CSR is nice, but just give me good phone service

AT&T is running a commercial (at least online) where it talks about how they’re switching their trucks to American trucks and running them on natural gas.

All “socially-conscious” stuff.

I get it… CSR is in right now. I get that the commercial was being played before an online video of a person being interviewed about socially conscious stuff. I get that the ad spend was probably not nearly as much as a comparative tv spot. So it was hitting on a trend, it was well targeted and relatively speaking cost effective.

So it was a great ad right? I’m not so sure.

You’re advertising for telecommunications company; phone, TV, etc. While being socially conscious is good, and may cause me to differentiate between low cost items (like cereal) I have trouble thinking someones going to choose to switch to a new cellphone service based on what kind of trucks AT&T uses.

I’ll bet they even did surveys that said people were morely likely to use AT&T products after seeing these commercials. But remember, more likely doesn’t always mean likely.

Never Let Your Image Define You

I was watching an interview the other night of Mitchell Joachim. He’s a Ph.D. he’s earned degrees from very prestigious institutes, clearly a very smart guy. He was doing the interview to promote his Non-profit organization Terraform ONE which wants to “integrate ecological Principals in the urban realm.” If you want to know more look it up… the argument he’s making isn’t really the point.

Now when he came on the show he had a suit on which was nice, but his hair was long, braided and basically looked like something you would associate with a hippy.

I have no problem with his hair, nor do I have any problems with hippies. Yet they’ve been associated with/mocked for lazyness, drug use, and unrealistic idealism. And by allowing himself to be put into that box I fear it distracts from his arguments. He’s essentially asking people to make fundamental changes in the way we build things and do things. These are not simple requests.

When he has hair like that he gives small minded people an easy excuse to dismiss him. They can say oh look he’s clearly a hippy just trying to do some silly idealistic stuff that will never happen.

He’s giving them a chance to focus on who he is rather than the strength of the arguments.

The same applies for the marijuana activist appearing to be a hippy stoner or gay rights activist appearing to be overly flamboyant.

Certainly in some cases an image can help you make an argument. An insurance guy will wear a suit when he wants to look professional or a polo shirt if he wants to appear casual/part of the family.

The point? Don’t give people the chance to dismiss you; make them focus on your arguments.