The Smoking Rebel Returns

Key points:

1. Smoking rates among teens have fallen since the late 1980s but have hit a plateau at just under one in five.

2. Less aggressive anti-smoking advertising is likely part of the problem.

3. Also to blame is a resurgence in pop culture smoking references—from music to the latest animated kid-flick Rango.

When I was a kid, people smoked on screen.

Yes, television advertising was off the air since Virginia Slims’ last spot on Carson’s Tonight Show in 1971, but throughout the ’70s and ’80s, smoking remained a mainstay of popular movies.

In the 1990s, that started to change, especially in movies aimed at children.

Anti-smoking groups began targeting Hollywood in the same way tobacco conglomerates did decades before: If they could make smoking cool by featuring it on the big screen, perhaps they could make it disappear (especially for younger moviegoers) by eliminating it.

This was the era of tobacco legislation, court cases, and record payouts by tobacco companies to states’ Attorneys General to recoup the direct and indirect costs to public health. Taken together with aggressive anti-smoking advertising, the rate of young smokers lighting up for the first time has dropped from 36.4 percent in 1997 to 19.5 percent in 2010, according to the Center for Disease Control.

A funny thing happened on the way: The rate of cigarette use among teens has leveled off. But if everyone knows the dangers of smoking—especially starting young—what gives?

A few things. As a parent of a teen (and with another entering that age bracket), it’s becoming clear that whatever I don’t approve of, they want to try. It’s a sign of rebellion, and a way to forge their own identities. Beyond that, much of the money that was supposed to be used for tobacco cessation advertising was gobbled up in state budget-crunch solutions a few years back—Minnesota included.

As a student of the advertising craft, I know how well it can work. I also know what the lack of advertising means. And let's not forget the classic American urge to not be told what to do, even if that thing is ridiculously stupid (the second leading cause of preventable death, behind only obesity, qualifies as ridiculously stupid in my book). We’ll defend our freedom to the death to run headlong into a tree if that’s what we choose.

But I think there’s more involved. Smoking is making a pop culture comeback, and it was on full display during a weekend showing of Johnny Depp’s new kid-thriller Rango. Animated characters smoked on screen. It blew me away. I haven’t seen that since the classic Disney flicks (most recently 101 Dalmatians).

Anti-smoking and parent groups are calling foul, citing a 2007 mandate from the Motion Picture Association of America that any movie featuring too much smoking be slapped with an R rating. They say Rango should get it. And I agree.

Paramount’s execs say that the characters smoking are the “bad guys” and that their behavior is so poor that kids would associate smoking with undesirable traits. And besides, they’re animals, not people.

Bogus. We already know that smoking fits the classic rebel archetype. It was always the “bad guys” who were smoking, and that’s what made it so appealing. A percentage of all kids (and a bigger portion of teens) identify with the anti-hero. Layer on a dose of a smoking Lady Gaga or Charlie Sheen and it’s a pretty potent persuasive cocktail. And all that without advertising and promotion of equal strength from the other side.

I’m not here to advocate that moviemakers can’t show someone (or some animal) lighting up in their film. That’s their choice. But if you’re showing it to kids—who are actively forming their impressions of the world around them—parents need to know before they go in. That’s our choice. And an R rating helps make the decision.

Related link:
WebMD: Decline in Teen Smoking Rate Levels Off

Tarnished Tylenol

Key points:

 

1. Johnson & Johnson’s adept handling of the 1982 cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules is regarded as the turning point in modern crisis management.

 

2. Recently, its quality control problems at McNeil Laboratories have resulted in less dangerous problems, but are potentially just as damaging to its reputation.

 

3. Johnson & Johnson seems to feel like this “minor” problem deserves a less-than-major response. I don’t think the public sees it that way.

 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read the Tylenol crisis management case.

 

During my undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, Johnson & Johnson’s handling of cyanide-laced extra-strength Tylenol capsules was held up as the pinnacle of communication excellence.

 

The scene in 1982: Seven people in the Chicago area were dead after taking Tylenol capsules. The cause was unclear. People all over the country were terrified. (I remember my parents promptly throwing anything Johnson & Johnson-related straight into the garbage.)

 

Johnson & Johnson did what no one expected: They got out in front of it. They issued an immediate recall at a cost of over $100 million. They took responsibility. They designed the first “tamper-evident” medicine bottle. Their CEO became the public face of the company.

 

The positive impact cannot be overstated: Crisis management saved the brand. In fact, it likely saved the company.

 

Fast forward 18 years. Today, we find Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol brand in a much more competitive painkiller market. The introduction of ibuprofen-based painkillers (Advil, et al), as well as a renewed focus on Aspirin to treat heart conditions, has continued to erode market share for acetaminophen products generally, and the Tylenol brand specifically.

 

Into this scenario, enter another crisis for the venerable brand: McNeil Laboratories, the manufacturing subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has issued a barrage of recalls over the past six months. Its Fort Washington, Pennsylvania plant was even forced to close for a time in April 2010 due to unsanitary conditions. At issue is a moldy smell coming from opened bottles of liquid Tylenol products—including those used primarily by children. (I remember being unable to find them on the shelves last summer.)

 

In stark contrast to the 1982 recall, no adverse effects have been reported, and the company says it’s OK to continue to use the products.

 

But think about that for a moment. “No adverse effects.” “You can keep using it.” Really? I’m going to allow a toddler to drink something that clearly smells like mold because you say it’s OK? Fat chance.

 

It seems like the Tylenol brand has lost its way. The chart below helps us see both cases side by side.

 

 

The bottom line seems pretty clear: What is less of an actual problem—the moldy smell—is turning into a much bigger public confidence problem.

Johnson & Johnson is falling into a crisis management trap: the assumption that big crises require big responses and small crises require small responses. It’s logical to conclude that seven deaths require a massive consumer recall and groundbreaking communications strategy, and that a moldy smell requires a quiet recall and reassurances. The problem is that people aren’t rational about medicine—especially medicine they give their children.

For a pharmaceutical company that places a heavy emphasis on babies and young children, every crisis is a big deal that deserves a prompt, aggressive response of public responsibility and tangible organizational change.

They did it once, and they saved the brand. Fail to do it here, and they might just as well lose it.

Related links:
CSMonitor: With Tylenol Recall 2010, a Corporate Icon Stumbles
NYTimes: Tylenol Made a Hero of Johnson & Johnson : The Recall that Started Them All

Stuck

Key points:

 

1. Getting stuck in another city due to weather has a way of focusing the mind on how the travel industry handles crisis communication.

 

2. The communication plan wasn’t poor, per se; it was normal—nothing more and nothing less.

 

3. “Normal” is the problem. When the situation gets ambiguous, people's attention to detail increases. Your communication plan should rise to match it.

 

I had a bad feeling about this. To be fair, my wife had the worse feeling about it.

 

But we went anyway. We had planned this getaway to Chicago for months, and snowstorms in the Twin Cities have a way of turning into media “hype storms.” So we gambled, and we lost.

 

About the time the Metrodome roof collapsed, Southwest Airlines sent me a text message informing me that I might as well forget about 8 a.m. flight from MDW to MSP.

 

Specifically, it said this: "SWA Flight 951 on December 12 from MDW is cancelled. Go to www.southwest.com/rebook or call us at 1-800-435-9792."

 

By the time I got the text message, it seems that later flights were filling up faster than the temperature in Minneapolis was dropping. The usually helpful Southwest Web site was a mess of flight cancellations and rapidly diminishing options as I was competing—in real time—with hundreds of other stranded Minnesotans for remaining seats.

 

To get around the electronic gridlock, I took to the phones, waiting about 30 minutes to speak with an agent. Again, normally helpful, the Southwest employee stumbled through a number of options until she finally parked my wife and I on a Monday evening flight. It was the first available.

 

Then to the phones again. To the front desk, explaining to a confused desk clerk why we needed an extra night in our hotel. And to the airport shuttle service; same needlessly difficult explanation. Not to mention mothers and mothers-in-law who rearranged their schedules to get our two boys to school the following day. Ugh.

 

What strikes me about the situation is not what happened—weather gets the best of us all—but how seemingly unprepared to communicate everyone involved proved to be.

 

In my extra time in the hotel, as I pen this for you, I’m reminded of a useful little thought model. It's called “elaboration likelihood,” and it tells professional communicators how engaged their recipient is likely to be given the situation. I’ve created a graphical representation of our predicament below.

 

 

 

With this model in mind, one could craft a better communication plan. Instead of a blank Web site asking me to wade around in a sea of flight options, Southwest should have prepared a presentation of flight options based on my situation. The messaging isn’t hard:

 

"Your flight was cancelled due to weather.
That sucks. (Southwest is a bit tongue in cheek; it can work.)
Based on the best weather information we have right now, here are your return flight options: [List of options here]"

 

I also don’t think it’s too much to ask that my airport shuttle service and hotel (who knew where I was coming from and going to) would call or text me as well.

 

I get it. I am perfectly capable of running the gauntlet of options and decisions to get myself back home. And I also understand that I never would have cared about all of these little nice touches had the weather remained calm. But that’s the whole point. As my stress level went up, so did my focus on the communication process of each party involved in my trip—and my ability to pick apart what they could have done differently.

 

As they say, it doesn’t matter how well you communicate when everyone’s happy. You earn your chops when people aren’t.

 

But enough of that. By the time most of you read this, hopefully—weather permitting—I’ll be on my way home. Until then, I’ll take advantage of an early gift from mother nature: another night of vacation in Chicago.

 

Safe travels!

Related links:
MSP Airport Web site (unhelpful during the storm)

How to Make Cigarettes Sexy Again

Key points:

 

1. Proposed FDA guidelines for cigarette packaging and advertising ramp up the shock value by using graphic images of the effects of smoking.

 

2. It’s easy to see where they got the idea: Past anti-smoking campaigns have been effective by using a similar approach.

 

3. But today, the image of cigarettes has shifted. They are a “dangerous” brand, and adding shock value will actually increase their appeal.

 

If you weren’t listening when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told you smoking was harmful, now they intend to show you.

 

Earlier this month, the FDA issued a new proposed rule, ratcheting up the rhetorical shock value for cigarette packaging and advertising. Instead of the now-pedestrian written warnings currently gracing your Marlboro pack, by summer of next year, you also could be staring at a corpse.

 

The proposal (open to public comment through January 11) includes graphic images of the effects of smoking—death, cancer, birth defects, etc.—alongside the written warning on each package, carton, and print advertisement.

 

I’ll show you one here. You can visit the FDA site for the rest.

 

 

Before we move on, let’s agree to avoid the “government has no right to regulate a legal product” argument. The Supreme Court says yes, so that discussion is over. As the authorized regulator of tobacco products as a drug, the FDA is simply attempting to complete its mission: Reduce the number of people smoking.

 

I’d prefer to discuss the efficacy of the approach—I don't think it will work. Why? Because apparently, no one at the FDA was ever 14 years old.

 

Back before cigarette ads were banned from television, cigarettes on the whole had a glamorous appeal. Cigarettes were a part of every movie and television show. Lucy and Ricky hawked cigarettes. So did the Flintstones. If you wanted sex appeal, you smoked. (It was no marketing accident that the default activity following “adult encounters” was having a smoke.)

 

In marketing language, smoking had a “lover” brand archetype. Certain brands played around the edges (Marlboro, most successfully), but they appealed to the desire for sophistication, belonging, and attractiveness.

 

Take a look at a few classic television spots. In the second, you can hear Fred Flintstone utter the classic Winston tagline: “Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should.”

 

 

 

 

 

To counter that “lover” image, in the 1980s and 1990s anti-smoking campaigns went for the shock value. They (successfully) tore down the glamour image of the cigarette, transforming it into an easy path to premature death. The “Truth” campaign ads are a great example.

 

 

In fact, campaigns like these were so successful that they changed the core of the brand archetype for cigarettes as a whole. They are now an outlaw brand—dangerous and rebellious.

 

And that’s why going for additional shock value is unlikely to continue working. The shock-and-awe well is dry. Consumers already know the product is dangerous. In fact, that’s why some continue to buy them. What’s worse, by ratcheting up the danger appeal of cigarettes (and make no mistake, images are far more powerful than words alone), they are even more likely to appeal to a new generation of smokers.

 

These are young teens and pre-teens, already searching for an act of rebellion. These are the people most likely to not put the message in context, not look ahead 20 years, and not listen to an authority figure. These are also the young people most likely to become addicted, most likely to struggle to break the habit, and most likely to die a painful, premature death.

 

It’s profoundly sad that it’s come to this. I wish I knew the answer. All I know is that the FDA’s approach isn’t it.

 

Related links:

 

FDA: Proposed Cigarette Product Warning Labels

Flu Fighters

Key points:

 

1. Last year, fears surrounding the swine flu, shortages of vaccine, and conspiracy theories made convincing people to get their seasonal flu vaccination tricky.

 

2. This year, the problem could be even worse due to simple apathy. The seasonal flu kills more than 30,000 people per year, but it isn't high drama.

 

3. Bagozzi’s Theory of Trying can help us peel apart the communication challenges the pros face in getting you in front of a needle.

 

What a difference a year makes.

 

Last year at this time, you could hardly turn on the television, pick up a newspaper (who does that anymore?), turn on talk radio, or read the news online without a story about the dreaded swine flu.

 

From a numbers perspective, the hoopla was largely unjustified. It seemed to strike a different population of people than garden-variety flu—adults in their prime versus the very young and the very old—hearkening back to the deadly 1918 pandemic that claimed the lives of tens of millions worldwide.

 

H1N1? Not as bad.

 

Last year, health communicators faced odd circumstances. On one hand, they faced an increasingly nervous public and limited swine flu vaccine supply. On the other hand, they faced the usual push back on vaccines—along with conspiracy-theory nut jobs who “suggested” the government had engineered the swine flu panic in order to poison people with a vaccine.

 

Let’s just say I wouldn’t have liked to be working in the communications department at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at that time.

 

But this year, you could say the problem is almost worse: apathy.

 

And that’s strange, because the raw statistics haven’t really changed. According to the CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the seasonal flu kills roughly 30,000 Americans each year. People should take vaccination and prevention strategies seriously. They largely don’t. Why?

 

A handy tool from psychology research can help us dissect how health communicators try to attack the apathy problem. It’s called, unceremoniously, the “Theory of Trying,” and it goes something like this:

 

The psychological forces at work when you decide to get your seasonal flu vaccination are interpreted as the “action” in this model—the actual “trying.” That means getting to your appointment at your doctor’s office or getting the shot at your local Byerly’s flu shot clinic. If we back up from there, the action of trying is influenced by our intention to try. In other words, how important is it that you get a flu shot? What motivates you? These intentions, researchers have discovered, are influenced by many factors, but they seem to fall into three main groups:

 

 

 

1. Your attitude toward success:
Do you expect that by taking action (getting to your appointment, etc), you will succeed in getting your flu shot? And by that action, will you avoid the flu? Communication efforts here focus on ensuring people do not feel as though the actual shot will give them the flu. Folks at the CDC and NIH also help publish and promote studies that, for example, link seasonal flu shots to a reduction in heart disease. These all boost your expectation of the success of your eventual action.

 

2. Your attitude toward failure:
By not taking the action, will you still get the flu? In other words, will you “fail”? What’s your confidence level that the shot will actually prevent the flu? Expectations of success focus on the positive. Expectations of failure focus on the negatives. Health communicators here try hard to paint a scientifically rosy picture regarding the rates of flu among those who do and those who do not receive the vaccination. For vaccines generally, this is a vexing issue—if you do not get the vaccine, yet you do not get the flu, did you still “succeed”? Or, did your failure not matter? You can still avoid disease if most of the people around you have been vaccinated from the flu, because there will be no one to spread it to you. And to make matters more complex, how big of a deal would it really be if you did get the flu? Would you be one of the 30,000 dead?

 

3. Your attitude toward the process of trying:
This is really all about logistics. How easy do you think it is to get the vaccination? Is it cheap enough? Health communicators go out of their way to make it easy for you with convenient flu clinics. They are working to remove any mental barriers regarding the process of getting the shot. (Introducing a “flu mist” option for those who hate needles—especially kids—is another example.)

 

Of course, your attitude toward the flu shot also is influenced by subjective norms—your expectation of what others think is appropriate. That’s why people are so concerned about overly negative (and in many cases, unfounded) publicity regarding vaccine side effects.

 

Researchers and campaign evaluators tease out statistical correlations between variables, working to determine which of the three major factors is the most relevant for different groups of people so their efforts can be most effective in the shortest time and at the least cost.

 

But you don’t need to crunch numbers to see the value here. Using this handy mental tool, it’s easy to dissect the messages you’re hearing and how professional health communicators are working to persuade you.

 

That said, it’s time to get in the car. I have an appointment for my flu shot at the HealthPartners clinic in about 20 minutes.

 

Related links:
CDC Flu Information Center

Will “Corn Sugar” Change the Debate?

Key points:

1. Mainline brands have seen pressure from consumer groups and some nutritionists to remove high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from foods. They claim it’s linked to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

2. Most scientists (and the industry, of course) counter that the links are correlation, not causation, and that consumers are misinformed if they think cane sugar is any different, nutritionally, than HFCS.

3. The HFCS debate won’t end with the name change to “corn sugar,” but removing the scary-sounding technical name from public consciousness will likely push the debate out of the spotlight.

Usually, I don’t notice the ketchup we buy. If it’s Heinz, I’m good. I’ve never been able to get used to Hunts, and the store brands leave a funny aftertaste. But during dinner, sitting at the table, the ingredients list stared me in the face. And there it was: sugar.

Knowing what I know about high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), that surprised me. So I checked the previous bottle of ketchup in the recycling bin, and there it was: HFCS. It had been there for decades. Cane sugar—what Heinz really means when it says “sugar”—is significantly more expensive than HFCS. But Heinz switched anyway.

I was familiar with the Heinz organic brand, which contained organic sugar, but this was one of the first mainstream high-volume products that I noticed was making the change.

Once you get a sense for the raging debate in nutritional circles and the impact it has had on sales, it’s not hard to see why.

On one side of the debate are those nutritionists and citizens who consider HFCS the next trans fat—a metabolic poison that should be removed from all foods immediately. They’ve been using discussion boards, social media, and market pressure to needle food makers into making the switch. More broadly, they have attempted to link the rise in the use of HFCS with the general rise in obesity rates in the developed world. They’ve made their mark primarily with those brands and restaurants who cater to a health-conscious crowd, notably the aforementioned Heinz, as well as bakery items at Starbucks.

On the other side of the debate are two groups—scientists (many of them) and the corn refiners industry itself (whose interests are aligned, sometimes much to the scientists chagrin).

Most scientists bristle at the notion that HFCS is any different from a nutritional perspective than cane sugar. In fact, one variant of HFCS (HFCS-42) actually contains less fructose (42 percent) than cane sugar (50 percent). They also are quick to remind overzealous bloggers that the link between HFCS and obesity over the last 30 years is correlation and not necessarily causation. In other words, it’s a logical fallacy to say HFCS causes obesity—the research is inconclusive. Many nutrition scientists don’t want to be seen as helping corn refiners push more sugar into the food system (they feel the rise in sugars and fats of all types coupled with an increase in portion sizes is the real obesity culprit). They are concerned consumers will feel as though they can simply switch HFCS for sugar and magically lose weight. Not going to happen, they say. By focusing on specific food ingredients—and not overall nutrition and wellness—consumers can become dangerously misinformed.

To paraphrase Cool Hand Luke, what we have here is a failure to communicate.

From the corn refiners’ perspective, a new name might be able to help. They are petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to allow them to rename HFCS “corn sugar.” The rationale is pretty simple: cane sugar, beet sugar, corn sugar. Sugar is sugar, and if corn sugar is the same (nutritionally) as other types, why not make the change? We don’t call it high-fructose cane syrup, do we? Even though that’s exactly what it is.

The move makes sense from a branding perspective, as well. Renaming has a long history of framing debates and making obscure concepts meaningful for the average person, especially with scientific concepts.

What's iso-butyl-propanoic-phenolic acid? Ibuprofen. Or Advil. Or Motrin.
Quantum singularity? Black hole.
Ninety-five percent dextrose and maltodextrin plus 5 percent sucralose? Splenda.
There are hundreds of additional examples.

In this case, the corn refiners are attempting to level the rhetorical playing field. By reframing HFCS as corn sugar, it hopes to compete with cane sugar, beet sugar, and other sweeteners on their own merits. Yes, eating too much of any type of sugar is a bad idea, and the overly technical sounding name HFCS has become a scary boogyman—easy to criticize and malign.

From a communication theory perspective, the name change also makes sense. The average consumer is more inclined to “elaborate” (think more deeply about) high-fructose corn syrup simply because of the scientific sound of the name. By contrast, corn sugar elicits a much lower level of thought, helping it fade into the nutritional background.

Will the new name “corn sugar” help stem sales losses from HFCS? I think it will. Removing the scary name may not appease the anti-HFCS advocates, but for most people—who just don’t pay enough attention to nuance—the new name will seem reasonable.

Frankly, I choose not to take sides in the popular debate. Some day, if I get a Ph.D. in biochemistry, I’ll feel comfortable weighing in. But I’m just an average consumer, generally concerned about my own health and the health of my family. And as an average consumer, I’m not interested in scary rhetoric about the unproven dangers of a certain food, nor am I interested in sweeter-sounding euphemisms for the same old food additive.

Calling HFCS “corn sugar” seems to make sense. But I think it makes more sense to eat less sugar in general, no matter what you call it.

Related links:
Corn Refiners Association: TV Commercial “Question Mark”
A New Name for High-Fructose Corn Syrup

No More Bing Bling

Key points:

1. After less than a year, Microsoft decided to discontinue its cash rebate incentive system that paid Bing users if they used the search engine to find and buy products.

2. Commentators barked that the system was clunky, complicated, and cheap—a waste of time and a laughable idea.

3. I disagree. A rebate system is a powerful strategic wedge in online search behavior related to the shopping process. Microsoft quit when it should have retooled.

Not many people knew about it.

About a year ago, Microsoft quietly launched an ambitious program with its whiz-bang new Web browser, Bing.

Basically, it worked like this: If you signed up for an account and agreed to use the Bing search engine on your way to your favorite shopping sites, Bing would give you a percentage of your purchase back as a cash rebate (from 2 percent to 15 percent). Of course, it wasn't necessarily instant gratification, but cash is cash.

And it wasn't just second-tier retailers (although there were a lot of those too), but big names including Barnes and Noble, Macy’s, eBay, and Foot Locker.

Needless to say, most people might (might!) remember the Bing media blitz happening at the same time and would certainly remember Microsoft’s final dance with Yahoo! It’s understandable if some smaller aspect of the marketing mix got overlooked.

But I think Microsoft may have taken the wrong lesson from the low attention level and pulled the plug too early on the rebate program.

Let’s think through the situation.

First off, some snarky Web commentators likened Microsoft to a technology “john,” basically telling people that if it couldn’t get traffic to its browser on its merits, it would be willing to pay for it.

Frankly, that’s just plain silly. Rebates are nothing new in the tech world, and slicing some piece of the marketing budget off to account for direct payments is a proven strategy. I think the opinion has a lot more to do with Microsoft’s overall positioning problem: It’s not as “good” as Google, and it’s not as “innovative” as Apple. It’s perceived, in popular culture although not in B2B, as a struggling giant who has lost its way.

I think the market share question is much more telling.

The graph above shows what everybody already knows: Google is the dominant player in search. The word "google" has become a verb. Bing? Not so much. Certainly, Bing was growing, but at the expense of Yahoo! market share, not Google, which wasn't really a big help if they were going to be on the same team.

So the situation was clear: Microsoft needed dramatic action to reverse a decade or so of ingrained behavior and provide a wedge against its formidable competitor.

And in true Microsoft fashion, it biffed the implementation.

Issues abounded. First, you needed an account, and the sign-up process was a bit intrusive. I am not sure how much I buy that: If they are going to give away cash, it stands to reason people would put up with a little start-up time invested, but I’ll defer.

Second, the vendor list—although significant—was limited. In other words, online retailers needed to be part of the program or it wouldn’t pay out. So if you had loyalty to a particular online retailer, Bing would be asking not only a change in search behavior, but also a change in buying behavior. I can see that—a more inclusive list of retailers (or one that didn’t require the retailer to sign up) could have worked better.

Third, users claimed the shopping experience wasn’t as good as Google. Really? The shopping experience with Google is good? That seems squishy. I think that had more to do with resistance to change than it did actual user experience.

Finally, the delayed gratification of the rebate check was not worth a paltry 2 percent. In other words, the incentive just wasn’t big enough. I’m ignoring for a moment the dozens of blog commenters who wrote they saved hundreds of dollars using the system over its deployment period. I can see where—to the average online shopper—it seems like a lot of work for a little reward.

I am sure these arguments and more were on the table when Microsoft execs pulled the plug. But I think they were wrong.

Google is not invincible, it is simply exceptionally good at the yellow pages function—getting you to what you want online. But getting you to the online buying experience is a different animal altogether and a perfect strategic opening for Microsoft.

To be fair, Microsoft said they’d be back with something better, but I’m suspicious. If they thought it was that good of an idea, they could have simply rolled out the new incentive to replace the old one without downtime.

I am not sure Bing will have another, better shot at Google.

Related links:

Microsoft Stops Paying Us to Use Bing

Bing Shopping Sites

Has It Become Unethical to Market Tanning?

Key points:

1. A recent U of M study seems to remove all doubt: Tanning—in any amount—is strongly linked to the most dangerous form of skin cancer, melanoma.

2. A combination of FDA, FTC, FCC, and state regulations will probably restrict tanning services in a variety of ways but are not likely to kill the industry altogether.

3. If tanning will still be sold (in some form), “informed consent” could be the most prudent path forward from an ethical perspective.

I am not sure why this was a surprise to anyone.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota recently published a study in which they found that people who use any type of tanning device, for any amount of time, are 74 percent more likely to develop a melanoma.

Holy crap.

Melanoma is not a more-easily-treated form of skin cancer. Melanoma is the really bad stuff. Of course, this comes as no surprise to experienced dermatologists, many of whom report an alarming increase in melanoma—especially among young people. It also comes as little surprise (sadly), they say, to mainly young women in their teens and early 20s who using tanning salons.

Yes, that could still be correlation rather than causation, but I think we’re past that nuance on this issue, aren’t we?

As I write, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reviewing recommendations from a scientific advisory panel that would ban or severely limit indoor tanning use for those under 18. And if the feds don’t act, many states are thinking of taking up their own legislation.

Much of the discussion in the marketing field as it relates to tanning will undoubtedly revolve around how to get young people to stop using tanning salons. Much like the “Truth” campaign to attack teen smoking, any anti-tanning efforts are likely to focus on dangers of tanning, what skin cancer looks like, and how it can kill you—not years down the road, but quickly.

Not that the messaging will be easy, but I’d like to look at the issue from the other perspective for just a moment.

I’d like to pose the following questions: How will tanning salons continue to market themselves? And if they do, is it ethical to do so? If it is, under what circumstances?

The knee-jerk reaction might be to say shut them all down, much like some would like to do to the tobacco industry. But that’s not only a mental copout—it’s unrealistic. So long as tanning salons have a legal right to exist and they do not violate Federal Communications Commission (FCC) guidelines on deceptive advertising, they have every right to communicate with their audience.

Let’s start with the first question, which speaks directly to a target audience. Whether it is the FDA, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), or the states that lay down the law, the industry should count on being severely restricted in marketing to those under the age of 18.

That’s not as easy as it sounds.

The tobacco and liquor industries struggle with this as well. If you advertise, say, in Cosmo, you would be reaching (primarily) an adult female in her late 20s to early 30s. But about 16 to 18 percent of your audience will be under 18. How do you select media that will not reach who it is not intended to reach? (Let’s assume that the industry does not want to reach younger people—which certainly is not a given—but that’s a topic for a different time.)

Needless to say, this can get complicated fast. The chart below summarizes the maze of potential restrictions the tanning industry could face as it continues to communicate with its customers.

The tanning industry will need to get much better at selectively reaching its audience and more careful (creative) regarding its messaging. The problem is, the tanning industry is highly fragmented. Unlike the tobacco industry, which is consolidated into a few very large players, even the “good guys” in tanning will need to compete with a huge pool of smarmy ones.

But beyond the legality lies the more complicated ethical argument.

Assuming a combination of FTC, FDA, FCC, and state regulations will effectively remove the “under-18” ethical issue, the tanning industry still will need to address the increasingly undeniable fact that it markets a dangerous product.

One argument would couch ethics in terms of the legal lay of the land. So long as the industry does not violate society’s written rules, it has every right to exist and market within that framework.

Another argument might ask the industry to weigh the benefits of tanning (self-esteem, enjoyment, etc.) against the drawbacks (a risk, but not a guarantee, of skin conditions, including its most dangerous cancer). If the risks outweigh the benefits, so the argument goes, ethically you must cease.

A third path might raise the issue of “informed consent.” If the consumer enters the tanning salon with full knowledge of the risks and chooses to partake anyway, then there is no ethical issue. The burden would be placed on the industry to educate its customers so they can make the choice with eyes wide open.

I’m conflicted.

As a professional persuader, how could I use my abilities to help convince someone to engage in an activity I know could harm them—especially younger people? There is not only the question of a life cut short, but also the cost to society to care for very sick people when it could be avoided.

On the other hand, I am not sure I want to live in a world where someone (a government agency?) decides for me what products or services I can or cannot use. Of course, that already happens on a large scale, but how much more control do we want to cede?

My father had a way of thinking about things like this. He reminded me to be careful of having too strong an opinion on anything. The world is full of millions of colors, only two of which are black and white.

I think he’s correct. Neither position is acceptable. Salons should be able to market their product, but it needs to be controlled. Balance might not make everyone happy, but I think it’s the best answer we’ve got right now.

Related links:

U of M Study Links Tanning Beds to Higher Risk of Skin Cancer

If You Like Robin Hood, I Don’t

Key points:

1. When we like something, we tend to think others will, too.

2. But when others like that same thing, we tend not to like it ourselves.

3. Recent research on projection and introspection helps marketers understand what might be going on, and what it means for message creation.

Last week, my friend and I had a talk about two of this year’s big summer movies: Robin Hood and The Last Airbender.

We started with the latest M. Night Shyamalan flick. I am really excited to see it. When they were smaller, my kids watched Avatar: The Last Airbender (not the silly nine-foot cat people, but rather the little boy with a curious arrow tattoo on his head). It was a cartoon about the last survivor of genocide against his race of people (the “airbenders”) at the hands of another (the “firebenders”). He must travel the world to learn the skills necessary to face down the leader of the firebender race and bring peace to the world.

Deep stuff for a cartoon, I know, but we all loved it.

Most kids’ programming is trash—mind candy—with little staying power. Not this one. Needless to say, I was stoked.

But my friend was not. I had a dozen reasons why I thought he should like it. I knew he would want to see it. Instead, I got a dismissive yawn.

Fair enough. We don’t need to agree on everything. No big deal.

It wasn’t long before we found ourselves discussing the latest Russell Crowe Robin Hood film. I thought it was a pile of unmitigated, non-sensical, unnecessarily violent, Magna Carta-revisionist history, bad-accent trash. It was two and a half hours of my life that I will never have back.

That’s not how he saw it. He thought it was pretty entertaining. In fact, he was surprised I didn’t like it.

Odd.

Of course, this could be a case of a friendly disagreement, or different tastes in movies, but an article I picked up in Science Daily seems to point to something a bit deeper.

The article presented two fancy words to describe what was going on: projection and introspection.

As it turns out, to understand a consumer’s opinion about said object (a movie, in my case), it matters greatly how you ask the question. In other words, the research wanted to answer two seemingly separate questions: “Why do you like what I like?” and “Why don’t I like what you like?”

It turns out, if you ask the question two different ways, you get two very different answers—driven by two very different thought processes.

The simple chart below should help visualize what the researchers were looking for. Remember, in both cases we are simply asking an opinion regarding an object, but asking about it from two different perspectives.

Let’s start with the first scenario: You are asked to form an opinion regarding an object. Then you are asked what another person’s opinion would be regarding the same object. In this case, you are likely to use projection—you will tend to think the other person will share your opinion by projecting your preferences onto that person. That feeling of “other people like what I like” boosts self-confidence and camaraderie and helps explain this tendency.

Let’s move on to the second scenario: This time, you are first asked about what you think the other person’s opinion of the object would be. Then you are asked your opinion of said object. Remember, same object, different starting point. Funny thing, the tendency is precisely the opposite. We are more likely in this scenario to reject what others like or dislike. The researchers surmised the subjects felt their individuality and uniqueness were threatened by simply accepting the opinion of another. Interesting.

When I read this, it seemed to fly in the face of the tried-and-true bandwagon theory of advertising and the whole appeal of pop culture. We like what others like in order to belong.

But I think both things could be going on. This study seems like a useful way to think about marketing preferences based on consumer psychographic profiles. It would seem to me that highly self-identifying people will be less likely to be swayed by everyone-is-doing-it messages.

We can see that play out in the marketing strategies for Apple's latest little jewel. iPads marketed to 30-something gadget hounds simply need to remind them how cool it is. That same product marketed as a business productivity tool to the small business owner community (a more self-confident group) highlights business applications and productivity savings in specific situations. In other words, is it everyone’s decision or your decision? As it turns out, that makes all the difference.

No one said consumer psychology was supposed to be easy . . .

Related links:

Consumers: Why Do You Like What I Like, but I Don't Like What You Like?

Why Do Tornadoes Still Kill People?

Key points:

1. Early in the morning on June 7, a series of tornadoes struck the Toledo area, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens.

2. Tornado forecasting is prone to false positives (a tornado predicted, but failing to materialize), creating a cry-wolf set of scenarios.

3. In marketing, we call those scenarios "scripts," and they are a powerful predictor of a behavioral response to a predicted tornado and can inform public-safety messaging.

The scene was terrifying and sad at the same time.

Photo Credit: Toledo Blade

Last week, a set of powerful storms ripped through the upper Midwest, killing at least seven people in Ohio. Although people had ample warning about the potential severity of the storms, they struck overnight, catching people less aware than they would have been.

But did that matter?

Granted, fewer people were killed and injured in this round of storms than would have been 15 to 20 years ago, but one could argue that this number still is unacceptably high. We live in an era of much-improved (but not perfect, of course) advance detection systems.

Meteorologists—even the best ones—can misinterpret computer-modeling data. But we can, however, predict with startling accuracy the conditions under which a tornado is likely to form within a given storm cell. It's not perfect, but it is a couple of orders of magnitude more accurate than it was in the 1980s or even the 1990s.

When people say the predictions were wrong, what they are really saying is “the conditions did not result in a tornado.” It might seem like I am splitting hairs, but this distinction (confusion?) is at the heart of why these storms still have the power to catch people seemingly unprepared.

In essence, we need to ask: Why don’t people heed the warnings?

On the surface, this may seem like a science education problem. I can see that. Americans, generally, do not understand science. We don't understand what a 25 percent chance of rain means, for instance. We have trouble with scientific margin of error. We want black and white answers—there will be or there will not be a tornado—but science (in any discipline, not just meteorology) rarely can give us one.

But I think that on a deeper level, this is a human behavior problem, and one that we can understand using marketing psychology.

Specifically, I’m going to help us understand the killer tornado problem using something called a script schema.

In marketing circles, we use script schemas to help understand how life situations affect interactions with services and products.

A simple example: choosing what to eat for dinner. That choice could be understood many ways, but an important way people decide what to eat is the context (script) under which that decision is made. For example, if you are expecting guests, you may make a different choice than if you were too tired to cook at home or if you just wanted something different to eat. Marketers use this analysis to see how well their brand performs against these scenarios.

The chart below examines some common scenarios (scripts) and three choices: (1) Eating at home, (2) Davanni's Pizza and Hoagies, and (3) Olive Garden Restaurant. The scale on the left refers to the perceived appropriateness of the choice to the situation at hand.

John Eighmey of the University of Minnesota's department of Communication and Journalism did similar work with fast food restaurants. It’s an insightful way to examine how people see your brand and how your competitors stack up. From there, you can implement a strategy that addresses those strengths or weaknesses.

But let’s get back to severe weather and our tornado problem.

We can use the same method to plot scenarios alongside different choices. When we do, what may have been a bit murky becomes brilliantly clear: Our reaction is strongly influenced by the accuracy of the most recent prediction experience.

The graph is admittedly an oversimplification, and we could argue that we knew this intuitively, but if that’s true, why don’t we see messaging from public safety authorities consistently change based on the situation? Why wouldn’t news outlets adjust their strategies to be based not necessarily on the “weather facts,” but rather on the state of mind of the public?

Perhaps an interesting way to look at it.

A couple of other ideas: First, Severe Weather Awareness Week is in early April. (A swing and a miss timing-wise—that's like talking elections in August: No one cares). Second, the trend of "citizen journalists" standing outside during storms to get photos and video is probably the worst incarnation of this otherwise-promising trend. It presents storms and tornados as spectacles to be captured and rewarded with 15 minutes of fame rather than death traps to be avoided.

You could say that the answer would be better prediction, but that’s only a long-term solution. In the short term, meteorologists need to get with the script.

Related links:

Minnesota Severe Weather Awareness Week

Severe weather rakes Midwest; 7 dead

Photo Gallery: Toledo Blade