Is this a natural outgrowth of market forces (easily available low-cost labor, high-profile advertising, etc.)? Is there a moral dimension worth considering?
Is this insensitive to the homeless people the advertiser is recruiting? If it is, does it matter?
Does the likelihood that the advertiser is kind of a jerk (see the article) have any bearing on the legitimacy of his plan?
Are there possible unintended consequences? If a panhandler appears to have another source of income, will he or she see a reduction in revenue? (This is briefly touched on in the article.)
And, of course: Will this actually work? Will people go check out the PokerFaceBook website? And if so, will it expand? Maybe Verizon (for example) should distribute branded windbreakers or something to the homeless; they get to look like good corporate citizens, and they plaster their logo all over everything.
(Incidentally, is my memory playing tricks on me, or didn’t a scheme like this show up in a William Gibson or Neal Stephenson type novel a while back?)
I don’t think there is anything wrong with it in theory. However, I do question the wisdom of a business using this advertising model. That type of advertising would generate a huge amount of negative publicity. Everyone would figure out what they are doing and many would find it distasteful. That wouldn’t be a problem for an internet site but it would be a problem for businesses that depend on their reputation. What would be next, giving drug dealers little logo’ed baggies for free?
Another problem may be tax and worker’s rights implications. I am not knowledgable enough about this but I can see how paying a homeless person for advertising over time would raise some legal eyebrows on that front.
It reminds me of the hero in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court generating electrical power from a pious hermit who spent all day every day bowing again and again.
Image is a big consideration in advertising, not just repetition. I don’t think most businesses would want the association. They look to fresh-faced highschool and college kids with enough energy to juggle a big cardboard arrow when they want inexpensive advertising.
Those guys never have any business. All of their signs say: “Your ad here,” with a phone number. And they choose bad locations. And I’ve seen about eight of them on one corner.
All they do is throw up and spin around those big arrows. Everyone ignores them. I don’t get it.
I don’t see this idea having much appeal because it associates the advertised product with the street person, which isn’t exactly the sort of image most clients are aiming for.
That said, I don’t see how it’s any more degrading than the poor schmoe I saw this morning in a doggy suit advertising a new pet-products store.
Just seen the story on The Daily Show. I don’t see the problem with it, and obviously the advertising works, as I’ve just visited their site. It seems it’s acceptable to paint up your new Volkswagon Bug, but a bum can’t advertise for some cash for a medium that’s already being used?
I thought the Daily Show correspondent summed up the issue pretty well. It may be legal and not violate any particular core values, but it’s bothersome.
Which is why I posted the OP: Why, exactly, is it bothersome? I agree that something about it nags at me, but I can’t figure out what that is, precisely.
I think the bothersome aspect is that there a bums standing on the street corner holding signs rather that some schmoe is now going to pay them for doing the same thing.
I seem to recall that during the Depression, people would wear sandwich-board advertising signs in exchange for a free meal. Could this be considered a precedent? The outcome is the same: someone with no “gainful” employment is able to do something that benfits them in a small way, and they have to do nothing more strenuous than walking back and forth or even standing still.
According to the Daily Show, these bums make about 75 cents an hour off of this. That’s about 1/10th of minimum wage where I live at. So they barely get enough money to buy enough food to physically survive into the next day, so they can stand out on the corner again and do the same thing. I doubt they could even scrounge up enough money to buy new clothes to interview for a real job. This is exploitation at its worst.
i agree, blalron (for the record, your user name is fun to just say for no reason). it’s taking people that are desperate for some sort of economic independence and making “use” of them. it’s slave labor. someone has obviously swallowed their pride enough to stand on a street corner pleading for help, legitimate or not (the pleading, not the help). that’s why it’s bothersome. these people aren’t exactly in the position to reject ANY proposal that comes their way, so they happily take 75 cents per hour. it’s better than nothing, i suppose. but it might as well BE nothing. that’s 6 dollars (yeah, without taxes taken out, smartass) per 8 hour shift. a person at mcdonalds can make the same wage, but would you want someone with no home or access to the basic things we have in a home handling your food?
Blalron, don’t forget though that these guys are getting an extra 6 bucks a day over and above their normal panhandling take, with no additional effort on their part. They just do their thing like they do every day and get more money. There is no opportunity cost for them to take this work, it should be a net benefit. If it weren’t, they could VERY easily tell Mr. Onlinepokersite to get bent. Easier than most people, really, this isn’t exactly income they’re counting on to pay the mortgage. In that sense, I don’t think it’s evil or slave labor-ish.
There is something unseemly, though, about taking advantage of another person’s misfortune to benefit yourself, even if they too benefit in some small way.
