Tag: customers

You Don’t Get Leg Room!

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics6 Comments

(Satire) A MESSAGE FROM THE AIRLINES TO ALL OF YOU

We’re the airlines.

1-05-006There aren’t many of us.

That gives us monopoly power.

Let us make this clear to you.

We make the rules and you pay us money.

Don’t be crying to your congressmen.

We own them.

You want leg room.

Pay us more money.

That’s the rules.

You don’t live in a free market.

If you did, we would compete and there would be leg room.

You don’t live in a democracy.

If you did Congress would stop us from denying you leg room.

So be obedient,

and give us the money.

And, in case, you forgot, we are the makers, the creators of value in this country and you are the takers.

Stop whining.

I firmly believe that is how our “benefactors,” in this case, the airlines feel about how things work in this country. Yes, I’m shrill and mean. But Americans have to sit in cramped seats for hours because the airlines exert monopoly power and they own our gerrymandered representatives the way farmers used to own cows and chickens.

Millions of Americans ride the airlines and because of how this system is constructed, their voices are of no importance.

And let me remind you, that because of the miraculous powers of the invisible hand and the free market, none of these leg room problems are happening or can happen. The market should have provided leg room for all at good prices because of the wonders of competition.

Neoliberal economics is simply a fantasy for the well to do.

James Pilant

From the BBC:

In recent years, airlines looking for cost savings have reduced the sizes of seats and cut the amount of passenger legroom, among other changes.

Passengers have often complained about the increasingly cramped quarters.

Some flights have been disrupted after disputes broke out among passengers because of seating arrangements.

“It costs you an arm and a leg just to have room for your arms and legs,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, who sponsored the amendment, which was attached to a broader aviation bill.

Many airlines now charge passengers if they want more legroom.

Corporate Reporting?

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

ill_p494Corporate Reporting?

Here is a case of a newspaper printing a more complex form of a corporate news release. This news release was designed and marketed to the public as a product of the newspaper when in fact it was sophisticated advertising.

If we analyze this in terms of stakeholder analysis, the shareholders are doing very well. More profits – more dividends.

Of course, another set of stakeholders would be the customers. These unfortunates were and probably are under the misapprehension that they were reading the work of journalists.

With a little work, the newspaper could convert itself totally into an advertisement and avoid all journalism.

James Pilant

The Denver Post’s ‘Energy And Environment’ Section Is Produced By The Oil And Gas Industry | ThinkProgress

The Post’s advertising section may have ruffled a few feathers in Colorado, but the paper is hardly the first news organization to have stories, or even entire sections, sponsored by outside advertisers. Congressional news organization Roll Call has two sponsored sections — a Boeing-sponsored defense section and, similar to the Denver Post, an energy section sponsored by BP.

The Atlantic’s sponsored content caused a stir last year, when the website posted a sponsored story about the church of Scientology. The story was later taken down after readers and other news outlets took notice, and the Atlantic issued an apology for posting the sponsored content. The New York Times, Time, BuzzFeed and TPM have also ventured into sponsored content.

And while one of the major concerns of news organizations and advocacy groups is whether or not readers will recognize sponsored content as advertising, Kelly McBride, senior faculty member for ethics at the Poynter Institute, told ThinkProgress that not much is known yet about how readers respond to sponsored content.

“Clearly news organizations have got to find new sources of revenue, and I think sponsored content is a stream of revenue many news organizations are turning towards,” she said. “We don’t know much about how consumers perceive sponsored content — we haven’t seen many good studies yet.”

via The Denver Post’s ‘Energy And Environment’ Section Is Produced By The Oil And Gas Industry | ThinkProgress.

From Around the Web.

From the web site,

http://allfacebook.com/facebook-featured-stories_b73405

Brace yourself for the wave of complaints that will surely come: As previously announced, Facebook began to add sponsored stories to users’ news feeds Tuesday.

The sponsored stories contain an indication next to the time stamp that the post is “featured,” and users need not worry about random ad content infiltrating their news feeds, as the only sponsored stories they will see are from pages they have already liked.

Content from pages users’ friends have liked and interacted with may appear, as well, but advertisers cannot alter the messages included with that content.

Sister blog Inside Facebook reported that Facebook will initially limit sponsored stories in the news feed to one per day, and they will not appear when the social network is accessed on mobile devices.

TechCrunch took issue with the language being used by Facebook, saying that “featured” doesn’t denote that the content is paid advertising, and that posts labeled with that word could be mistaken for popular content.

Inside Facebook also reported that Facebook teamed up with sandwich chain Which Wich to test the offering of coupons to users who have liked the Which Wich page. As of late Tuesday, more than 4,300 of the chain’s 104,000-plus Facebook fans had claimed a coupon for a free 22-ounce soft drink with the purchase of a sandwich. We wonder if coupons will be an option for featured stories at some point in the future.

Marketing as a Four-Letter Word_ Round 2 (via Heretical Thoughts of an Archivist)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Any time I see someone talk like this, I feel a certain pride in the tenacity of the human spirit to refuse to conform to the culture of greed, conformity and that abomination, “emotional intelligence.”

I think this post represents a high standard of morality compared to much of the marketing I see. I am pleased to re-post this work.

James Pilant

Peter Drucker said that “the aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” He uses a similar maxim, quoted by former pupil William A. Cohen, to the effect that good marketing makes sales unnecessary. In the first case, he is discussing knowing the customer well enough to know his need, and then apply innovation and find a way to meet that need. In the second he is speaking of kn … Read More

via Heretical Thoughts of an Archivist