Web Entrepreneur Banks on ‘Bum-vertising’ - Homeless Advocates Say He’s Exploiting the Poor:
A budding Seattle entrepreneur looking for a low-cost marketing campaign says he’s found an inexpensive and highly visible tool to publicize his Web site — he calls it “bum-vertizing.”
Ben Rogovy, a 22-year-old University of Washington graduate, says the homeless and panhandlers are an untapped labor force, and he’s putting them to work.
“It dawned on me this could be inexpensive and effective,” he said. And he believes it’s a campaign that benefits both him and the homeless people he’s hired to hold signs advertizing his Web site. He said he’s giving panhandlers a job and getting advertising on the cheap.
[...]
Rogovy said that they are adults and they can make up their own minds. But Macri argues because the panhandlers are poor, homeless and begging, “they’ve lost their free choice” and have no choice but to agree to Rogovy’s request.
“It really reinforces stigmas about people who are homeless — that they’re not humans, that they’re just signposts,” Macri said.
Be sure to read, Make Yourself Useful.
