Terry Levine | Noggin Advertising | Copywriter | Digital + Direct Writer | Blogging | Toronto | Canada

HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MARKETING

We've all experienced it first-hand or heard about it on the news: weaselly companies that screw up or screw customers then refuse to even apologize for fear of exposing themselves to litigation, let alone try to make things right.

So it's surprising when a company does quite the opposite. Today, I received this email from car2go (or you can view it below). I should say I've been a big fan of the car share company for about a year. It's made my life easier and saved me a ton of money. But, it's just a faceless company, like so many other faceless companies, and I can't say I intended to be particularly loyal to it if something better came along -- until I got that email.

car2go, you had me at 'Hello Toronto'.

Marketers at other big name companies could learn a thing or two from this email. Rogers, for instance, which gave me heart palpitations last year over a billing problem. Or Mastercard or American Express, which I've had run-ins with in the past. Or even my condo corporation that refused to pay for damage done to my home even when it acknowledges the damage was caused by something out of my control and entirely within the corporation's. But I digress.

Why is this car2go email so awesome?

First off, timeliness. CMO Paul DeLong (or whichever lovely copywriter wrote the letter for him) notified me about a snafu that happened this week -- one incidentally, I didn't even realize had happened -- in which some car2go rides were charged twice.

Second, admission of guilt. Paul doesn't make excuses for the glitch. He takes full responsibility.

Third, resolution. car2go isn't even giving me the chance to call to complain. It's already fixing the problem.

Fourth, restitution. car2go is giving me 30 minutes of drive time free as a peace offering.

So to recap: A company makes a big mistake with its customers. It notifies them even before many or most of them even knew there was a problem. It admits to the error and offers a swift resolution. And it makes amends.

Now, if you're a small business, this sort of behavior isn't foreign to you. If it is you probably still aren't in business. But I've never seen a big company do something like this and do it so well.

So, to the other big businesses out there, who prefer to view customers as adversaries to gouge instead of allies to build relationships with, read car2go's email carefully and take a lot of notes.

It will be on the test.

SCOTLAND: YES OR NO?

The Scottish go to the polls on Thursday to decide whether to remain part of the United Kingdom or disolve the 300-year-old union with Wales and Northern Ireland.

Like in a marriage, economics favor keeping the parties together -- after so much time the Scottish and English people have simply grown dependent on each other and separation would make them both poorer. But like in a divorce, it's often not financial considerations that hold the most sway -- it's emotion. Or another way for the Scottish to weight their decision: do they hate their partner more than they love their pocketbook?

The Czechs and Slovaks and the Sudanese and South Sudanese chose to go their separate ways. But one could argue none of these countries had much of a pocketbook to be worried about losing. Quebecers voted twice on whether to separate from the rest of Canada and twice concluded it wasn't worth the risk. Better a loveless marriage than the possibility of living in a basement apartment eating Mac & Cheese -- or poutine, as the case may be.

The Scottish face a similar dilemma. There's no love lost between them and the English, in theory. But in practice, the two nations are closely bound -- financially, culturally and biologically.

Recent genetic research, in fact, concludes -- to the probably dissatisfaction of the Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English -- that they are a single people that arrived from Spain about 16,000 years ago speaking a language related to Basque, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans.

In other words, nationalist ideology has brainwashed the Scots and English -- as it brainwashes all of us -- that they're separate people but the truth is the similarities overwhelmingly outweigh the differences. The question for the Scottish on September 18 is whether those little differences matter enough.

ET TU, LIBERAL?

I have been a liberal my entire life. Except for one time in the 1980s when I voted for Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives (or rather against the buffoonish John Turner) I've supported Canadian left-of-centre parties and candidates -- Liberal, NDP or Green for more than 25 years. In US politics, of which I am obsessed, I'm a Barack Obama guy, an Elizabeth Warren guy, a Bernie Sanders guy. Tea Party? Ted Cruz? John Boehner? Ew. Sarah Palin? Don't even...

On social issues, whatever you like goes as long as it doesn't hurt others or impinge on my basic rights and freedoms. Live gay, smoke pot, wear a burqa or go topless. It's your business, not mine. On economic issues, I'm liberal too -- I believe corporate bosses should earn more for their leadership and expertise but they currently grab too much for themselves and don't share enough with workers. I believe we pay a reasonable amount in taxes and we should all do more to protect the environment -- even if that costs us more. Ultimately, my moral compass on capitalism is guided by balance -- if I believed unions were out of control and their demands were hurting productivity and growth, I would back corporations. But that's nowhere near the case at the moment so I'm with the average joe.

Bottom line: I'm liberal. A left-of-centre, middle-of-the-road liberal.

But lately, on two related issues, I find myself too close for my comfort with conservatives and at loggerheads with those I consider my political and philosophical brothers and sisters. Those two issues are Israel and the crisis in the Muslim world.

First, Israel.

Like a broken record, I have made it crystal clear I oppose Israel's continued military occupation of the West Bank and the Israeli settlements built there. Israel should withdraw from the West Bank as it did from Gaza seven years ago and its borders should roughly match the 1948 armistice lines (a.k.a. the 1967 borders). I think Israel needs new leadership that is serious about making peace with Palestine and moderate leaders like Mahmoud Abbas or Salam Fayyad, based on a two-state solution, some shared arrangement on Jerusalem and mutual recognition of each state's legitimacy. I believe Israel should make peace with Fatah in the West Bank even if that leaves an uncompromising and militant Hamas on the sidelines in Gaza. But I believe that while Palestinians may have a right to return to a Palestinian state, they have no right to return to what is legitimate Israeli territory. Israel is open to all faiths and ethnicities, but it is first and foremost a state and safe haven for Jews. Russians, Germans, Ethiopians, Egyptians and Japanese have states. So too must Jews and I make no apology for this. The recent and continued wave of anti-Semitic attacks by mostly Muslim extremists against Jews, synagogues and businesses all over Europe only underscores the importance of there being a homeland for Jews.

That said, all summer I found myself having to defend Israel's right to defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks and threats of tunnel attacks -- a right that isn't questioned for any other country on earth. What surprised and disappointed me most is that the most vocal critics of Israel's defensive actions were friends of mine with whom I agree on most other issues. The gist of their arguments seemed to consistently be "Hamas rockets aren't really killing anyone, so Israel's attacks against Gaza are disproportionate, illegitimate and genocidal" and/or "while Hamas shouldn't be hurling rockets or putting their own civilians in harm's way, they really have no other recourse to stop Israel's brutal occupation, so its actions are justified -- but Israel's actions to stop them are war crimes."

The weeks of heated debates on Facebook, frankly, left me exhausted and depressed. While I hated what Israel was doing, I felt it was entirely justified given the circumstances. You don't fix the wiring while your house is burning, you put out the fire first and address the causes after. Besides, I found my liberal friends to be entirely hypocritical in the way they condemned Israel -- a progressive democracy with challenges but progressive nonetheless -- but gave a Get Out of Jail Free card to Hamas, an Islamofascist organization that oppresses and endangers its own people and openly calls for the murder of Jews everywhere -- the very definition of genocide.

Even worse, I was told by a friend that my position in support of a two-state solution was no longer the moderate or liberal one. What now masquerades as the liberal position? Apparently a one-state solution where Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims and Christians live in one country from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, a state in which Jews would once again become a minority. My friend and others appear eager to give Muslim Arabs another opportunity to show how respectful they can be of minorities -- after such a stellar record of success in all other 21 Muslim Arab countries.

How did it come to this? How could people who fight for equality for women, for gays, for workers, for ethnic and religious minorities, oppose a socially progressive democratic state that's elected a female prime minister, recognizes gay marriage and is home to Jewish synagogues, Christian churches, Muslim mosques and Baha'i temples, and side with a regime whose ideology is better suited to the 15th century, not the 21st?

I was not alone in my disappointment. Two liberals I greatly respect -- Bill Maher and Sam Harris -- were nearly exactly where I was. Yes, Israeli policies had to change but when push came to shove, liberals ought to be standing up for the country and society that shares their values.

Harris wrote:

"[I]n defending its territory as a Jewish state, the Israeli government and Israelis themselves have had to do terrible things. They have, as they are now, fought wars against the Palestinians that have caused massive losses of innocent life. More civilians have been killed in Gaza in the last few weeks than militants. That’s not a surprise because Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Occupying it, fighting wars in it, is guaranteed to get woman and children and other noncombatants killed. And there’s probably little question over the course of fighting multiple wars that the Israelis have done things that amount to war crimes. They have been brutalized by this process—that is, made brutal by it. But that is largely the due to the character of their enemies. Whatever terrible things the Israelis have done, it is also true to say that they have used more restraint in their fighting against the Palestinians than we—the Americans, or Western Europeans—have used in any of our wars. They have endured more worldwide public scrutiny than any other society has ever had to while defending itself against aggressors. The Israelis simply are held to a different standard. And the condemnation leveled at them by the rest of the world is completely out of proportion to what they have actually done."

This, it seemed to me, was the truly liberal democratic point of view. Not the one that sides with despots and extremists, seemingly to prove a point.

Even before the Gaza crisis this summer, there have been signs of this misguided left-wing behavior. Activists in front of a Toronto bookstore (presumably because it's owned by a Jew) calling Israel an Apartheid state -- this while Gaza, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other Arab and Muslim countries persecute religious and ethnic minorities or forbid Jews from living there. Similarly, a group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid tried for a number of years to walk in Toronto's Gay Pride parade in an attempt to shame the only state in the Middle East where these people could live openly as gays. 

Which brings me to my other disagreement with my left-wing brothers: the pass they give extremists in the Muslim world. Over and over, I hear them tell me they are just as likely to criticize the intolerance and crimes of Muslim radicals as Israel's actions toward Palestinians. But it's simply not true, even if you accept the premise that people who hang gays and stone women and people who protect themselves from Hamas or Iranian attacks are equivalent. Where was the social media fury against the Assad regime's murder of hundreds of thousands of Syrians or the ongoing ISIS savagery in Iraq and Syria? Where were the protests at the United Nations or in front of embassies or hurling of rocks at mosques in response to the murder of Yazidi or Christians or beheadings of journalists? Where were the Facebook discussions calling for something to be done to end the torture or killing of gays in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran? In short, where are the accusations of genocide in the face of real genocide? Where are the calls of war crimes in the face of actual war crimes?

Instead, a friend referred to ISIS militants as "terrorists" -- his quotation marks -- as if ISIS wasn't the textbook definition of terror. And the same liberals who called for global action against Israel only a few short weeks before were now criticizing Barack Obama's meager bombing campaign to stop ISIS's slaughter. The message was clear: the world has no business interfering with Muslim extremists murdering Muslims and minorities but a global boycott against a democratic country for defending itself from slightly less extreme extremists than ISIS was entirely justified.

Madness.

So, I find myself in a very strange place. A dyed-in-the-wool liberal standing arm in arm with conservatives on the issues of Israel and Muslim extremism. The fact is, however, I haven't abandoned by liberal values one bit. Rather, it's my liberal friends who have. They say it's not anti-Semitism and I'll take them at their word. But they appear so blinded by their disdain for the legitimacy and necessity of Jewish nationalism, and so fearful to appear politically incorrect in the face of religious extremist violence, that they are compromising their own core principles.

Israel-Palestine is a mess. The Middle East is a disaster. And people of goodwill must find a way to make things better. But at the end of the day, whether we are Muslim, Jew, Christian or atheist, liberal or conservative, we must take a stand -- against those whose goal is to take us backward and solidly with those whose progressive values we cherish.

 

THE POWER TO DO WHAT WE HAVE THE POWER TO DO

When a woman (or man, as the case may be) is in a seemingly unending abusive relationship we justifiably feel bad for her. She has no choice, we say. She stays for the children, we lament. She can’t afford to leave. It’s easy to justify the status quo. But, ultimately, the status quo amounts to a kick of the can and an inconvenient excuse.

Because there is an alternative. Except for rare instances when the woman is literally chained inside the house, she can pack her things, put her kids in the car, and leave. It’s painful and frightening and may be rough for years to come. But, can it be worse than continuous assault or abuse?

Israel and Palestine are in the midst of one of the nastiest, most bitter co-dependent relationships and divorces from hell in history. Both seem to be waiting for the other to change its behavior, to give a goodwill sign that things will get better.

It will not get better.

As long as each side continues with its time-tested, abhorrent, failed policies, nothing will change. As long as Israel continues to quixotically build settlements in the West Bank and bomb Gazan homes/launch pads, Palestinian resentment, hatred and misery will metastasize. And as long as Palestine continues to hurl missiles at Israeli cities, call for its destruction, strap suicide bomb vests onto its teenagers and teach its children that Jews have no legitimate place in historic Palestine, Israelis will be mistrustful and paranoid about Palestinian intentions.

So what to do to end this co-dependent cycle of violence and tragedy? The only solution is a paradigm-shifting move. Israel would love for Hamas to renounce terror, accept Israel as a Jewish state, stop buying missiles from Iran and start building hospitals and schools and businesses. But Israel has zero power to force Hamas to do so. Israel only has the power to do what it has the power to do.

And what Israel has the power to do is pack her things, put her kids in the car and unilaterally leave the West Bank. Will it be painful and scary and uncertain? Yes. Does it come with risks? Yes. Is there another alternative. Absolutely not. The divorce needs to come sooner or later. So why not rip off the Band-Aid and do it? Will peace fall like manna from the sky the next day? Clearly not. Will Israel be free from danger? Certainly not. Instead, however, Israel will have the power, for the first time in 50 years, to shift its focus to building a nation unencumbered by a soul-crushing military occupation.

Israel must give up on wishing for its relationship with Palestine to change. Maybe one day, but right now it cannot. Israel, instead, must summon the courage, at long last, to leave the Palestinian territories on its own terms and find its own way.

One day, Palestinians, with no one left to blame, will have to search their own souls and do the same.

SMALL STEPS AND GIANT LEAPS: REFLECTIONS ON WORLDPRIDE TORONTO 2014

Two seminal turning points in the history of mankind took place within a month of one another 45 years ago in the summer of 1969.

In the early hours of June 28, gays rioted in New York's Greenwich Village following a police raid on a bar called the Stonewall Inn.

Before Stonewall, gay life consisted mostly—though not exclusively—of the torment of living a lie, denying one's sexuality, marrying someone of the opposite sex, lurking in the shadows in parks and in restrooms to have anonymous sex with strangers, and of being cast out by loved ones and society if one's shameful secret was ever exposed.

Immediately after Stonewall came a profound realization—first by gays, then slowly by the straight world around them—that homosexuals could live as productive members of society who just happened to love people of their own sex. In the light of day, gays could finally aspire to anything, do anything, be anything they wanted.

Twenty-two days after Stonewall, on July 20, the second earthshaking event that summer took place—men landed on the moon for the first time. It was the exclamation point to a decade-long race inspired by a martyred president who called on Americans—and humanity—to dream, and it made everyone feel like they could truly aspire to anything, do anything, be anything they wanted.

John F. Kennedy said:

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”

A little more than three years after the Apollo 11 landing, the last man would walk on the moon and within a generation of the Stonewall riots, HIV AIDS would decimate the gay community. Darkness fell once more and people, too busy surviving, forgot how inspiring it felt to dream.

But not entirely.

The first gay liberation parade—as it was called back then—was held one year after the Stonewall riots to:

“…encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle in which we are engaged—that of our fundamental human rights—be moved both in time and location. We propose that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street and this demonstration be called CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY. No dress or age regulations shall be made for this demonstration."

Today in cities around the world—including Toronto where over one million people will congregate this week for World Pride 2014—Gay Pride has become a celebration not only of coming out and being gay but one of acceptance of diversity—sexual and all kinds. Many, though not all, gays live openly now. We can serve our country. We can be elected to high office. We can get married—and divorced. Some may look at us funny when we kiss or hold hands in public but usually they're the ones ridiculed for pointing it out, not us.

Pride, however, is actually something more than a checklist of achievements and ways we’ve become more accepted. We may not always remember (though we should) that Pride honours the sacrifice of those who came before us, those who—to paraphrase President Kennedy—did things not because they were easy, but because they were hard, because their goal would serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. Brave men and women selflessly accepted the challenge of achieving equality for gays and lesbians and won it for all of us. Some are still fighting and winning it for us today.

So does Pride matter anymore? Is it dead?

While it's true that the battle for acceptance here in Canada and the US and in Europe has largely been won -- Ontarians just elected the first openly gay head of government in North America  -- millions of gays still live in shame, secret and fear for their lives in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Zimbabwe. And let's not kid ourselves. We still experience a slap in the face now and then right here at home. There are still places right here too where people can be tied to a fence and left to die simply for being gay. And there are still thousands of kids right here and everywhere who haven't yet come out but who are quite literally dying for the energy and strength of spirit and message of hope that an occasion like Pride represents.

 

Note: This post is an update from a post originally published in 2011.

JOE THE PLUMBER'S EMPATHY PROBLEM

When John McCain posterboy Joe the Plumber, whose 15 minutes of fame is way past its best before date, said Tuesday to the parents of mass murderer Elliot Rodger's victims that their dead kids didn't trump his constitutional right to have a gun, I really shouldn't have been surprised.

Nor should I have been surprised when people blamed Trayvon Martin for getting murdered. Or others who blamed Michael Sam for having the temerity to kiss his boyfriend in public. Or billionaire racist Donald Sterling for accusing his girlfriend of embarrassing him by hanging out and being photographed with black men.

Far too often people in majority communities seem incapable of putting themselves in the shoes of those in minority communities. Whites don't appreciate the shit black people go through. Straights don't hear the bigotry and insults that gays have to listen to. Men are blind the misogyny women face -- in their jobs or on the street.

But it's even worse than that. Because it's not just a majority/minority issue -- though that's a big part of it. It's an us and them issue. Black people who have suffered bigotry turn around and speak ill of gays. Gays who have been insulted put down Asians. Jews who face anti-Semitism make racist comments toward blacks or Arabs. Arabs who suffer verbal abuse from whites demean South Asians.

Basically too many of us are really abysmally bad at feeling empathy toward others who find themselves in similarly dire straights. We often seem incapable or unwilling to translate what's happened to 'us' into what's happening to 'them.'

And frankly, that really sucks. And until we as a community, as a civilization and as a species do a better job at making the effort to put ourselves in other people's shoes, I don't hold out much hope that basic human decency will ever prevail.

WE SHOULD ALL BE BUILDERS.

Being nice pays so many dividends -- it makes others happy, it makes you happy, it helps us move forward, it helps us live with ourselves. It's infectious.

So why are so many people assholes? Why do people demean others, hurt each other, go out of their way to cause trouble? Be vindictive? Petty? Mean?

Because being nice requires more energy. It's harder to put on a happy face when you're not feeling happy. It's easier to wave your hand dismissively or give someone a middle finger and say no. It's harder to get out of your comfortable chair and help. It's easier to be selfish. It's harder to think about how your actions will affect the world.

Robert Kennedy famously said on the night Martin Luther King was murdered: "What we need... is not violence and lawlessness, but love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer..."

After centuries of slavery and injustice, America could have descended into decades of anarchy after that fateful day and it would have been easy to do because hurting and anger are easy -- even if they're justified. But King -- and Kennedy and in our time the Dalai Lama and Mandela -- taught folks that while being nice is harder, being understanding takes effort, being thoughtful requires thinking, they do overcome the bad.

Because the bad only tears down while the good, the nice, the kind, always build up.

And we should all be builders.

WHO IS A JEW? 140 WORDS ON 'IDA'

Is one born a Jew? Jewish by religious education, cultural identification, nationality, genetics? If one isn't raised Jewish, is one still Jewish? 'What is a Jew?' is a question that continues to fascinate and torment both Jews and non-Jews -- and it's the focal point of Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski's film Ida.

Set in 1960s post-Holocaust Poland, this stunningly beautiful but haunting film introduces us to Ida, orphaned as a baby and on the cusp of taking her vows to become a nun -- until she meets her aunt and discovers the truth about her family.

Does this profoundly Catholic girl abandon her faith? Embrace her Jewishness? Or continue to live the only life she's really ever known? You'll have to find out for yourself.

Nevertheless, Ida does raise painful but profound questions about the fluidity of who we really are.

THE SOCIOPATHY OF THE RICH AND POWERFUL

In addition to the other disastrous things Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has said of late is this gem: "Am I entitled to one mistake, am I after 35 years? ... Am I entitled to one mistake? It's a terrible mistake, and I'll never do it again." As if years of being a racist landlord never happened.

Then there's a (former) family friend who secretly stashed away money we had invested with him and, when he was finally caught, had the audacity to claim he had acted in good faith and couldn't understand why we were considering suing him. I mean, he had given us half the profits owed to us, right?

How about the global head of the company where I worked a few years ago who visited and excitedly albeit obliviously announced that it was poised to become a billion-dollar enterprise -- to the employees sitting in front of him who hadn't had a raise in two years. We all sat there silently though, in my head, I was all Norma Rae.

The rich and powerful, of course, have been making stupid and insensitive comments since way before Marie Antoinette famously (never) said "let them eat cake." Or presidential loser and trust-fund baby Mitt Romney lamenting the 47 percent of people "who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing." I mean, how very dare them!

Why do they do it? How do the rich and famous not only become that out of touch with average people but manage, as with Sterling or my former friend, to portray themselves as the real victims?

I'm by no means an expert in psychology or psychiatry but I suspect these people didn't fall out of touch -- they were always out of touch. I suspect they got to the top in some part thanks to superior business acumen and charisma but mostly because they believed they were better and more deserving than anyone else and honestly didn't care who they stepped over to get what they wanted. It takes, after all, a certain kind of sociopath to screw and cry misery to the same bunch of people.

Right, Imelda?

  

18 WAYS TO KNOW YOU'RE A RACIST, BIGOT OR HYPOCRITE

It used to be that only gays came out of the closet. But lately, racists are kicking down the door and proudly proclaiming their bigotry for all to hear. But with so many people making disgusting comments, it can be a little overwhelming. How can you really tell if a person is a racist, anti-Semite, garden variety bigot, hypocrite or all the above? Here's some much needed help:

1. If you're just wondering if "negroes" were better off as slaves, you're a racist.
2. If you're still using the word "negroes," you're a racist.
3. If you think black people live on the government's dime while you graze your cattle on public lands for free, you're a racist and a hypocrite.
4. If you think any people other than the ones you identify with are inferior, lazy, smelly, dishonest or terrorists, you're a racist.
5. If you won't date someone because you're "not into" their race or ethnicity, you're a racist.
6. If you can't stand seeing your girlfriend post Instagram pics with black people, you're a racist.
7. If you're dating a woman of color but hate seeing her with black people, you're a racist and douchebag.
8. If you make your living off the sweat of black people, you're a slave owner -- or Donald Sterling.
9. If you're #5, 6 and 7 and you're Jewish, you should know better.
10. If you shoot at people in a Jewish community center, you're an anti-Semite.
11. If you're a member of the KKK, you're a racist, anti-Semite and homophobe.
12. If you're a member of the KKK and you're caught having sex with a black male prostitute, you have serious mental issues.
13. If it understandably bugs you that Palestinian Arabs are mistreated and illegal settlements are being built in the occupied West Bank but you never give a second thought to the way Jews are treated in Arab countries, that is if they're even allowed to visit or still live there, you're definitely a hypocrite and possibly an anti-Semite.
14. If you think Barack Obama was born in Kenya or make a point of using his middle name with disdain, you're a racist.
15. If you're still hunting for his birth certificate, you're a racist, insane or both.
16. If you think anyone whose color is brown is either a terrorist or an illegal immigrant, you're a racist.
17. If you think brown immigrants are stealing precious jobs as toilet cleaners and farm laborers, you're a racist.
18. If you don't recognize your immigrant ancestors arrived here illegally, murdered native Americans and stole their land, you're a racist.