First, an eye-opening video related to our ongoing concern for safety regarding button batteries. New Zealand is beginning to take a lead role in battery safety, becoming one of the first countries in the world to enact a "product safety policy statement" to try and improve the warning labels on button batteries. The video is from a simple test the BBC conducted with batteries that provides a rather stark look at just how corrosive batteries can be if they are accidentally swallowed. The BBC combined button batteries, a slice of ham, and water in the video of the experiment. Once the water touches the battery, it causes the meat to begin to bubble, and then burn. When a battery is ingested, the corrosive hydrolysis is caused by the electric current from the battery reacting with body fluids. That generates a new current, which can eat into human tissue. If you’re making a face when you read that, good. Batteries can, most definitely, eat into human tissue. They can cause much damage, and even death. If nothing else, the video is either an instant education or an important reminder on the need for urgency if a child is suspected of swallowing a battery. And time is most definitely of the essence—batteries can visibly begin damaging tissue within 30 minutes.
You’ve had a week to recover from the Super Bowl hype so by now most of the water cooler conversations have probably moved on to something else other than football. But perhaps there is one aspect regarding the safety of the game that we shouldn’t move on from quite so easily. The NFL has been keeping statistics on concussions for six seasons, and this year more than 280 of them were documented. That’s about 12 a week, the most since the league begrudgingly started keeping count. The NFL has done a good job of reminding us that professional football is a violent sport, perhaps an effort to divert a growing insistence on transparency from its fans on just what is happening to the young men out there on the field. For years, at all levels of football, players were told by coaches that they just needed to “suck it up, and get back out there.” But there is no band-aid or splint for a concussion, and no way to simply dust yourself off and play on. The NFL claims to take safety seriously, even releasing yearly injury statistics for concussions, ACL, and MCL injuries, as they did again this year right before the Super Bowl. But nothing we’ve seen documents the need for improved player safety than “Concussion Protocol,” a new film by Josh Begley. Begley, in cooperation with Field of Vision, documented (literally) every single concussion in the NFL this year. Running just over 5 minutes, the film uses footage of every hit this season that resulted in a brain injury. Combined with a haunting soundtrack, this film is guaranteed to move you, and there’s a solid chance it will influence the way you feel about the sport moving forward. We can only hope it will also move the NFL to action before it’s too late for other players who may suffer permanent injuries.
Finally, you’ve got to admire anyone trying to make a buck from promotional products. That can now include the volunteers associated with the big game in Minneapolis. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Super Bowl volunteers were selling their SWAG on Craigslist even before kickoff. One listing packaged together “all official volunteer gear” for $399. That included the embroidered jacket, long-sleeved shirt, purple beanie cap, scarf, coffee mug, and backpack all volunteers received. While that seems a tidy profit, there’s no way they would have been for sale if the Vikings had won the Conference Championship game and played in the Super Bowl as the home team.
Jeff Jacobs has been an expert in building brands and brand stewardship for 40 years, working in commercial television, Hollywood film and home video, publishing, and promotional brand merchandise. He’s a staunch advocate of consumer product safety and has a deep passion and belief regarding the issues surrounding compliance and corporate social responsibility. He retired as executive director of Quality Certification Alliance, the only non-profit dedicated to helping suppliers provide safe and compliant promotional products. Before that, he was director of brand merchandise for Michelin. You can find him volunteering as a Guardian ad Litem, traveling the world with his lovely wife, or enjoying a cigar at his favorite local cigar shop. Connect with Jeff on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram, or reach out to him at jacobs.jeffreyp@gmail.com.