What’s In This Issue?
This Week’s Main Stories
Story 01Mattel Launches the World's First Gender-Neutral Doll
Story 02Instagram's New Bully Blocker Feature Is Psychologically Brilliant
Story 03TikTok Bans Lies From Politicians, Facebook Makes Lying Easier
Story 04Banksy Fights Rip-Offs By Launching His Own Store
Story 05Why Dick's Banned Assault Weapons, and Then Destroyed ThemMattel Launches the World's First Gender-Neutral Doll
It's been a busy week for the reevaluation of gender. Early in the week Merriam-Webster announced they would be adding the non-binary "them" to their dictionary. And then Mattel launches a doll that can present as a male, female or both with the tagline - "a doll line designed to keep labels out and invite everyone in." Plenty of research has concluded that gender norms are established early in childhood, and so the efforts of toy-makers are particularly important to watch as our culture reframes the conversation around what gender actually means.
Instagram's New Bully Blocker Feature Is Psychologically Brilliant
How do you deal with a bully on social media? For years the answer has been that you block them, but that same bully can always show up with another account. Instagram's new "Restrict" feature has a clever solution to the problem ... let users restrict another user quietly, and without the bully even knowing (and so they have no reason to try and retaliate or get more vocal). The bully can continue posting mean stuff, no one sees it (including the user), and everyone but the bully wins. Simple, and brilliant.
TikTok Bans Lies From Politicians, Facebook Makes Lying Easier
David Ogilvy, the iconic advertising leader, famously once said "political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left." This week emerging platform TikTok officially banned political advertising. Facebook went in the opposite direction - choosing to open its platform to allow politicians to lie even more easily. While this article suggests that might be the right choice - I think the solution is even simpler. To eliminate the toxicity of political advertising: just make it illegal to mention your opponent. Let politicians spend money to talk about why they deserve to win. DON'T let them spend money on attack ads telling you why their opponent doesn't deserve to win. What do you think?
Banksy Fights Rip-Offs By Launching His Own Store
The more famous artist Banksy gets, the more he has to contend with people seeking to turn a profit by creating knock-offs of his work. To fight back, this week he launched his own flagship store -- Gross Domestic Product, in order to sell his work directly to fans. As this article notes, it's a shame he has to even do this ... but judging by the collab launching this Friday between IKEA and Virgil Abloh, this commercialism of art seems likely to happen increasingly often.
Why Dick's Banned Assault Weapons, and Then Destroyed Them
For years the NRA has been masterfully evil in lobbying on behalf of the gun industry to resist any limitations at all on gun ownership. You might have seen the news this week that Dick's Sporting Goods not only banned the sales of assault style weapons in their stores, but also chose to destroy inventory rather than returning it so that it would not end up in other consumer's hands. This HBR interview with CEO Ed Stack is a great exploration of the bravery involved in taking a principled and rational Brand Stand. Not to mention a masterclass in how to perfectly coincide timing a controversial move with promoting your new book about brand purpose. That is some smart PR strategy right there.
