Friday, December 16, 2011

Honesty is Common. Kudos to Coke for Demonstrating and Rewarding This

Coke planted a wallet with the equivalent of $200 and a much-coveted ticket to a big soccer match on the walkway in the middle of a mall in Portugal. They filmed what happened.

95% of the people who picked up the wallet turned it in to the nearby soccer store.

The crowd of shoppers cheered. The honest citizen was given a Coke (of course). And a ticket to the soccer match, where they were seated with the other wallet-returners. During the match, Coke ran the hidden-camera film of all the wallets being returned on the big screen, then panned to the section of the stadium where these honest citizens were seated. Huge cheers from the crowd.

Most people are honest. Most people like to help others. Most people do ordinary things to build up society.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who knows how many people gave it back and how many didn't? The producer can pick and choose and tailor-make the result to his wishes.

Gruntled said...

Fortunately, most people are trusting rather than cynical, too.

Anonymous said...

That is an awesome story! I wish I wasn't surprised. I am curious what happened with the 5% who took it though... did they get REAL tickets to the game? Did they immediately dispatch the police to recover the property?

Gruntled said...

I think Coke did a further good thing and let the 5% walk away. They could figure out later what they missed when they went to the game, and saw the cheers for the 95%.

Anonymous said...

Am I now cynical? In my years working in television, I learned a few things about manipulation of facts.

Gruntled said...

In the interests of building up trust and overcoming cynicism, why do you post anonymously?

Anonymous said...

You offer the opportunity to sign as anonymous. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Gruntled said...

I am happy to have comments, and understand that there can be good reasons to comment anonymously. Nonetheless, I think anonymity does chip away at trust in a small way, so the benefit needs to be weighed against the cost.