Thank you. Mitt Romney. I mean it. I am grateful. I am frequently asked for an example of how a business tactic can be completely legal  and yet unethical all the same. Your brilliant double-deception is one for the ages.

Here is how it works: Continue reading →

Stupid Ethics Tricks: Buns, Mascots, Mottos and Maher

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Advertising Ethics: KFC is marketing its new “Double Down” chicken sandwich by paying college co-eds—who must  meet some secret standard of butt-comeliness—to wear sweat pants with “Double-Down” printed on the seats. The National Organization of Women objects: “It’s so obnoxious to once again be using women’s bodies to sell fundamentally unhealthy products,” says Terry O’Neill, NOW’s president. What an odd comment: is it all right in NOW’s view to use women’s body to sell healthy products? Is O’Neill saying that (not to give KFC any ideas) paying buxom co-eds to wear tight T-shirts advertizing fried chicken breasts would be wrong, but the same campaign for healthy, broiled breasts would be just fine?

I am tempted to say that any ethical condemnation of the “buns as billboards” method is attributable to the “Ick Factor,” not ethics. Continue reading →

The Counterfeit Classic Musical Act Problem

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

It isn’t new, and there is no way to stop it, but we need to complain a little louder about the false promotion of counterfeit musical acts for concerts and fairs. It may be legal, but it is misleading and dishonest. Continue reading →

A Commercial for Liars: Tide..with Acti-lift!

/ Jack Marshall / 110 Comments

Yes, Procter and Gamble, makers of Tide laundry detergent, thinks lying is cute, and that Americans will run out and buy a product advertised as useful for assisting lies.

And who knows? Maybe they’re right. We certainly wouldn’t expect a corporation or an ad agency to see anything wrong with lying, since it is business as usual for them. They probably don’t even realize such messages are corrupting.

The new TV ad for Tide and its new “Acti-Lift” secret ingredient (It’s called “Closet Raid”; you can see it here…) shows the heart-warming saga of a teenage girl who trustingly asks her mom whether she borrowed a favorite green blouse. Continue reading →

Book Publicity Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Author Jennifer Belle felt that her new book, The Seven Year Bitch, needed a more creative publicity campaign than her publicist was providing. The placed an ad in “Backstage” requesting actresses with “compelling and infectious laughs,” to read her book on the subway and at New York City landmarks for $8 an hour. This was enough to interest the New York Times  in sending a reporter to cover the auditions, and then Belle sent the actresses she selected out in teams of two to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the steps of the TKTS booth in Times Square, Washington Square Park, and the subways. They read the book out loud, laughing their infectious laughs, and when asked, told onlookers about the wonderful book they were reading. Continue reading →

Bark-Off Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Bark-Off is a product you can see being pitched on cable TV almost any time of the day, a seemingly sinister gadget that allows you to stop your dog from barking, just like Adam Sandler does with his magic remote control in “Click.” The thing emits a high-pitched sound (“Not painful!” the commercial says) that only dogs can hear, and it distracts them enough to make them stop yapping.

As a dog owner, I find the Bark-Off vaguely creepy; I don’t like the idea off controlling the behavior of living creatures with electronic devices. Still, all the reviews of the product indicate that it isn’t painful and it does work for most dogs. Philosophically I object to it, because I think a dog owner should have more respect for his dog than to treat him like Christmas tree lights on a Clapper, but I can’t honestly say Bark-Off is unethical. Continue reading →

CNN’s Ocatavia Nasr: Another Victim of Cognitive Dissonance

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Octavia Nasr, a CNN editor and reporter for two decades, just got her walking papers for a 140-character tweet reading, “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” The problem is that this particular “giant” was an anti-American, anti-Israeli terrorist who advocated suicide bombings and who encouraged terrorist acts by Hezbollah. In an explanatory blog post that failed to save her job, Nasr blamed the limitations of Twitter, and explained that she didn’t really admire him, just his stance against the abuse of Muslim women.

Maybe. Continue reading →