corporate campaigns

Advertisers are increasingly writing swear words into television commercial scripts just so they can bleep them out. The practice, which has been especially noticeable on YouTube, gives viewers a strong illusion of authenticity by creating scenes that appear to be "real life moments." Writing bleeped swear words into a script grabs viewers' attention, and the millions of people who have been downloading YouTube advertisements that contain bleeped swear words proves the effectiveness of the strategy. This is an example of advertisers using prohibition as a "persuasive branding technique." In other words, they know that making something seem forbidden increases its appeal. Movie makers apply the same strategy when they include an extra track of out-takes, bloopers and mistakes on movie DVDs. This makes the movie seem more "real" to people, and draws more viewers to it. Manufacturing fake reality can have drawbacks, though. When discovered, it can backfire and people will rebel against it. Authentic authenticity is still the best.

When the major American tobacco companies signed the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with the 46 states who sued to recover the costs of treating sick smokers, the companies agreed to nominal advertising restrictions and massive yearly payouts to the states. Lawyers who made money on the settlement began donating heavily to the Democratic Party, which opposes the corporate-organized "tort reform movement" that works to block such suits in the future. The massive lawsuit, subsequent settlement and increased donations to the Democratic Party (particularly in the South) sparked a vicious, under-the-radar war between Southern Democrats, the Republican Party and its corporate allies. Raw Story exposes the serious repercussions the tobacco settlement has had on the integrity of U.S. elections, particularly in the Southern U.S., as the Republican Party and corporate interests seek to cut off Democratic donations and exact retribution on lawyers and public officials involved in the original lawsuit.

You've heard the term "greenwashing." It refers to corporations that try to appear "green" without reducing their negative impact on the environment.

Since 2002, the group Breast Cancer Action has promoted its "Think Before You Pink" campaign. It's fighting "pinkwashing," which is when corporations try to boost sales by associating their products with the fight against breast cancer. Pinkwashing is a form of slacktivism -- a campaign that makes people feel like they're helping solve a problem, while they're actually doing more to boost corporate profits. Pinkwashing has been around for a while, but is now reaching almost unbelievable levels.

If producers anticipated that the new movie "Sex and the City" might be a marketing bonanza, it did not disappoint. Vanity Fair magazine sent two reporters to view the movie and count the number of promotional products that appeared on-screen, including any blatantly-mentioned brand names. The movie mentioned no fewer than 26 different clothing and accessory designers, eight stores and services, seven gadgets (including Carrie's Apple computer, an iPhone and a Blackberry), seven publications, seven drinks and snacks, five pharmacy products (like shampoo and moisturizer) and eight places or conveyances (like American Airlines, Mercedes-Benz and the Four Seasons Hotel). The movie in fact proved to be such a prominent vehicle for advertising that a New Line Cinema executive dubbed it the "Super Bowl for women."

Recently while browsing the Web I came across UrbanDictionary.com, which is sort of a wiki of contemporary slang. I found some of the newer words listed there amusing, like "hobosexual" (the opposite of metrosexual; someone who cares little about their looks), "consumerican," ("a particularly American brand of consumerism"), and "wikidemia" ("an academic work passed off as scholarly yet researched entirely on Wikipedia").

Then I came across a word that put me into a more thoughtful zone: "slacktivism."

"Slacktivism" (alternative spelling "slactivism") is a fusion of the words "slacker" and "activism," and UrbanDicationary.com defines it as "the act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem." It refers to ersatz acts that people perform that they have somehow come to believe are full of meaning, like slapping a magnetic ribbon on your car to "support the troops," wearing a colored rubber wristband to "fight cancer," or refusing to buy gasoline on a certain day to protest high gas prices, instead of, say, actually changing your lifestyle to use less gas.

Menthol cigarette ad targeting African AmericansThe National African American Tobacco Prevention Network (NAATPN) has withdrawn its support for a bill allowing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products. The legislation would ban spice, fruit and candy flavorings from cigarettes, but quietly exempted menthol flavoring from regulation. Legislators included the exemption to gain support for the bill from Philip Morris, the country's largest cigarette maker. Menthol cigarettes are disproportionately popular among African American smokers; 70 to 75 percent of this group smoke menthols compared to about 30 percent of the general smoking population. African Americans also suffer a disproportionately high share of smoking-related cancers. NAATPN executive director William S. Robinson said that instead of a reasonable explanation for why menthol was excluded from the bill, he received "weak and flimsy" excuses from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the health group that worked behind the scenes with Philip Morris to create the legislation.

Rachael Ray Dunkin Donuts ad featuring controversial scarfDunkin' Donuts pulled an online ad for frozen lattes featuring domestic maven Rachael Ray after receiving complaints from right-wing bloggers, including conservative FOX News commentator Michelle Malkin, that a black-and-white paisley scarf Ray wore in the ad too closely resembled a traditional Arab headdress called a kaffiyeh. Malkin wrote that the scarf resembled "a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos," and that "the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not-so-ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities and left-wing icons." Amahl Bishara, a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Chicago who specializes in media matters about the Middle East said, "Kaffiyehs are worn every day on the street by Palestinians and other people in the Middle East -- by people going to work, going to school, taking care of their families, and just trying to keep warm ... To reduce their meaning to support for terrorism has a tacit racist tone to it."

When a patient checks into a hospital or goes to see a doctor, they are typically handed a booklet called "Notice of Privacy Practices" and are asked to sign a document acknowledging that they received the information. Patients assume that these "privacy practices" are in place to protect their personal information and that doctors and hospitals will keep their information in strictest confidence. In reality, patients usually overlook fine print contained in these documents that say that hospitals can share their personal information and use it for fundraising purposes. Thus someone who checks into the hospital for a heart ailment can later be solicited to help pay for expensive new hospital equipment or a new diagnostic wing. Fundraising professionals call this "high touch direct mail," but others think gathering marketing information this way is disrespectful to patients. Dr. Steven Fugaro, an internist and president of the San Francisco Medical Society, says the practice raises ethical concerns. "When you go to Macy's or Wal-Mart or buy a car, it has come to be expected that your name will be used for commercial purposes. But ... people come to us because they are sick. They have an expectation that their names will be kept private, even the fact that they were treated by the doctor or a hospital." Most patients are unaware that health care privacy laws are being used to harvest marketing data.

The proposed Food and Drug Administration tobacco bill currently under consideration would ban artificial flavors like cinnamon and cherry from cigarettes, but strangely gives special protection to menthol. Public health advocates wonder why menthol has been exempted from the bill, especially when it masks the harsh taste of cigarettes for beginners. A 2006 study also showed that menthol makes it harder for addicted smokers to quit. Menthol brands are also disproportionately popular among African Americans; seventy percent of blacks smoke menthols, compared to only 30 percent of whites. While African Americans smoke less than whites overall, they suffer higher rates of cancer and other tobacco-induced diseases. Despite all this, legislators believe that menthol cannot be eliminated as a cigarette flavoring under the bill because menthol is crucial to the $70 billion cigarette market. It is of particular importance to Philip Morris, which has been planning for, and driving FDA regulation of cigarettes since 1999. The watered-down terms resulted from legislators' belief that the bill won't pass without PM's buy-in.

Author Eric Schlosser editorializes about "the growing threat to civil liberties posed by corporate spying," citing Burger King Corporation's spying on the Student/Farmworker Alliance and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers through Cara Schaffer and her private security firm, Diplomatic Tactical Services. "The Bill of Rights was adopted to protect Americans from the abusive power of their government. I've come to believe that we now need a similar set of restrictions to defend against irresponsible corporate power. Today companies like Wal-Mart and ExxonMobil have annual revenues larger than the entire budgets of some states, and they employ former agents from the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and the Secret Service to do security work," Schlosser writes. "John Chidsey, the chief executive of Burger King, knew about the use of Diplomatic Tactical Services. Mr. Chidsey should get a chance to raise his right hand and tell members of Congress why he thinks this sort of behavior is acceptable." Meanwhile, Burger King says it is "investigating online postings made by one of its vice presidents vilifying the Coalition of Immokalee Workers," reports the Fort Myers News-Press.