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This is indeed the season of good cheer, merriment...and lumps of coal for those who have not been as good as Santa would like. So here is my first annual holiday "Lump of Coal" Award.
I do not know what criterion Santa uses, but my only constraint is that I don't go the big, obvious, "Madoff is a bum" route. That kind of villainy and treachery gets plenty of coverage.
My selection is on a smaller scale. That's because just as I usually leave the coverage of multi-million dollar TV campaigns to blogs that specialize in that sort of thing, and concern myself more with things that might affect my small business audience, this is purely the result of my saying to myself, "Hey, that's not nice."
This year's winner/loser is Dan Ariely. He recently wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal offering tips for selecting presents that please. The paragraph that caught my eye, and made Dan a finalist for my prize, was this: Another category of gift, which I like a lot, is what I call "paternalistic" gifts—things you think somebody else should have. I like a certain Green Day album or Julian Barnes novel or the book "Predictably Irrational" and I think that you should like it too.
Now, there is no reason why that paragraph should give you pause, unless, like me, you read the entire article and then went on to the credit after the end of the story. Which states Mr. Agley teaches at Duke University and is the author of "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden forces That Shape Our Decisions.
So the book he is recommending in the article, as one he likes and thinks you should like too, is one that he wrote himself. Full disclosure...oh, wait, he had no disclosure.
So again, in the scheme of things, with all that is going on in the world, this scarcely merits a slap on the wrist. But as an example of what I would classify as marketing chicanery, it certainly deserves a lump of coal.
Get the idea?
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