After receiving embarrassingly low marks in honesty a year ago, a repeat social experiment and marketing tool conducted by Maryland-based Honest Tea found Chicago to be the most honest out of 12 participating cities.
Honest Tea earlier this month set up a stand in Grant Park with cold bottles of Honest Tea situated next to a secured cash box. A sign asked people to offer one dollar for each bottle of Honest Tea taken from the stand, and this time around, Chicagoans delivered.
A year ago, just 78 percent of people paid a dollar for the tea at a stand near Millennium Park. This year, 99 percent of Chicagoans offered up their dollar for a bottle of tea. No one monitored the site (except for an occasional restocking), and web users could view a live stream of the stand online.
Boston, Seattle and Dallas placed second in honesty, yielding a 97 percent contribution from all three cities. On the flip side, New York finished last in honesty with 86 percent of New Yorkers paying a dollar for their bottles of Honest Tea.
Other cities participating in the experiment were Atlanta, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Miami, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.
All the money collected from the experiment will be donated to various charities.
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