Global ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegerty (BBH) was forced to do some damage control after an experiment having homeless people serve as Wi-Fi hotspots backfired.
Earlier this month, BBH launched a "charitable experiment," in which volunteer homeless people served as 4G hotspots during the SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas. Conference attendees could use the connection with their tablets or smartphones and make a donation to the hotspot volunteer, who was also guaranteed a minimum payment.
The agency compared the project to street newspapers such as Seattle's Real Change.
"We're fighting homelessness by reinventing street newspapers," the agency tweeted.
Not so fast, said homeless advocates and publishers of street newspapers. Within minutes, the campaign triggered a Twitter storm and generated global media reports. Even as new media coverage about the campaign appeared, BBH had already shut it down.
On March 6 on its website, BBH announced the end of the project, saying "this is a test program that was always scheduled to end today."
In the meantime, INSP, a global nonprofit street newspaper alliance, says street papers and the homeless hotspots project are worlds apart in both function and mission.
Beyond the morality of presenting homeless people as products (vendors wear T-shirts saying "I am a 4G Hotspot"), INSP pointed out that the hotspots are charity, rather than self-help.
By participating in a transaction, street paper vendors are working, not begging, said INSP Executive Director Lisa Maclean.
"BBH's interest in supporting homeless people is really commendable," she said. "But it misses a couple of crucial elements specific to the street paper model. Homeless vendors buy their copies for half the cover price, then sell them and keep the profits. The buy and sell element is crucial in the process, as it is the transaction that makes the vendor a salesman, not the recipient of a donation."
In other words, selling a street paper is a job, not charity.
"Street papers offer vendors not just an income, but a sense of self-respect and dignity. At the same time, they put a face on homelessness by offering quality, independent journalism."
Contrary to BBH's statement about the "decline in print media," street papers are actually a growing media sector.
INSP research into global street paper circulation in 2010 showed a 10 percent increase in street paper sales since 2009.
With new technology, the nonprofit INSP expects continued growth. INSP will soon launch an innovative project to address this issue: INSP Digital. It enables street vendors to offer their customers two options -- print and digital -- priced identically. The digital version is sold on a card, each one carrying a unique QR code, which can be scanned on compatible devices. Readers can then read their digital edition on their smartphone, tablet or computer.
The launch of the world's first digital street paper pilot is scheduled for July 2012 in the United Kingdom. If successful, the digital model could support many more street papers around the world. With a global street paper readership already in excess of 6 million, the concept has scope to become one of the world's largest paid digital media platforms.
Since 1994, more than 200,000 vendors have earned a living and changed their lives by selling one of INSP's 122 street papers on six continents.
The now-infamous ad agency could one day be of a part of it, said INSP's Maclean.
"We have been encouraged by BBH's response to our communication with them about this and look forward to a constructive and positive conversation, moving forward," she said.