Category: Marketing Trends/News

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Business Ethics, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy & Sustainability, Ethics in Government, language, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, Socially Responsible Investing Tagged with , , , , , , ,
Wall Street bull statue
Creator: Sam Valadi
Credit: ZUMAPRESS.com/Newscom
Copyright: via ZUMA Wire

It’s been a pretty heavy news week, so you may have not heard about this incredibly stupid action in both houses of Congress.

Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill “that would prevent the Labor Department from enforcing a rule that makes it easier for plan managers to consider ESG factors when they make investments and exercise shareholder rights, such as through proxy voting” (as reported by Reuters). The Senate, with four members absent and the complicity of two Democratic Senators, did likewise one day later.

This push says that pension funds must not be allowed to even consider any factors pertaining to ESG–Environmental, Social, Governance. It doesn’t say they have to make sure that ESG investments perform as well as non-ESG investments (which, often, they do). That would be a reasonable law to protect retiree pensions. But this one would bar fund managers from even considering anything involving ESG.

For decades, smart fund managers have been shifting investment toward ESG, and their reasons are fiscally sound. From avoiding corrosive investments in “stranded assets” like fossil-fuel or nuclear processing infrastructure that’s been plagues, by leaks, spills, explosions, etc. to avoiding ethics scandals that destroyed once-respected companies like Enron and Arthur Andersen, ESG investing makes so much sense that, as no less an authoritative source than NSDAQ notes,

In 2020, net inflows into ESG funds in the U.S. reached $51.1 billion, a significant increase over 2019 when flows equaled $21.4, which itself was a record.3 Global ESG investing by end of the first quarter in 2021 was nearly $2 trillion4.

The article goes on to list six factors in ESG investment growth and notes that even during the pandemic, “funds with ESG strategies outperformed traditional funds.2″ (Click the link to see the footnote sources, too.) This updates and reinforces the research I did when writing my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, a few years ago. Every single one of the dozens of studies I checked at that time showed that ESG criteria lead to better financial results.

This growth started decades before the pandemic and was accelerating rapidly and consistently, as this 2020 article from Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, states:

Net flows into ESG funds available to U.S. investors have skyrocketed, totalling $20.6 billion in 2019, nearly four times the previous annual record set in 2018, [1] while ESG funds in Europe also attracted record inflows of $132 billion in 2019. [2] More than 70% of funds focused on ESG investments outperformed their counterparts in the first four months of 2020, [3] and nearly 60% of ESG funds outperformed the wider market over the past decade. [4]

One unintended consequence I haven’t seen addressed anywhere is the possibility of widespread rebellion by private investors that could put the whole pension system at risk, as stakeholders demand that funds embrace sensible, profit-driven ESG corporations in their portfolio choices while an inane law makes that commitment illegal.

Fortunately, President Biden has promised that he will use the first veto of his presidency to block a law that is just as crazy as the various “anti-woke” measures authoritarian Florida Governor Ron DeSantis keeps shoving down the throats of his state’s residents and businesses. Oh, and in the unintended consequences department, please read this Daily Beast commentary on how the anti-woke law even puts Fox News at risk.

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By Posted on Posted in Consumer Issues, Ethics: General, Innovation, Marketing Trends/News, Technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

On November 30, without much fanfare in my world, a new Artificial Intelligence tool called ChatGPT was released that could be as disruptive as Google or smartphones or affordable green energy. Less than a week later, on December 3, my programmer son-in-law blew our socks off with a demo. He showed us how he kept building more and more complex prompts to a query that in its final form compared the philosophies of Descartes, Nietzsche, and Bugs Bunny (who the software even correctly identified as fictional). The written response was cogent and fairly convincing–and went a lot deeper than, say, Wikipedia. And in its basic form, it apparently doesn’t even crawl the Internet!

Just one day later, Chris Brogan raved about the tool and gave another example in his newsletter; he asked ChatGPT to write a newsletter article about itself. While it didn’t produce work that I would turn in to a client, it’s better than at least 50 percent of the business writing that crosses my desk. He also used another tool, DALL-E, to create shockingly realistic graphics of things that don’t exist. Chris doesn’t have a public archive of his newsletters, so, unfortunately, I can’t link to his article and examples.

One day after Chris, the New York Times jumped in. One of its examples gives instructions for removing a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR (I hope the sandwich isn’t as old as the VCR!). Here are the first five sentences:

King James Version VCR cleaning tip written by ChatGPT
King James Version VCR cleaning tip written by ChatGPT

And today, one week after Chris wrote about it, Seth Godin devoted his daily column to preaching that the existence of ChatGPT, which can generate adequate (if mediocre) copy in seconds, means that we should pride ourselves on our artisanship–on creating work that is significantly better than a machine can do. (I like that approach!).

Oh, yeah, and the tool’s developer, Open AI, has a nice little flowchart of how it works (that I suspect ChatGPT helped prepare).

While news and opinions about ChatGPT seem to be popping up everywhere, you might shrug your shoulders and think, “so what?”

That would be a dangerous mistake! Dozens if not hundreds of industries could face fundamental shifts. Writing of all kinds (commercial, academic, literary, philosophical, instructional, etc.), obviously. But also design, fine art, computer programming, marketing, teaching, office administration, human resources, engineering…it would be a long list. It raises issues around ethics, staffing, training, research, library science, intellectual property–and perhaps most crucially, a future where bots and AI engines make decisions independent of their human creators.

In other words, this might be how we get to HAL, the infamous AI computer that went rogue in the 1968 movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Why am I going on about this? Because I want you to be forewarned and prepared.

Before deciding if my advice is worth paying attention to, you may find it helpful to consider my history with technology trends:

Although I’m not a professional trendspotter, I do pay attention. I’m a sponge for news and keep notes that sometimes find their way into books, blog posts, or speeches. I may not personally use some of these technologies, but knowing that they’re out there and what they can do influences my consulting recommendations.

I tend to wait for new technologies to be reasonably affordable and user-friendly, so I’m rarely in the very first wave, but it’s not unusual for me to be well ahead of others. I got my first computer (an original Mac) in 1984 because the learning curve was far less than for PCs of that era, my first laser printer in 1985–and that combination allowed me to disrupt and dominate my local resume industry by offering low-cost while-you-wait service. I got my very underpowered first laptop in 1986, which gave my travel and interview journalism and book writing a huge jumpstart. I made my first Skype video call, to New Zealand, in 1998 and had been on Zoom for about three years before the pandemic made it popular.

I knew about the online world in 1984. But it was too hard to use back then. I tried it for the first time in 1987 (and even dipped my toe into social media as it existed in that era), using Compuserve. But I didn’t like the primitive and buggy interface, hated trying to keep track of user names that consisted of long series of numbers with a random period in the middle, and was constantly frustrated by the balky connection that kept tossing me off–and left after a few months. I waited until 1994 and AOL’s easy interface before going back. And within a year, I had my first of many overseas marketing clients: a vitamin company in the UK.

In the green world, I follow innovations fairly closely. I put solar on the roof of my then-258-year-old farmhouse in 2001, LED lighting throughout the house around 2013-14, and a green heating system somewhere around 2015. I’ve been telling people for years about powerful innovations like a Frisbee-sized hydroelectric power generator that doesn’t require a dam, wind turbines made of old 55-gallon drums that spin on a vertical axis and can generate power at a far larger wind speed range, and the disruptive power of 3D printing.

But sometimes I wait, even if I’m recommending certain tools to others. I didn’t get a smartphone, digital camera, 3-in-1 printer, or color monitor until the bugs were worked out and the prices were slashed. Now, I wonder how I ever managed without those tools. And I still don’t have an electric car or a color printer.

So with this background, I will call ChatGPT a very big deal indeed.

It’s likely that I’d see the potential impact anyway, but it’s especially obvious because I’m reading a book called The Anticipatory Organization by Daniel Burris, which focuses on the need to focus on disruptive trends and the benefit of being the disruptor rather than the disrupted. (I’ll be reviewing it in my January Clean and Green Club newsletter; if you don’t subscribe yet, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com, scroll to “Get your monthly Clean and Green Club Newsletter at no cost,” and fill out the simple form. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too :-).

Once I get a chance to play with ChatGPT directly, I will probably have more to say about it. Unfortunately, with all this buzz, there’s now a waiting list, so I’ll have to delay that particular experience.

 
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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Business, Marketing Trends/News, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

One area where sustainability can really easily interface with consumers–and give them a direct role in becoming more sustainable–is the very simple step of adding signage (including website notices) that indicates how far a product has traveled. Informal observation (not any real research) at a store that was doing this showed me that it significantly raised consumer awareness and drove purchasing choices toward more local options. Similarly, signage can clue people in about what progress you’re making on the social equity issues you’re addressing.

Another is revealing what goals were met in the making of the product, which were not meant, and how the failure to meet a sustainability or equity goal is pushing your company to do more.

And a third is to open actively monitored channels where customers and other stakeholders can make suggestions on your sustainability and social justice improvements. Think of it as a form of zero-cost consulting help (but recognize that however well-meaning they are, they are unlikely to know the true costs and feasibility levels of their suggestions. ALWAYS respond to any serious suggestion (ignore and block the addresses of the ones who spam your form, though). Engaging in real dialog is not only excellent PR, it’s also excellent market research.

Are there benefits to this approach? Absolutely! Consider Marks & Spencer, a major UK retailer. In 2007, they started measuring and reporting on 100 environmental metrics, calling this initiative “Plan A.”

Very quickly, the results provided so many benefits that the company started measuring an additional 80 metrics. As Bob Willard reports in his book, The New Sustainability Advantage (which I cite in mown book Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World),

The company expected to invest £200 million in the program, but by 2009-10 Plan A had broken even and was adding £50 million t0 the bottom line. In response, M&S added another 80 commitments to the original 100 in Plan A. (p. 159)

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Consumer Issues, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Marketing Trends/News, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , ,

Those of us in the US are probably used to hearing people go on and on about our high status in rankings of desirability. And in some ways, we are. (I am a US citizen and a lifelong resident, so in this post, I’m going to use “we” and “our” when referring to Americans.)File:Life expectancy vs healthcare spending.jpg

  • We are super-cosmopolitan, able to create cities where hundreds of different ethnic, racial, and religious groups not only live and work together but enjoy each other’s food, music, etc.
  • We introduced modern democracy to the world–a huge improvement over the divine right of kings
  • We have enormous diversity in geography, agriculture, weather conditions…whatever you want, you can find it somewhere in the US
  • US technology leadership sparked enormous progress in fields as diverse as computing, clean energy, and space exploration

BUT on a lot of other metrics, we fall alarmingly short. Consider, for instance:

I could go on,  but you get the idea. In metric after metric, the US was once the leader and now lags.

Isn’t it time to reclaim that greatness?Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Business Ethics, Business-general, Corporate Social Responsibility, Entrepreneurship, Environment, language, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice

Chris Brogan noted in this morning’s newsletter:

For decades, the rule has been “no politics nor religion in business.” That’s gone. If you say nothing or try to stay neutral, you’re voting. If a company takes money and does business with an organization a person doesn’t support, this might be grounds to do business elsewhere.
He’s absolutely right. If you don’t declare your values, the world assumes you support the status quo. And when the status quo is untenable, that choice is not good for business.
Here’s how to get out of that rut.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics in Government, Gratitude, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , ,
A recent Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, OR, June 4, 2020

Happy Juneteenth. As you probably know by now, June 19th is a Black American holiday celebrating the day the last slaves in a Confederate state finally got the news that slavery had been overturned 2-1/2 years earlier (four Union states still permitted slavery for a few more months, until the 13th Amendment became law).

A recent Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, OR, June 4, 2020
A recent Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, OR, June 4, 2020

You also probably know that the guy in the White House planned to have his first live indoor rally in months today–and rubbing salt in the wounds, it was going to be in Tulsa, site of the worst violence against a black community in the history of the US (in 1921). And of course, you know that the US has been rocked by racial justice protests for weeks, following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

The public outcry was so fierce that even a group as tone-deaf as his campaign staff (who apparently knew about both of these events ahead of setting the date), and as deliberately inflammatory and reluctant to admit wrong as the man himself, had to walk it back. The rally will still be in Tulsa, but tomorrow.

Both Bruce Dart, head of Tulsa’s health department, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the federal response to coronavirus, are very unhappy about this, BTW, as COVID-19 cases have been climbing rapidly there.

Which brings home the point that nonviolent citizen action is effective even against a thuggish, narcissistic, pathological liar and would-be lifetime dictator like this one. Here are five particularly famous examples, among thousands. I have personally participated in dozens of nonviolent events or sustained campaigns that had significant impact, most spectacularly the Seabrook Occupation of 1977 and the year-long Save the Mountain campaign I founded in 1999.

Not coincidentally, black organizers of Tulsa’s annual Juneteenth celebration, who had canceled the event over the virus, uncanceled it and are now expecting 30,000 people (11,000 more than will be at the re-election rally).

How I Will Mark Juneteenth

I’m attending two Juneteenth events today: first, a virtual celebration featuring two black Jewish rabbis who are both musicians at 5 pm ET/2 pm PT, and second, a live candlelight vigil, with distancing and masks, at the site of the Sojourner Truth statue in Florence, Massachusetts, a 20-minute drive from my home.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Branding, Business Ethics, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Customer Service as Marketing, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

A small-town Main Street, https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=18641&picture=main-street
A small-town Main Street

A marketer friend in Connecticut sent out a wonderful tribute to his 95-year-old mom and used her to illustrate several points about customer-centric marketing and customer service. In the course of this article, he waxed rhapsodic about Amazon. I see Amazon (and some other companies) as not always so wonderful–and the public having blinders on about its predatory practices. This is what I wrote back to my friend. The third link is actually a very complete summary of the issues:

* * *

Great piece! I love the way you take your mom’s everyday activities and spin them into marketing do and don’ts.

While you certainly shouldn’t change it for Mom, you might want to rethink Amazon. It is very much a two-edged sword. It’s great that it has made the Long Tail [the ability to find obscure products that don’t support a large retail base and wouldn’t be stocked in physical stores] a thing and that any author has access to international markets. But…
  • They are a serious threat to the vibrancy of our downtowns. Can you imagine Stamford with only a few struggling chain stores? Goodbye to that nice falafel shop and Asian restaurant across the street from (Amazon-owned) Whole Foods (I’ve often eaten at one or the other on my way to NYC). Book stores, hardware stores, appliance stores–and all the traffic into town those stores bring–are increasingly shaky in an Amazon-dominated world. And when that foot traffic goes away (assuming it comes back after we’re finally out of quarantine), so do the restaurants, night spots, etc.
  • Their labor record is very poor. Their treatment of independent publishers is not only very poor but IMHO a violation of monopoly rules. Did you know that Amazon, a retailer, takes the 55% industry-standard wholesaler discount instead of the 40% retailer level for its smaller publishers selling them physical books? (They do have much better deals for publishers on the books their subsidiary KDP prints on demand.) This is one of the two reasons they’re killing the independent bookstores (the other is that they’ve successfully trained the public to think of them first). Also, they present used and new versions of the same title on the same results page, which is a complete stab in the back to publishers–sort of like offering counterfeit designer watches and purses. I have no objection to selling used books (and keeping them out of landfills)–but not in direct competition with the same book, new.
  • For a long time, Amazon didn’t charge sales tax, which was an especially cruel anticompetitive practice in that it not only hurt businesses who have to collect those taxes, but also reduced the availability of government services by reducing government revenues.
  • Amazon has actively and repeatedly suppressed competitors. This includes using its enormous data on customer behavior and buying patterns to manufacture its own products, sold through its own channels. And students of the company’s behavior see evidence that once competitors are eliminated or demand spikes (as on household cleaning products during the pandemic), Amazon’s prices rise, sharply.
For these reasons, I buy from my local independent food markets, booksellers, appliance, and hardware stores (on their websites, currently) and shortly after Amazon bought it, I stopped going to Whole Foods even though it’s actually my closest supermarket.
* * *
That was the end of my letter. I love the convenience of online ordering too, but I’m happy to do it at the websites of independent businesses, especially if they’re local to me. What are your thoughts?

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Consumer Issues, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, media-general, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , ,
Simulation of TV newscast. By Original photograph by Sylvain Pedneault. Derivative work by Mike Liao. - Self-made. (Modified from Image:FirePhotography.jpg, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4500164

Remember some of those unflattering names for TV in the 1960s and 70s? “Boob tube.” Idiot box.” I think these names are rooted in the neurological changes TV works on our brains, combined with the inherently passive nature of watching–AND with the low content quality that too often marks this powerful and addictive medium.

TV too often incites violence and racism. And I don’t choose to play in that sandbox. For every Mr. Rogers or Sesame Street inculcating positive values, for every National Geographic or Discovery Channel special that broadens our sense of what is possible, there are dozens of shoot-em-up adventure shows and newscasts to focus our attention on the worst parts of our society. And it’s all tied together with ads designed to make us feel inadequate because we don’t buy certain brands. As Mick Jagger sang, “He can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke/the same cigarettes as me.“

The original promise of cable TV was no ads in return for the monthly payment (1970s). But that original promise didn’t last very long! I grew up in NYC, which had seven stations on the VHF band, plus what must have been another 20 on UHF for those who had sets that could pull them in. Moving to places that had only two or three channels on the broadcast spectrum, I could see the appeal, at least for those who love TV.

TV is not an active part of my life.

We moved when I was 10 and left the big clunky ancient black-and-white TV behind. We didn’t get another one for two years–just in time to watch All In The Family. That was pretty much the only show I watched through high school. Through much of my early adult life, we didn’t even own a TV.

And when we got one, it was mostly as a video monitor, with some PBS kid shows on the side. We thought it was healthier to let our kids watch up to an hour a day of content-supervised TV than to ban it altogether and have it become alluring forbidden fruit.

A few years ago, when regular old broadcast TV was discontinued, our cable company gave us a converter box free for the first two years. We never even got it to work properly, and when the two years were up, we returned the box and eventually convinced them that we shouldn’t be paying the $10 month for a service we weren’t using. They acted deeply shocked but eventually lowered our bill. They supply both our landline phone and our broadband Internet.

A few times a year, we go to a friend’s house or a public place to watch a presidential debate, World Series game, or other special broadcast. I think TV news is the worst kind of mind pollution and get my news from other sources–that’s been true for decades, even when I had a working set. I still read my local daily newspaper, which has great coverage of my own region and at least some coverage of the wider world. I read a ton of e-newsletters that keep me informed within my various niches, and click to interesting links on social media (which has its own positives and negatives)–yes, including some TV clips. I’ll listen to radio news and public affairs programs such as All Things Considered (NPR) and Democracy Now (Pacifica). And yes, I spend some time daily on social media.

In fact, I deeply resent being forced to watch TV news with all its shallowness and violence when I ride elevators, wait for planes or buses or trains, or use a hotel fitness room. If there’s a great skit on Saturday Night Live or a new Randy Rainbow parody, or shocking testimony implicating high government officials, I will hear about it on Facebook and watch online. I worry about the people who spend so much time watching violence disguised as news, especially if they do it right before bed, leaving the whole night for the subconscious to absorb the message that this is normal.

It’s not.

There’s plenty of good in the world. People doing amazing things: harnessing technology to solve problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change…finding new ways to empower others…joining with neighbors or colleagues to do something too big for any one person or company–but the media is trained to focus on what’s wrong: “If it bleeds, it leads.” There are some nice exceptions, like Yes Magazine, Positive News, and Good News Network (among many others), that consciously focus on positive news–and even some mainstream outlets join this happy chorus. Also, because I’m in the green business world, I read publications like GreenBiz, Eco-Business, and Triple Pundit that are tremendously tilted toward highlighting positive innovation but don’t shy away from negative stories that need to be told.

While I don’t duck from the unpleasant things happening, I don’t steep myself in them. I surround myself with enough positive news (through those and many other channels) to insulate me from the bad effects of soaking in negativtiy. I recommend doing that as much as possible.

What strategies do YOU use to stay focused on the change you can make rather than letting the problems paralyze you? I’d love to see your comments, below.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Business Ethics, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Psychology, Technology Tagged with , , , , , ,

Lately, my inbox is full of courses to market via Facebook Messenger.

I actually hit reply to one that began, “What if you could use FB Messenger to make up to $2,500 a week… in your spare time?”:
 
What if we could have ONE communication channel that doesn’t get polluted by marketers trying to hijack it? There is no refuge anymore! I remember when the only things in my inbox were things I wanted. I remember when I didn’t get blasted with texts from companies that don’t even know me. I am a marketer, and I understand the need to reach out. But damn it, we need some spaces where we’re not getting marketed to.
 
I do get it. Every time someone invents a great new communication tool, someone else invents a way to sneak marketing messages past the gatekeeper. And then someone else invents some protection. And usually, someone else invents a way to overcome that block.
 
Postal mail begat bulk mail, which begat opening mail over the recycle bin, which begat postcards and envelope teasers. Telephones begat outbound call centers, which begat caller ID, which begat robocalls with spoofed IDs. Email begat spam, which begat spam filters, which begat messages crafted to go around them, which begat Google’s Promotions and Social folders (which severely impacted legitimate newsletter publishers and didn’t seem to hurt the spammers much). 
 
It’s an arms race. The Cold War in all your inboxes. Ads in toilet stalls. Digital ads on billboards changing every few seconds. Ads on the frame around the taxi rates placard on the divider between the front and back seats in a cab.
 
But here’s the thing: all of these intrusive methods are dinosaur-marketing. Seth Godin told us 20 years ago about permission marketing.
Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.
Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.
 
Seth has permission to be in MY mailbox. His daily blog shows up every day. I actually open and read every column for his useful information and fresh perspectives. Often, he offers a program or product—but it’s in context .
 
Seth walks his talk. And I buy from him occasionally. (I also sometimes share or email him comments. That, plus writing a great book, got him to endorse my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.)
 
You don’t win customers by shouting louder; you win them by being relevant and helpful, and using the technology intelligently:
  • Instead of random texting, text your own customers who’ve given you their mobile numbers as they show up within a mile of you, with friendly, helpful information about today’s cool event (yes, geotexting exists)
  • Instead of using robocalls to make deceptive offers, use them to notify your customer base of important news, like a weather-related school closing or a construction delay on a major artery
  • If your Facebook page uses the automated FB Messenger feature, send links to your FAQ and three most popular or useful pages on your own website—but also make sure you have a human being reading the inbound messages and responding quickly. And figure out a way to only send that autoresponder the first time you get a PM from any specific person.

So here’s MY soft-sell pitch at the end of this useful (I hope) content: if you need help developing non-intrusive, welcomed marketing, drop me a line or give me a call. Especially if your business or product/service/idea contributes to environmental and social good.

 
 
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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, media-general, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

I’m a big fan of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. She’s been my Senator for more than six years, and I was aware of her consumer advocacy for several years before that. In the crowded field of Democrats seeking the presidency, she’s my top choice.

BUT I still think she made a big mistake turning down a chance to broadcast a Town Hall meeting on Fox news.

I’ve been puzzling about this for almost two weeks, looking for something fresh to say that hasn’t been said before, as in this article by Megan Day:

In Warren’s scenario, Fox News’s politics will be defeated by a few principled liberal politicians engaging in a media blackout. In [Bernie] Sanders’s, Fox News’s politics will be defeated when the Left convinces a significant portion of the Right’s working-class base that they’ve been duped, and that the pro-worker left best represents their political interests...

By refusing to go on Fox News, Warren has demonstrated that she doesn’t take this task as seriously as she ought to. As Sanders has plainly stated, the power of the capitalist class is so formidable that it will take a huge movement of millions of united workers to actually overcome it in reality. Warren’s policy ideas are frequently excellent, but without a fundamental orientation toward the very people who stand to benefit from them, they stand little chance of materializing.

I agree with  Day. Warren’s better policy initiatives are not enough if she’s going to rely on the liberal elite to make them a reality.

And she should know this. She’s a born organizer, and her speeches are very approachable. Like that guy in the White House, she understands how to talk to ordinary people with in some cases limited education, to make them feel excited by (and ownership of) her ideas.

Yes, Fox is toxic. But when people have swallowed poison, you go in and pump their stomachs. The argument she makes that she doesn’t want to enrich the network or legitimize it seems spurious. After all, Bernie Sanders attacked Fox during the Town Hall they gave him and televised.

And then it hit me that my own start in journalism was very relevant.

In 1972, as a 15-year-old junior at Bronx High School of Science, I got my first article bylines–covering peace demonstrations and other progressive events. I didn’t get them in the official school newspaper; writing for Science Survey was only an option for the students in the honors journalism English class.

I got them in one of the school’s underground papers. A paper called Insight, published by a small group of right-wingers who identified as libertarians. They ran my stuff with disclaimers: “the following article does not reflect the views of the management,” etc.

But they ran my stuff! I was able to share my viewpoint, encourage the peace and environmental agendas of groups I was involved with, and build a publication portfolio that led to a 45-year writing career and the authorship of 10 books and thousands of articles.

And even at the time, I felt that maybe the best part was that they put me in front of an audience that was skeptical of my views. They gave me a forum to reach people who disagreed with me. I have no idea if I changed anyone’s mind, but I was given that chance.

Elizabeth should have taken that chance, too.

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