Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 3:00PM | 8 Comments tagged Alex Bogusky | in Consumer Power
Alex Bogusky | in Consumer Power The 21st Century Consumer Bill of Rights
1962 would have been a busy year for any president: Vietnam, John Glenn, and The Cuban Missile Crisis had already grabbed the headlines. So, in March, as John F. Kennedy got up to speak to Congress you might be surprised as to what was on his mind. Kennedy felt compelled to spend 40 minutes outlining a very specific plan for something this country had never considered: A Consumer Bill of Rights.
The consumer of the early sixties lived in a very different world from the consumer of today. Television advertising, and even the concept of national brands, was something the nation was all still growing accustomed to. Most Americans didn't shop at supermarkets or at super stores. In fact, the first Kmart opened only 14 days prior to his speech. The average purchase was still very local but the problems of the march of technology had begun. Many Americans still bought meat from a butcher and bread from a baker. If you got bad meat you knew whom to blame and they in turn knew that to make a customer sick could be a disaster for their business. The idea of a long-distance provider to consumer relationship was relatively new and thus the unique challenges in policing this new relationship were new, too. The idea that a manufacturer might know about potential dangerous problems yet still make the decision to continue to market and sell that product was probably hard for consumers of the day to grasp. It was outrageous.
Looking though the Consumer Bill of Rights from 1962, we were struck by several things. First, how brilliant and comprehensive the CBR still is. If we only demanded that these same Rights be upheld so many of the challenges of our day could be addressed. Second, and almost in opposition to the first, we feel like we're looking back into a time when much of technology as we know it today had yet to be invented. Although Kennedy mention food ingredients and additives, in his speech it's left out of the BOR. And genetic modifications would be fourty years in the future. No mention of toxins in our shared environment. No mention of sweatshop labor. No mention of giving consumers a complete picture of the environmental and social impact of a product. No mention of transparency into foreign factories. Etc. And how could it? We were so innocent. After all, we were just beginning to realize the risks of smoking. And it would take another 30 plus years to hold that industry responsible.
Fifty years ago the mistakes we were making would be handed down to grandchildren and great grandchildren. Today those mistakes can no longer be handed down. We live with them now as we create them. It isn't our children's children that have Autism, Asthma, ADHD, and Allergies. It's our Children. It's not our children's children that are born with an average of 200 foreign chemical compounds in their umbilical chord fluid. It's our children.
We think it's time to take a fresh look at the Consumer Bill of Rights, dust it off as we begin to envision a new relationship between buyer and provider. A relationship more like the relationship between citizen and government. A relationship that brings the democratic ideals into the consumer space in an effort to drive positive change and more vigorous involvement from all.
Kennedy's original four CBR with rights from subsequent presidents piled on:
1. The right to safety--to be protected against the marketing of goods which are hazardous to health or life. (Kennedy) "To expect that his health and safety is taken into account by those who seek his patronage" (Nixon, 1969).
2. The right to be informed--to be protected against fraudulent, deceitful, or grossly misleading information, advertising, labeling, or other practices, and to be given the facts he needs to make an informed choice. (Kennedy) "The right to accurate information on which to make his free choice." (Nixon) "To recognize the right to consumer education." (Ford)
3. The right to choose--to be assured, wherever possible, access to a variety of products and services at competitive prices; and in those industries in which competition is not workable and Government regulation is substituted, an assurance of satisfactory quality and service at fair prices.
4. The right to be heard--to be assured that consumer interests will receive full and sympathetic consideration in the formulation of Government policy, and fair and expeditious treatment in its administrative tribunals."
"The right to service--the right to convenience, courtesy, and responsiveness to consumer problems and needs and all steps necessary to ensure that products and services meet the quality and performance levels claimed for them" (Clinton, 1994).
We've crated a project to rewrite, recommit, globalize JFK's Consumer Bill of Rights. We're breaking it down into phases:
Phase 1. Over the next couple of weeks we'll be posting individual sections and inviting the JFKs, and Thomas Jeffersons of today to update and improve the document and to become founding signers. Be visionary. Be bold. Be revolutionary. Imagine years beyond societies current expectations.
Submit Your Entry for Right #1: The Right to Safety >
Phase 2. Work through all the submissions with a panel of global experts to settle on language for the updated Consumer Bill of Rights.
Phase 3. Get everybody on earth to read it and sign it online. (The UN adopted JFK's Bill of Rights)
Phase 4. Get every corporation and company on earth to read it and sign it. (Much work to do.)
Link to Kennedy’s entire speech
By Alex Bogusky
Reader Comments (8)
Great post Alex. Why don't we demand that these rights are still upheld? At what point did we all become so complacent, powerless and jaded? Everyone seems to value convenience over the health of themselves, their children, and our planet. I just don't get why we can't get it.
A good beginning but a little too secular for my taste, as it ultimately reduces human existence to that of producers, distributers and consumers and, of course, waste collectors.
In a word, there's too much prose here and too little poetry.
The solutions I read here are all predicated on a kind of magical materialism, It's nice for consumers to know the sugar content in their yogurt and a good thing that young urban basketball players are aware of the difficult working conditions of Chinese or Vietnamese workers. Knowledge is a wonderful thing, but I'd like to see more perspective, i.e., when we were an emerging nation, we needed Upton Sinclair's novel/expose, THE JUNGLE and Jacob Riis' HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES, etc. to help enlighten consumers and bring about significant social change.
What's more we mustn't fail to acknowledge the structural elements at play—American's don't want factories dirtying their air, so we export manufacturing. Americans want to have many pairs of sneakers, so they must be produced overseas by underpaid workers. The solution is larger than awareness, the solution will be a radical reexamination of what it means to be human in the post-industrial world.
However this reexamination can't happen in the comfort of the University, at the headquarters of the NGO, or in Boulder, as it will require some meeting of the minds between those so well fed, they can concern themselves with the sugar content in their daughter's breakfast food, and those who have struggled to simply have breakfast, let alone lunch and dinner.
All our ideas of transparency, individual choice, responsibility are predicated on our highly evolved industrial existence, so expanding or enforcing them will require even greater reliance on highly industrialized solutions.
Saying this, I applaud your effort and wish you ever onward. There's work to be done, if for no other reason, we've the money and time on our hands to do it.
Best,
Robert
Anyone else see the incredible irony here?
A man who made is fame an fortune marketing products which have been the source of current obesity epidemic; which lead to things such as heart disease and diabetes; who has helped companies like Coke, Burger King and Domino's Pizza target young people in poorer communities - has now decided that consumers need protection?
Am I getting this right? In other words, all that advertising thats out there, that's the root cause of these problems. That's the reason why we need a consumer bill of rights. That advertising is deceptive to consumers. Its misleading. Its unfair. It masks the true nature of the danger the consumer exposes herself to when they purchase these products.
Here's an idea: how about contacting your old agency and telling them to stop working on these clients? Will that ever happen? Doubtful.
Here's another idea: how about all that money that you made in order to deceive consumers into buying products which are unhealthy for them - that you give that back to the consumer who bought those goods and services. Will that ever happen? Doubtful.
How are we supposed to take this seriously? It's a ridiculous joke.
I disagree with the last couple of entries here! It's of my personal experience that if we want peace in our world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. I applaud your efforts, Alex. You are demonstrating a level of responsibility and courage to everyone. In conclusion, I feel we have to all have that kind of responsibility, that kind of courage, as that's the true practice of Peace.
With thanks!
Alex, Great essay,
I am a graduate of the University of Florida, '73 , I recently learned in an Alumni magazine they are calling for complete overhaul via Washington D.C.of food processing, labeling and inspection. Are you aware of this and have you been linked in to their processes? I am not sure if they are on board for the same reasons you spoke of in your bog, but thought I would put you onto their efforts in case they are. "Might" as we all know helps get things done....
This country evolved with high ideals. The Founding Fathers tried to create a guideline that inspired the better instinct of this new land - but if the immigration was populated by greed and self interest, all the best intentions outlaid by the Constitution are to no avail. There has been an awareness growing in our nation, shall we say we are maturing? Sometimes it takes horrific results to awaken the sensibilities of humanity, and we are in such a place and time. There is a wide spread interest in the specifics of our Constitution - we are all trying to see where the experiment went wrong. This is a very opportune time for change. Change begins with one.
Advertising is a very powerful tool of society. It isn't evil, just like money isn't evil - it's what you do with it.
You are the" prodigal son" of advertising. Obviously you saw through the veil and came out on the other side. It's time that advertising evolves to a more enlightened place from manipulation to simply being a facilitator between people with diverse interests. Wait, am I talking about social media here?
We definitely need to reach a new consciousness to better do justice to this exiting new medium. Advertising people really should rethink their path – a little introspection and creativity is the call of the day!
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May I suggest FDR's Second Bill of Rights, be incorporated because really, without economic justice, consumer rights is just another way of demanding regulation. Which I agree completely, but if a person can not afford a safe home, enough food to eat, and medical care that don't bankrupt with a major illness, buying crap that you can't afford or dealing with big business really don't amount to much. A decent education that is affordable to everyone that has the desire to make their dreams a reality with higher education. If a person is not interested in higher education, or unable to make the grades, we should have a living wage, not a min. wage, but a wage that a person can actually live working one job. It is horrible that some people must work two or three min. wage part time jobs with no benefits and still not able to afford housing or food. We have lost so much, that essentially we are nearly where we were prior to FDR and the social safety net is barely held together. We all know that without the programs such as Social Security or unemployment benefits, FDIC, when the banking system nearly went off the cliff, we would have been right there just like 1929. Thankfully, it has supplied the economy enough that instead of a GREAT DEPRESSION, we are in a garden type bank panic, which it's still a depression, it's just not a deep depression. Although the way this govt keeps going they are trying like hell to make it into one.