In an anxious time, ads tug at our heartstrings -- Dec. 16, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Time magazine picked Elon Musk as its 2021 Person of the Year – the individual “who most shaped the previous 12 months, for better or for worse.”

Musk, with his Tesla and SpaceX companies, emerged this year “not just as the world’s richest person but also as perhaps the richest example of a massive shift in our society,” Time fawned. “Like it or not we are now in Musk’s world.”

Well, maybe. I’ve never ridden in a Tesla, nor do I plan to any trips into space, although I know someone who loves playing Solitaire while letting his Tesla maneuver through highway traffic.

Even if the car is amazing, I can’t imagine a Tesla exerting the emotional pull of a restored 1966 Chevy Impala convertible like the one in “Holiday Ride,” Chevrolet’s new commercial. The four-minute version is a movie unto itself about grief, love and the power of memories.

With so many of us on edge in year two of a merciless pandemic, the Chevy ad is one of several holiday commercials that tug at our heart strings and show us our humanity.

Spoiler alert – I will be telling the stories of these ads. The Chevy commercial features a grieving widower in rural America who visits the dusty, dilapidated Impala in the barn, fighting tears as he holds a photo of a smiling young woman, presumably his late wife, in happy times with the new car.

His daughter sees him putting holiday wreaths on the barn door and secretly enlists local mechanics for “night work.” They painstakingly restore the car to its former glory for a surprise reveal.

It’s “the best Christmas gift I could ever have,” dad tells daughter, and they and their dog hop in for a spin.  If you don’t tear up watching, you may have left your heart in 2020.

“Kindness, the Greatest Gift,” set to Adele’s new song “Hold On,” features the kindness of strangers during the pandemic. In this Amazon global holiday campaign ad, we see a young woman university student alone, struggling to return to near-normal life. 

In a park, an older woman neighbor, feeding birds from her palm, notices the younger woman sitting alone, seemingly downcast.

Back in her apartment, the older woman hears a news report about young people being anxious during the pandemic. She orders something on her cell phone from, of course, Amazon. The younger woman receives the surprise gift of a bird feeder and is touched by the kind gesture. The ad fades out with the two talking and sharing a park bench.

“The past 18 months have been challenging for people across the globe, including many young adults,” Ed Smith, an executive at Amazon European Union, said in a statement. “So this year, whilst the world will not be totally back to normal, opportunities for kindness and connection will take on a newfound importance.”

Another European commercial available to watch online comes from Posten, the postal service of Norway. The heartwarming, adult-themed “When Harry Met Santa” imagines brief, Christmas Eve encounters that evolve over years into a romance. The ad celebrates the 50^th anniversary in 2022 of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Norway and the postal service’s commitment to diversity.

Closer to home and more traditional is a Wegmans Food Markets broadcast ad, which features a young boy energetically and enthusiastically doing chores – raking leaves, pushing a heavy trash bin to the curb, delivering huge pots of mums, shoveling snow and putting up holiday lights.

As his family celebrates with a big holiday dinner, presumably from Wegmans, the boy dishes up a plate of food and takes it next door. Viewers realize then he has been doing the chores not for his own family but for his neighbor, an elderly woman. She comes to the door and is touched and surprised by the gift of food.

The ad is one of three in a campaign Wegmans calls “Back to Happy.” They use as a theme the children’s song, “The more we get together, the happier we’ll be.”

And, so, may we all be happier on Earth this holiday season – even if we must steer our own cars through the traffic to get together with family and friends.

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Can anyone save what's left of privacy? -- May 9, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

First came the email saying my credit card may have been compromised “at an undisclosed merchant,” and the bank was sending a replacement card.

Wait, what happened? And what’s an undisclosed merchant, anyway? When I called to find out, the customer representative said the bank doesn’t share that information.

The bank says it gets information from various outside sources – such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express and law enforcement agencies – and details about a specific breach are not disclosed, even to the bank.

That’s good, I guess, but it leaves customers in the dark.

My new card arrived promptly, and I started updating accounts where my credit card is on file for payments. That’s a downside of convenience and reward points.

We’ve all been there. No matter how hard we try to preserve a semblance of control over our personal data, we constantly lag enterprising crooks.

What we don’t willingly share on social media, companies “harvest” for their own business purposes. That word, harvest, grates on me, but, like it or not, our personal information is a commodity.

In our hyper-connected age, privacy is melting faster than glaciers on our warming planet.

Now, Congress -- after years of railing about the loss of privacy -- is holding hearings on the issue and fussing at corporate leaders. But lawmakers are divided on how to write a federal privacy law to replace our confusing patchwork of state and federal laws.  

The Federal Trade Commission is cracking down somewhat on Facebook and other mega companies that shirk their responsibilities.

Even social media and tech giants claim they’re on our side and promise – again – to do more to protect our privacy.

“The future is private,” Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg declared April 30, insisting he was serious.  

Facebook is negotiating with the Federal Trade Commission a fine up to $5 billion  in a settlement for failing to abide by a 2011 consent decree to protect users’ privacy.

Facebook shared the personal information of about 87 million users -- without their knowledge or consent – with Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm that has since gone out of business. 

The fine, expected any day, would be the largest in American history, and may require the company to take such steps as appointing a top level privacy official and a privacy oversight committee.

It’s just a slap on the wrist, critics say.

Two senators, Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Josh Hawley of Missouri, say the enormous fine is a “bargain for Facebook.” They suggest the FTC hold Zuckerberg and other corporate leaders personally responsible.

Facebook is redesigning and updating its services to encourage private messages, communication within groups and Story. Stories disappear 24 hours after they’re posted.

Other companies now use privacy as a selling point, following Apple’s lead.

“We believe privacy is a fundamental human right,” Apple’s website says.

But it doesn’t come cheap. Apple’s budget iPhone XR starts at $749.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times Tuesday: “Privacy cannot be a luxury good offered only to people who can afford to buy premium products and services.”

Google unveiled a $399 smartphone and promised tools to help customers control their data, such as expanding incognito mode, which allows users to search without being identified, to maps and other apps. 

Our smart products already record and send back our conversations and activities – often to train artificial intelligence, but still. Amazon workers and contractors reportedly listen to consumers’ conversations with Alexa. That’s creepy.

And, Amazon’s Key will deliver your online purchases inside your home, car or garage.

All Prime members need do is allow access to their property. A promotional video shows happy people opening their car trunk, garage and front door and finding packages safe and sound. What could go wrong?

In this fast-changing world, we can’t expect the government to save our privacy. And we can’t trust the big tech companies to have our privacy at heart.

We each must decide how much we want smart machines to do for us and how much privacy we’re willing to give up for the convenience.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Taxpayers subsidize Amazon. (Amazon?!) We shouldn't have to. -- Sept. 6, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

President Donald J. Trump rails against Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, because Trump hates the Post’s tough coverage of his administration. For Trump, it’s always all about him.

Former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders attacks Bezos because he’s the richest man on earth and chief executive of Amazon. Thousands of Amazon workers reportedly make so little they have to rely on public assistance. For Sanders, it’s about taxpayers subsidizing the rich.

Must be an election year.

“The American people are tired of subsidizing multi-billionaires who own some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America,” Sanders, a Vermont independent, said Wednesday when he proposed the Stop BEZOS Act -- Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act.

Nothing subtle in that stiletto-knife acronym.   

The measure would require companies with more than 500 workers to reimburse, in effect, the government for federal benefits their low-wage workers receive. If an Amazon worker received $2,000 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly food stamps, Amazon would be taxed $2,000 to cover the cost.

Amazon.com Inc. reached $1 trillion in market value Tuesday, and Bezos’ personal net worth is somewhere in the stratosphere of $167 billion. Naturally people resent him and Amazon’s ever-expanding reach into our lives -- even as we enjoy one-click ordering and same-day delivery.

Amazon is not the only employer that relies on the kindness of taxpayers. Workers at Walmart, Burger King, McDonalds and American Airlines, among others, get federal assistance.     

“Thousands of American workers have to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing to survive. That is what a rigged economy looks like,” Sanders tweeted.

Rep. Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, has introduced a similar bill in the House.

But don’t get your hopes -- or your dander -- up. These bills are dead. Nothing will come of them.

Like Trump’s claim Bezos should pay higher delivery fees to the U.S. Postal Service, Sanders is making a political point. Sanders’ bill is still significant because it is ludicrous that taxpayers have to plump the bottom line of companies like Amazon.

A living wage is still a dream for many in this country. Congress refuses to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour, though many states have. About 39.6 million Americans still need SNAP benefits, despite Republican efforts to pare the rolls.

Taxing the companies is pleasantly punitive but it wouldn’t put a dime in workers’ pockets and could provide a disincentive to hire poor people.

Amazon reported its median salary was $28,446 last year but insists that’s the global median and include part-time workers. The median salary in the United States is $34,123, and full-time employees receive generous benefits, the company said. Median, as you know, means half the people make more and half less.

But, Sanders said, the figures are misleading because Amazon hires 40 percent of its workforce as temporary workers, and their pay isn’t included.

At a “CEOs vs Workers” panel Sanders held in July, Seth King, an eight-year Navy vet who worked at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Chester, Va., talked about working conditions.   

On his feet for 10 hours, he was not allowed to sit down or talk to coworkers in his aisle, and work goals were unattainable, he said. Isolated and depressed, he quit after two months. Sanders plans to visit the Chester facility this month.

Sanders Wednesday shared this story from a current employee:  

“I work 40 hours a week at $13.25. I have 2 kids to support. I receive 90 dollars of food stamps . . . I don’t make enough to eat lunch at work so I split a protein shake between 2 meals to make sure my children eat,” the worker wrote.

Is this the kind of country we want?

Sanders says billionaires like Bezos and the Walton family of Walmart need to get off corporate welfare and pay their workers a living wage. A Democratic Congress might nudge them in that direction.

Trump says the economy has never been better, he’s doing the best job of any president ever, and everybody’s rich. He wants a Republican Congress so he can keep things as they are.

For me, there’s no contest.   

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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