Takes

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Who Do You Think Is More Truthful - Men or Women? Let's say, just hypothetically speaking, that the fate of the Republic came down to a matter of "he said, she said." Are Americans generally predisposed to find one gender more truthful than the other? As a matter of fact, they are. In a survey conducted for Adweek by Alden & Associates, a marketing research firm based in Hermosa Beach, Calif., significant majorities of men and women agreed that women are the more truthful. Among female respondents, 74 percent expressed that view; among male respondents, 61 percent did so. Of course, the numbers can't tell us whether people think they're paying women a big compliment when they credit them with a greater propensity for truth telling. The prestige of honesty seems to be at a low ebb these days, as is the ignominy attached to lying. Respondents may feel that men have more occasion to lie, given their still-dominant roles in business and politics-to say nothing of their beastly private lives. On a more prosaic level, marketers ought to wonder whether female voiceovers might command more credence than the male variety, other things being equal. NIP AND TUCK: Thanks All the Same, We'll Stay As We Are Self-improvement is all well and good. But will people to go under the knife to achieve it? In a survey of men and women age 35-65, Living Fit magazine found just 4 percent of respondents saying they'd had cosmetic surgery. A mere 17 percent were considering having themselves spruced up. Maybe that's because public perception of such procedures tends to be lurid. Asked to name the celeb who comes to mind when they think of these matters, respondents put Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson atop the list. Among respondents who'd been sliced, the most common procedure was the humble nose job. One other intriguing tidbit from the survey: 73 percent of midlife women feel they have a nice smile, while 58 percent of men are similarly confident. IT'S YOUR NECK: Nutritional Pyramid Or Dictates of Fashion? Nothing becomes an eggplant better than a neat Windsor knot. So we're told, anyhow, by the moguls of men's fashion. According to an article in DNR, a newsmagazine covering the menswear market, neckties this fall will forsake the bright colors of last year and shift toward muted tones, ranging from eggplant to olive to grape. Needless to say, advertisers and their agencies will wish to ensure that the men appearing in commercials and print ads are au courant (or, perhaps, au currant) in their neckwear. With such a conspicuous shift in the works, men can hardly dare to pass off last year's tie as a freshly minted one. And that's the sort of datum that ought to be factored into the rate of inflation. If a tie costs the same this year as last, that superficially indicates an inflation rate of 0. But what if an accelerated change in neckwear fashion means you must re-stock your tie rack after one year instead of two? Surely that works out to an inflation rate of 100 percent. What remains to be seen is whether the rage for eggplant ties will spill over into a vogue for eggplants themselves. Better stock up, just in case. MIXED BLESSINGS: Show Me the Anxiety, Banking on a Wait, The Put-Upon Python Even with the Dow reaching all-time highs and unemployment at 30-year lows, people still fret about money. Naturally, such concerns are most evident at the lower end of the financial totem pole. But they're not the exclusive property of the otherwise unpropertied. Asked in a Yankelovich Partners poll whether they find money matters more stressful now than they did a year ago, 48 percent of respondents answered affirmatively. The "yes" figure rose to 54 percent among those Yankelovich classifies as "strugglers"-people with below-average income and assets and a low level of involvement in managing their money. One specific indication of these worries: Just 44 percent of respondents in the general population and 29 percent of strugglers say they pay their credit-card bills in full. It's not quite up there with Einstein's general theory of relativity. But a poster now appearing in Citibank branches has identified another basic law of nature: The time you avoid spending in one line will somehow be consumed by another line. This insight might not motivate a consumer to switch from a bank that offers old, slower ATMs. But those who are already customers of Citibank will appreciate the rueful honesty with which it introduces its machines. Moreover, having seen the company restrain the impulse to hype its ATMs as an unprecedented boon to mankind, consumers may regard subsequent Citibank communiquƒs with a less jaundiced eye. In other words, unlike many of the anti-marketing marketing ploys we see these days, this one doesn't merely pander to consumer cynicism. It acts shrewdly to diminish such resistance. Roberts Communications of Rochester, N.Y., created the campaign. Some clients are more reptilian than others. But few have the forbearance to endure an insult of Old Testament proportions. Having deprecated the charms of the green tree python in an ad for Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, the folks at that city's office of Cramer-Krasselt should watch their backs next time they pass the reptile house.

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Mark Dolliver

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Mark Dolliver