'Shame Ads' Shame Shuttle Express Instead

Should a company replace your best friends?

opinion by Doug Collins

In recent weeks, the Shuttle Express company hasbeen airing radio ads spouting the slogan (verbatim) “friends don’task friends to take them to the airport.” According to these ads, youwill build good favor with friends if you don’t ask them to help you.Instead, you can pay Shuttle Express to do that!

At first I thought these ads were just silly. But then I realized howsmart—and destructive—they were.

It occurred to me that Shuttle Express must have smartly commissionedsome sort of marketing survey, maybe questionnaires for peoplearriving at the airport, or maybe annoying home telemarketing phonecalls. The result of this likely survey: the company discovered thatthe main competition for its paid rides to the airport is—you guessedit—friends taking friends to the airport. So here’s lesson one of thisstory: don’t respond to marketing questionnaires, because theinformation you give may later be used against you. [By the way,the Free Press has never done a marketing survey of its readersand vows never to. Another reason to subscribe!—ed]

I tried calling Shuttle Express to verify this information. I left amessage but never got a call back. Anyway, the exact scenario of themarketing study is not terribly important, because I still haven’ttold you about the destructive part.

It occurred to me later just how reckless this ad campaign is—whetherShuttle Express knows it or not. When their ads aim to shame thepublic out of asking friends for a ride to the airport, what is theobvious implication? The obvious implication is that you shouldn’t askyour friends for any help at all.

Really now, giving someone a ride to the airport and dropping them offat the departures lane is one of the easiest and least time-consumingways to help a friend. Besides, you can enjoy the ride by talking withyour buddy and wishing him or her a good trip. And what goes aroundcomes around. Your friend can help you with this or other matterslater. Lesson two: ask your friends for help, because that’s whatfriends are for. If people are afraid to ask friends for minor favors,then what exactly is a “friend” anyway? At best, someone who couldgive you a minor pep talk from time to time.

What Shuttle Express is doing here is coming between friends, andmaking people just a bit more afraid of even being truefriends. Many people will see this ploy for the marketing gimmick thatit is, but the sad fact is that many people in the US are prettyisolated, alone, and have little contact with any critique of suchcommercialism. These people will become yet more isolated andpotentially psychologically ill as a result of this and otherdestructive ad campaigns. Such ads are the psychological equivalent oftoxic waste dumping by industrial corporations. What is good for onecompany can often be bad for society at large. Wouldn’t ShuttleExpress serve the public and themselves better by investing money in,say, better fuel efficiency for their vans, rather than spending it ontoxic advertisement?

Lesson three: a better slogan. “Friends call Shuttle Express and tellthem how bad their ad is.” You might also mention that you will bemore than happy to ask friends for a ride to the airport wheneverpossible. You can dial 425-981-7050 or 425-981-7000x3. You can alsocall and complain to radio station “Warm 106.9” (425-373-5545) orother stations that you hear such an ad on.

Now, I think probably the people at Shuttle Express are good peoplewho will see the error of their marketing ways and refrain from such“shame ads” in the future. Even so, let this experience be a lessonfor them and for other companies who are contemplating the same adstrategies.u