Truth

The New Rules for Marketing in a Skeptical World

Truth

Author: Lynn B. Upshaw
Pub Date: 2007
Your Price: $24.95
ISBN: 0814473768
Format: Hardcover

 


Chapter 6

Promote Honestly, Not Just Legally

No Weasels Allowed

Dilbert offers the quintessential cynic's view of business life. The luckless title character languishes in a world peopled with incompetence and irrationality. What's just a little disturbing is that the strip's dialogue carries a ring of truth, even familiarity. We laugh at the absurdities that Dilbert and his colleagues endure because we see hints of them in our own lives.


The Way Marketing Will Always Be?

It's likely that few marketers deceive blatantly, but it's also safe to say that a good many stretch the truth, or omit critical but negative information about their products, or find a way to couch facts to make the products sound better than they are.

When marketing honesty is abused in a big way, we shake our heads, wonder what gets into people, and move on. But we think of more subtle deceptions as harmless, or just the way things are, have always been, and always will be. We call it human nature. We call it by benign names, like "puffery" or "weasels." Or, if we admire it, we call it "aggressive marketing." But whatever we call it, it is becoming riskier because more customers are demanding to know what's real and are inclined to reject what isn't.

A few examples of why "marketing integrity" is considered by some to be a contradiction in terms:

* A major video rental chain advertised in 2005 that it was eliminating all late fees on games and movies, which can be a significant obstacle to more frequent rental. Test trials had demonstrated that dropping the fees increased business.

The offer carried a caveat, however: Renters had a free one-week grace period, but then were billed for the full purchase price of the rental, less the rental cost. If they returned it after that week, they got a refund for the purchase price, less a stocking fee, but the consumers might be inclined to just keep the video and leave the charge on their credit card.

After forty-seven states claimed something was afoul, the company settled for total fines of $670,000 and agreed to substantially alter the way it advertised the policy.1

* The court proceedings in wrongful death suits against a leading pharmaceutical firm reportedly revealed a set of embarrassing internal emails-including one titled "Dodge"-that referred to marketing and sales techniques used on physicians. Another e-mail allegedly encouraged sales reps to "neutralize" physicians who were opposed to the use of this company's major drug. Claimed safety issues with the drug and the subsequent loss in consumer trust has likely contributed to a 50 percent decline in the price of this particular company's stock over a recent five-year period.2

That firm was hardly alone. The pharmaceutical industry in total paid more than $2 billion in fines between 2001 and 2004 for allegedly illegal marketing activities. The activities included salespeople purportedly paying doctors to prescribe off-label uses of a company's drugs-which prosecutors claim the company knew had no effect-and for allegedly hiring ghostwriters to craft articles proclaiming the salvation of off-label uses, then inserting the doctors' names as the authors.3

It is little wonder that a 2006 Kaiser Permanente survey found that only 18 percent of U.S. consumers believe drug ads "most of the time," about half the level reported nine years earlier.4

To add to the industry's problems, in June 2006 the American Medical Association called for a temporary moratorium on all direct-to-consumer advertising until the AMA could figure out if the practice was a benefit to consumers.5 Not a good sign of things to come.

* A few years ago three of the major life insurers all admitted to marketing "interest-sensitive" life insurance policies during the 1980s and 1990s. Reportedly their sales agents told subscribers that the policies would yield returns that would pay for any premiums due over the years. But when interest rates fell, subscribers ended up losing far more than they might have retained with standard policies, sometimes including their entire life savings. Multiple class-action suits later, the firms agreed that their sales and marketing people had been-as politicians like to call it-overzealous.6


A Conversation

"Morning."

"Morning. Hey, I was just thinking about the Project Fireball launch."

"Me, too. We sure gave that puppy the right code name."

"Yeah, well . . . I'm thinking maybe we're stretching things a bit."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. So, I know it's an exciting product and everything . . ."

"Exciting? It's killer. It's liquid heat. It's gonna light a fire under the brand."

"I know, I know. I was just thinking . . ."

"What?"

"I was just thinking that the product doesn't . . . quite . . ."

"What? Talk to me."

"Well, it's not exactly as good as our ad campaign claims it is."

"You got Legal to sign off, right?"

"Right."

"So we're covered, right?"

"Right."

"OK, then."

"Yeah, but the product. . . ."

"Not our problem, bro. The product people make it. The Legals sign off on it. We market it, and that's that."

"Uh-huh . . ."

"Am I right?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"You guess?"

"No, I see your point. I do."

"Then we're cool?"

"Yeah, we're cool."

"OK, then."


Weasels and Other Self-Inflicted Wounds

Persuading buyers has become more difficult because of what buyers believe about the message and the messenger. In a 2003 study the U.S. public rated advertising practitioners, for example, just above HMO managers, insurance salesmen, and car salesmen in terms of honesty and ethics (see Figure 6-1).

Why would advertising executives be rated so low? At least part of the reason has got to be that-rightly or wrongly-the ad industry is not known for employing the truth so much as whatever it takes to sell whatever they are selling. Their frequent use of "weasels" can't help.

The nonmammalian version of the term "weasel" is believed to have been coined by political commentator Stewart Chaplin in the nineteenth century. Chaplin called weasels "words that suck the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks out the egg and leaves the shell." Bullmoose Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt frequently accused his 1912 Democratic opponent, Woodrow Wilson, of using "weasel words," which he decried as "one of the defects of our nation."7

In marketing-speak, weasels suck the meaning from a claim and leave only its shell remaining. One form of weaseled advertising claims that "Nobody is better than our brand." That kind of weasel is often factually accurate but the consumer's takeaway may be that the advertised brand is superior, particularly when the claim is read with conviction by a sonorous announcer.

Another weasel form employs hedged modifiers (no relation to the hedgehog) that serve a similar purpose. If a marketing message proclaims that a new product is "better" in some way, it's common to omit the comparison point, leaving the unanswered question: better than what? Quite possibly better than before but still not as good as alternative brands.

The massification of the Internet has led to a rise in weasel sightings. For instance, virtually all online travel agencies claim to offer the lowest possible airline and hotel rates. In reality, they may be at parity-sometimes by contract-with the lowest online rates of major airlines and hotel chains, or only modestly higher, which is not worth the consumer's effort to worry about.

So you may only get the lowest fare online if you bought it at a certain time, from a certain vendor, with certain Draconian penalties attached. Commented one industry analyst: "They're really just marketing gimmicks. There's nothing wrong with them, but I don't think it's going to move the (travel sales) needle for you."8 It may not move the sales needle, but it could gradually undermine the credibility still further of the travel industry, an industry that could always use a bit more trust from its customers.

The problem from a buyer standpoint is that weasels, and their promotional pal "puffery," dodge the truth, if not hide it. Sometimes that's not important and sometimes it can make the difference in what buyers think of a brand, or even what they buy. Even when they may appear to have only a minor consequence, weasels and puffery can turn into a way to self-inflict doubt among your customer base. (See Figure 6-2 for examples of equity draining.)

A Sampling of Marketing Malfeasance

In January 2006 this author asked some past and presents colleagues in the marketing industry to provide him with examples of dubious marketing integrity that they were personally familiar with. Below is a sampling of what was received (with names and traceable details omitted):

* Retail chains and other companies have purposely launched store branded products and packaging that were virtually identical to that of the national branded competition. When one C-level executive was challenged internally by an employee about using this practice, his response was, "If a customer buys our product thinking that they're buying the other guy, I'm O.K. with that. We need all the customers we can get, even the stupid ones."

* An ad agency was told by a client to boldly promote the fact that his product was "sugar free," and to emphasize the health benefits of high fructose syrup versus sugar, despite the fact that there was no evidence that there was any advantage. The agency resisted, and ultimately resigned the account, which presumably was given to another agency to do as ordered.

* One national energy association conducted annual surveys that probed how the public felt about their energy fuels. When the numbers started to head toward the negative, the association instructed its research supplier to rephrase the questions so as to make sure that the numbers always looked good. The firm was never specifically asked to "lie" about the results, only to "find the truth." The "truth," in this case, turned out to be as flexible as necessary to make the association's products look good in subsequent press releases.

* Even the largest and most prestigious food and household products companies downsize a package while keeping the same price, thus reaping a "hidden" price increase and commensurate profit. Another common practice is introducing "hernia size" packaging and increasing the "flow rate" of toothpaste and detergents by increasing the cap size, all of which research has proven encourages consumers to use more than they need because they seem to have so much on hand. These "improvements" are advertised as making it easier for consumers to consume, and so they are.

Masochistic readers can find more examples in Appendix B.

Buzz, Stealth, and "Human Spam"

The challenge for marketers is how to start a conversation with a generation that includes many who prefer not to be hammered by commercial messaging. One answer that is rapidly becoming mainstream is buzzing, and variations on that technique.

"Buzz," the world's original method of marketing, is planned and executed (or the spontaneous creation of ) word-of-mouth sharing about a brand, product, service, or company. Word-of-mouth marketing is often cheaper than traditional media, relatively easy to seed and sow, and believed to be 50 percent more influential than radio and television advertising.9 (See Figure 6-3.)

Although it is called "buzz marketing" or "viral marketing," it may also be close to "stealth marketing," which is marketing that isn't supposed to look like marketing. "Stealth marketing," observed one industry exec, "is buzz without the disclosure."10

McKinsey analysts estimated as far back as 2004 that more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy was largely or partly impacted by buzz.11 Buzz marketing spending is conservatively gauged to be about $200 million in spending as of this writing, but its future may be unlimited. And according to research conducted by the now-departed CMO magazine, buzz marketing is the second-fastest growing form of marketing channel, behind the omnipresent email marketing.12

Here are some examples of successful stealth and/or buzz campaigns, each with some element that could be considered questionable:

* The Fake Tourist. One electronics company launched a campaign for one of their cameras in 2002 called "fake tourist," in which actors and models pretended to be tourists who were genuinely excited about the product and "spontaneously" demonstrated it for onlookers. A Bloomberg report called the campaign "human spam," while BRANDWEEK named its creator "Guerrilla Marketer of the Year"-a perfect example of how creative marketing can be applauded by some, and considered questionable by others.13

"Best Movie I've Seen Today!" A motion picture studio distributed fictitious quotes from fictitious film critics to spread positive buzz about one of their pictures. Things went from bad to worse when it turned out that two of the "moviegoers" interviewed in a commercial for the film were studio employees.14

* I Was a Teenage Blogger. In 2004, a soft drink brand reportedly established an in-house blog to push the introduction of a new drink, and flew teen bloggers and their parents to the corporate headquarters for a one-week orientation. The teens were then allegedly sent back home with instructions to spread the word on as many blogging sites as possible, without revealing that they were working on behalf of the company. The teens were not compensated with cash, but did receive promotional items.15

* Stop Me Before I Shill Again. A major word-of-mouth marketing company has built a strong business by recruiting teens for research and viral marketing purposes. Attracting leading firms as clients, the company enables teenagers to become part of major buzz marketing programs, including for a very successful flavored milk that reportedly increased sales by 18 percent in test markets.16

At the request of a special interest group, the FTC informally reviewed the firm's marketing methods in January 2006, and reportedly was not concerned that the company does not fully disclose the extent to which the teens are used as word-of-mouth vehicles.17

Other critics have not been so sanguine. They have pointed out-and this author agrees-that using teenagers as word-of-mouth sales and marketing agents is not a worthy enterprise for any marketer. Nor does it seem advisable that any word of mouth company should operate without insisting that all of its operatives disclose to their friends/contacts that they are working on behalf of a client, regardless of whether that agent is paid for the work.

In 2005, the buzz marketing community created a Code of Ethics through their Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). (See Appendix C for the Code.) To its credit, the code calls for marketers to have their operatives disclose that they are paid by sponsors. But like most professional organizations, WOMMA has no way to enforce that policy.


The Rewards of Blogging

One of the hallmarks of the much-heralded "Web 2.0" is a rapid rise in mega-blogs. Frequented by the latest generation of online addicts, usually in their teens and early twenties, these sites feed a seemingly bottomless need to stay in touch with one another. Mega-blogs like MySpace and YouTube have created online meeting tents so enormous and organic that they're among the most visited sites on the Web.

Unlike traditional websites, MySpace is more of a place to hang out than a destination. According to Fortune magazine, by August 2006 MySpace had signed up 100 million individuals, and every day was adding the equivalent of the population of Scottsdale, Arizona.18 Erected in 2003 and purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in 2005, MySpace today is the sweet spot for the teens and preteens who live online. One reason for that may be that many young people do not really distinguish the net from the "real" world all that much. In fact, for all intents and purposes, the Internet is the real world to them.19

Other comprehensive online social networks have sprung up throughout the United States and offshore, including Facebook for college students, concert marketplace Buzz-Oven, and video and photo share site Photobucket. Some are stand-alone and some are tucked inside larger blogs. They are used to share intimacies, buy or swap things and services, but mostly to just stay in touch with friends and strangers, and with friends who last month were strangers.

These meeting places are an advertisers' dream-as long as advertisers don't wear out their welcome. Big hitters such as Coke, Sony Pictures, and Procter & Gamble find MySpace and other mega-blogs to be excellent places to test new ideas for young people. The campaigns are low cost (as little as 10 percent of a major TV campaign), easy to mount, theoretically easy to evaluate in terms of success and return on investment, and carry the highly persuasive messaging via word of mouth. Mega-blogs may be the most effective antidote yet to the continuing erosion of network TV, newspapers, and other conventional media channels.

Mega-blogs also enable marketers to become part of the fabric of an authentic communication among the younger generation, and early indications are that blog users actually appreciate major advertisers legitimizing their efforts. It is believed that MySpace alone may account for as much as 15 percent or more of all online advertising, and rising, despite the fact that the blog does not allow pop-ups or spyware in its advertising.


The Risks of Blogging

There are also risks lurking in every corner of the buzz world, including the prospect of some restrictive regulations. As of this writing, numerous state regulators have been investigating MySpace for allegedly enabling child abusers to contact and meet children under age 14. (MySpace prohibits its use by younger children but may not be able to stop it.)20

Another risk is that blogging will be turned against marketers. A large retailer launched a major blogging buzz campaign in 2005 in which citizen-bloggers were enlisted to support the company in a series of public controversies, allegedly using verbiage written by the company itself. The company reportedly contacted bloggers through its PR agency and provided them with blogging material. The company did not encourage the bloggers to say where they got the information, but allegedly did suggest that they should not lift exact language from the company prompt piece lest it be noted by the press. Which, of course, it was.21

Influence peddling through blogging is becoming a common part of a communications plan among many public relations agencies and their clients. Being criticized in the press for the way they do it is not part of the plan, and certainly can be a counter-productive way for a company to diffuse negative publicity around other issues.

Although many of these online initiatives are perfectly legitimate, marketers who try anything just because they can may end up on the wrong end of regulation or, worse, buyer anger. Before marketers launch any new program that may involve camouflaged marketing they should carefully analyze whether the possible negative consequences are worth it. Major abuse of buzz marketing will undoubtedly bring critics and government agencies running to the rescue. Marketers should preempt them and use their influence to make sure the vehicles they support are squeaky clean.

At a time when buyers have never been more doubtful of sellers, what seems like a creative or innovative idea may not be all that smart, even if initially it builds awareness or trial. If some of the targeted consumers feel betrayed by the technique, they may tell everyone they know. The word-of-mouth door swings both ways.


The Slippery Slopes of Public Relations

Public relations is becoming one of the most important tools in the marketer's toolbox. As it receives more well-deserved credit for marketing successes, it also is getting more attention than some PR professionals would like. The job of public relations is to manage reputations from behind a curtain, after all, not in front of it. But because a lot of the industry's best work is done behind that curtain, missteps can often appear to be surreptitious.

In early 2005 Armstrong Williams, a popular black political commentator, strongly endorsed the federal government's "No Child Left Behind" initiative and urged other black journalists to follow suit. There was nothing shocking about that, especially since many people supported the program.

But what Mr. Williams didn't tell his listeners was that he had been paid $240,000 by the U.S. Department of Education to promote "No Child Left Behind." The clear impression he left was that his opinions were his own. After a mini-scandal heated up over the incident, Mr. Williams reportedly explained to USA Today that he regretted taking the money, but that returning it "would be ludicrous because they bought advertising, and they got it."22

Child magazine's technology editor, James Oppenheim, appears regularly on local television shows and reviews toys for interested parents. On one program, Oppenheim touted the benefits of products from Atari Inc., Microsoft Corp., Mattel Inc., Leapfrog Enterprises Inc. and Radio Shack Corp., but allegedly failed to mention that he was paid by those companies to praise their products.

Oppenheim once positioned himself as a "consumer advocate" whose "pledge is to tell the unvarnished truth about the products reviewed." More recently, he reportedly changed his bio to read "technology expert and industry spokesperson."23

Syndicated columnist Doug Bandow was suspended from his Copley News Service position in 2005 and forced to resign his post as senior fellow at the respected Cato Institute when it was discovered that he had taken dozens of bribes to write as many as twenty-four stories praising the clients of infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Receiving up to $2,000 per column, the topics of his writing were often allegedly suggested by Abramoff himself, a fact that Bandow omitted from his write-ups.24

Sadly, many chief marketing officers don't seem to believe that the questionable practice of paying to place stories in otherwise legitimate news editorial is all that questionable. In a 2006 survey of 266 senior marketing executives, nearly 50 percent said they had paid for an editorial or broadcast story placement, and nearly half of those who had never paid for a placement said that they would be willing to do so. In a survey conducted a year earlier, 65 percent of consumer respondents said they believed that all product placements were paid for.25

Marketers will always want to make full use of smart public relations to sell their wares, but whatever they pay in fees and expenses could be investments in brand equity loss if the discipline is not tempered with integrity controls. To its credit, the PR industry is very sensitive to these integrity issues. But, like in the word-of-mouth advertising field, the public relations industry is not capable of enforcing any integrity guidelines, as the ongoing fall of "the wall" demonstrates.


The Fall of "The Wall"

Since the first crude newspaper was cranked out by hand in fifteenth-century Germany, publishers have sprinkled advertising content throughout their editorial pieces. But over the course of many decades, much of the U.S. media at one time had erected a figurative but very real "wall" between editorial decisions and advertiser content and influence. (One possible originator of The Wall may have been Chicago Tribune publisher Colonel Robert McCormick, who in the 1920s reportedly insisted that advertising salesmen and editorial staff use separate elevators in the Tribune building.26)

In smaller media outlets that might be subject to more economic pressure from advertisers, a local car dealership, for example, might have a real impact on pending stories that criticize auto row businesses. By and large, though, many editors have kept The Wall as high as possible.27 But now The Wall is turning out to be about as strong as the original New Orleans levees.

In the spring of 2005, Morgan Stanley threatened to pull advertising from publications in which it received negative publicity. Not long after that, oil colossus BP demanded that they be notified in advance before any print publication in which they were advertising was running a story mentioning their companies. Both companies said they had no intention of interfering with editorial policy, but editors were not buying it.

The Hearst Magazines group recently asked U.S. adults which advertising medium they trusted. The highest level was the 21 percent of respondents who trusted magazines, compared to 12 percent for TV commercials and 7 percent for online advertising.28 (The magazine industry didn't comment on the fact that nearly 80 percent of adults claim not to trust advertising in any one medium.)

In October 2005, the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) held their ground and refused to loosen guidelines that prevent advertisers from embedding commercial messages in editorial content. As Mark Whitaker, the ASME president, put it, "Trends in advertising are going to come and go. The one thing that's going to keep you in business is your relationship with your readers, and if you jeopardize that, then you jeopardize the franchise."29

Trusting information requires that we are familiar and comfortable with the source. Nowadays, we're not even sure we know what the source is. That sentiment is applicable to advertisers as well as readers because at least some advertisers do not want to use vehicles that might compromise their own reputations. If the integrity of the carrier of the message is suspect, so may be the message and its sponsor. That's why you don't see many upright advertisers in marginal magazines or broadcast vehicles.

Meanwhile, the relentless march of advertising into editorial space continues. The Wall Street Journal, one of the most well-respected newspapers in the world, opened its front page to advertising in the fall of 2006. About the same time, the New York Times began selling ads on the front page of its business section and on the front of its Sunday Metro section.30

And for one of the first times ever, a mass consumer magazine-Hearst's Shop Etc.-began selling its cover to advertisers in July 2006, as did celebrity magazine OK! The publisher of OK! commented at the time, "We want to have integrity, but we also want to have a point of difference, to say that we will work very hard for [advertisers'] business without confusing or misleading our readers."31

Good luck with that.


The Real and Questionable Potential of the Net

When the dot-com boom whimpered away, the value of using the Internet as a relationship marketing tool was discounted in excess, just as its value had been celebrated in excess. But when the economy adjusted, marketers began to discover even more creative ways to engage visitors with a brand via online tools.

Now that marketers of all types are finding their online sea legs, buyers are subjected to spamming, email harvesting (the unauthorized collection of emails), emailing lists that cannot be opted out of, phishing (tricking someone into providing private information, usually by claiming to be their legitimate product/service provider), and a myriad of criminally fraudulent behavior that has only been multiplied by the Internet's scope and influence.

As online advertising spending spirals upward to a projected level of $25.9 billion by 2011, new kinds of brokers have emerged, called "wranglers," who attract large numbers of key target members to an online happening, then open the door to advertisers.32 Examples include Action Media's custom-car show called Hot Import Nights, the gaming network Xfire, various mega-blogs, and RSS-real simple syndication that alerts users as content is updated.

What users don't see when they get there is traditional advertising. Instead, messages are woven through the content in a sort of digital version of product placement. Users can drop out of the experience at any time, so those who stay tend to be loyal to the content.33

Another potential online gold mine is Internet video, which has been projected to become a $1.5 billion market by the end of this decade.34 With a stampede heading to online from traditional media, it might not be long before online video competes head-on with some enormous rivals. The cost of production is low, the time to market is short and the attention of the viewer is believed to be far higher than more common forms of advertising.

Advertisers like GM, Unilever, and American Express are moving fast to meet the younger buyers where they now live. In fact, online video advertising is growing faster than what is ironically being called "traditional online advertising," which grew by one-third to $12.9 billion in sales in 2005. And most important of all, these online videos are not subject to the corrosive growth of digital video recorders that threaten to undermine viewership of all but the most entertaining television commercials.35

Here again is a new channel that will likely explode in another couple of years. The videos will probably be the victim of a paradox: They will be the best place to promote online, and the best place to find those who prefer not to be marketed at. Because that combination of factors is likely to tempt marketers to do what they shouldn't, now would be the perfect time for participating advertisers to come together and decide what represents legitimate online promotion and what should be avoided.

For instance, should online video product placement be accompanied by guidelines about when advertisers should reveal that they are buying that placement? Or, would it make sense for advertisers to explain via advertorials why online product placement makes valuable suggestions for people to consider purchasing, in order to prevent future backlash by those who feel they are being used?

Various online marketing channels may be destined to be the most powerful vehicles ever conceived. Better to be clear that practical integrity is being planned and practiced now, rather than see the power of the channel be used as an excuse to muzzle marketers in the near future.

What If?

What if you polled customers about how honest they thought your marketing communications are? What if you compensated marketing team members based on the results of that survey? What if you proposed to your management that examples of questionable marketing or sales or product development actions be reviewed in the executive committee meeting (without attributing blame to any individual, of course)? What if you created an awards program that honored the individual who most contributed to practical integrity in the marketing department each year? What if the prize was worth, say, $5,000, just to make sure everyone was paying attention?

What if you were called before a congressional committee in a nationally televised hearing to discuss your company's marketing communications programs? Would it be a good career moment, or a bad day?

The Slow Fade-Out of Tolerance

Outside of the United States, honesty and fair play in marketing communications have often been legislated, and more or less achieved. In Japan and Sweden, in particular, strong laws and relentless pursuit of offenders have made advertising and other channels considerably more straightforward and easy to navigate. Violators are dealt with harshly and some are treated as criminals.

That day may yet dawn on American shores, and those who don't believe it need only remember that executives were rarely prosecuted for financial malfeasance just a decade ago.

What you have read in this chapter may appear to be a litany of isolated examples. It is not. Communications deception-blatant and subtle, egregious and minor-can be found in virtually every consumer and business-to-business industry. Nor is it confined to small, deviant organizations that don't make much of an impact on the marketplace. Large, often market-leading companies are stretching integrity issues everyday, including some that have demonstrated their integrity in many other venues.

The standards are changing, the customers are less tolerant, and the regulators are more aggressive than ever. It's time to reconsider communications integrity as the default position of your marketing programs. If it isn't, it should be.


The Communications Strategy: Promoting Honestly, Not Just Legally

The 2006 Hewlett-Packard boardroom debacle, in which the private lives of reporters and board members were reportedly violated, was entirely avoidable. The former U.S. federal prosecutor, who was hired by HP CEO Mark Hurd to investigate the matter, struck to the heart of the matter when he told the New York Times, "[Investigating the board] is not the test, it is the given. You have to ask what is appropriate and what is ethical."36

Marketing communications will always be subject to skepticism, doubt, and occasional outrage, just because it is a company's most visible selling channel and thus carries its most explicit sales messages. Unfortunately, marketing communication instruments are just too strong for some less-than-scrupulous practitioners to resist, and just too easy for them to stretch where they shouldn't go.

But there are some strategies that a company can employ to maintain successful momentum and maintain the kind of integrity that will benefit the company in the long-term. In general, you might want to assume that every fact and every implication will be subject to an audit by customers and/or someone who has no vested interest in anything but learning the unvarnished truth. Or, as one corporate policy puts it, assume that everything you produce will be on tomorrow's front page.

Some specific recommendations:

1.Check in frequently with your internal and external customers to ensure that they are hearing what you are saying. This should be standard practice for all marketing programs, but it's especially helpful in determining whether your credibility is suffering because your marketing communications claims are in doubt. That could be crippling when you consider the people who are inheriting the bulk of the buying power in the United States.

The twenty-something segments known variously as Gen Y, the Millennials, and "Generation ®" may be harbingers of the marketplace to come. Now totaling about 100 million buyers in the United States alone and representing at least $175 billion in buying power, these young adults are commercial old souls who are bone-weary of hype and attempts to wedge brands into their lives.

Gen Yers expect marketing messages to be customized, engaging, and simple enough to be understood while multitasking.37 One advertising campaign that typified this approach was an Arizona Jeans brand commercial that used teens mocking other ads that try to sound like them. The tagline: "Just show me the jeans."38

One way to begin is to periodically poll the younger members of your marketing team to see if they themselves believe in the authenticity of the marketing claims they are helping to propagate.

Second, be sure to incorporate message credibility questions in your awareness and attitude research. For example: "Do you believe all you read and hear about this brand? If so, why? If not, why not?" Questions that specifically home in on honesty usually give customers an opportunity to be candid about what they believe about a brand or company. And the respondent base should be large enough to allow cross-tabbing against young adult segments without slicing the pie so thin that the numbers are no longer projectible.

Some industries will attract more negativity in research responses than actually exists, because it's tough to pass up the chance to slam marketers. But good researchers will be able to craft cross-questioning that gets at genuine beliefs.

Of course, if either of these measures uncovers significant levels of distrust, the company should proactively address them. Letting them fester would result in a decline in net brand equity.

2.Reveal to customers as much as you want them to reveal to you. Transparency has become the most frequently mentioned antidote to the corporate truth-stretching that we've all been reading about, and that likely applies to marketing. As the unconventional advertising vehicles grow in importance, marketers have an increased obligation to let their audiences know who or what is behind the effort.

If a buzz campaign is launched, be up-front about who is the sponsor. If a spokesperson PR program is in the cards, make sure the spokesperson clearly explains what company is paying them to endorse a brand.

These disclosures may sound like they will damage the persuasiveness of the messaging, but they will more likely enhance its credibility. In a 2005 study by Northeastern University, more than 75 percent of the respondents said that revealing the sponsor of a buzz campaign was a "nonissue," and the rate that the message was passed along was 70 percent higher than in the nondisclosed cases.39

It is a trademark-not just a guideline-of such companies as Trader Joe's, Kiehl's, Patagonia, Timberland, and Herman Miller to be completely candid with their customers about what they can and cannot do. Those companies and others like them would rather not mount marketing communications of any kind if it meant holding back information that their customers need to make a decision.

And now, there are even more reasons for other companies to do the same.

3.Use your integrity (with humility) as a competitive advantage. Marketing communications with practical integrity can be used as a strong competitive advantage, although some companies prefer not to make use of it. Nevertheless, in an age when integrity is at a premium for many consumers, being straightforward about how straightforwardly you market could accomplish several things.

First, consider reassuring customers that their trust is well founded, but without saying "you can trust us." If you dig deep enough into the websites of such companies as Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, you'll find some statements about the integrity of their organizations, but that is not how most of their customers find out about that integrity. They see it in the quality of the food that never falters, in the honesty of the promotions, and in the candid way that they talk about their food on their websites.

It may be helpful to modestly point out the things you do to benefit the customer, possibly as a way of saying that it's your way of showing appreciation for their business. Or, you could invite customers to help you choose one or more of your staff who exemplify the integrity you try to demonstrate in everything the brand or company does.

Second, you might want to separate yourself from your competition by regularly announcing innovative communications that demonstrate your transparency. That could include discussing how the components or ingredients of your products are selected, or some "backroom" stories about how you go about improving a particular service.

One of the marketing communications that further reinforced Patagonia's integrity reputation was an essay in its Spring 2006 catalog. The essay thanked other companies-including some of its direct competitors-for joining Patagonia in an important industry improvement: "We tip our hat to the following companies who now use varying amounts of organically grown cotton in their clothing: Hanna Andersson, Marks & Spencer, Mountain Equipment Co-op, Nike, Nordstrom, Norm Thompson, Prada, Stewart-Brown, and Timberland."40

Fielding the right kind of communications may also draw positive awareness from prospects that otherwise might not have been tempted to learn more about your brand. In 2005, GE launched its "Ecomagination" initiative and is funding it to the tune of $1.5 billion a year. The program to commercialize environment-saving programs is projected to create $20 billion in revenue from Ecomagination projects by 2010.

The company has put major marketing communications behind the program and, like BP's Beyond Petroleum positioning, it may very well provide GE with additional competitive advantage against its less future-leaning rivals.41

Finally, you might want to establish your company as a resource for accurate and credible information within your industry. This kind of role requires a lot of work to build and maintain, but if customers and others can count on your brand or company for objective information, they will surely be more likely to trust you when you have something to sell.

4.Try telling the unvarnished truth, then try again. Marketers are not generally paid to tell everything they know about their product, service, or company, but only the positive things. There's certainly nothing wrong with being an advocate, as long as advocacy doesn't lead you to create inaccurate or misleading information.

Researchers from two universities in Canada gave subjects marketing material with advertising claims, then later provided them with credible evidence that the claims were, in fact, highly deceptive. The result was that the subjects became not only "defensive" (skeptical) about the first set of claims, they subsequently became defensive about additional claims for another product altogether. In other words, deceptive marketing can create long-term skepticism on top of onetime doubt.42

Herman Miller was about to introduce its revolutionary Aeron chair in 2002. The chair was hailed as a breakthrough by, among others, Los Angeles Times writer Preston Lerner, who reported that the industry was transformed by the introduction of the Aeron, "which set new standards for ergonomic efficiency while emerging as an I'm-so-cool icon . . . it forever changed the landscape of the modern office."43

As part of the launch marketing, someone in the company suggested referring to Herman Miller as the "world's leader in cross-performance work chairs." The marketing communications department pushed back and said that the phrase was basically meaningless (i.e., a weasel) and it didn't add any value to their customers' evaluation of needs. Max DePree, the CEO at the time, commented wryly that "the truth is a real constraint." The truth DePree was talking about included making claims that meant something, not that were just nice sounding. The line was neatly shelved in the round file.44

5.Avoid the turn-offs. You may think you are working with marketing communications tools, but those "tools" may be nothing short of weapons. In the time it takes to play a sponsored videogame, your marketing communications decisions can make your day or unmake a lot of good work. Because of its visibility and potential impact, marketing communications is one area where it is particularly critical that marketers avoid any outbreaks of "hoof-in-mouth" gaffes, or overzealous spending. Some no-no's to watch out for:

* Killing Your Brand Softly. The little hedges, weasels, puffery and various forms of exaggeration are probably harmless enough on a onetime basis. But sooner or later, someone will notice if what you promise in marketing communications does not match what they experience as a user.

Marketing Communications Implications to Consider: As other brands begin to raise their credibility standards, yours could be left in the cold. Get tough on the accuracy of your claims before your most loyal customers question their trust in you.

* Letting Our Expert Out There Tell Them How Great This Thing Is. It's becoming clear how relative the term "expert" is, and what the new rules are for sending them forth to tell your story. The general public is gradually wising up about how many of the "experts" of the world are working for the companies they are recommending. All other things being equal, a good product or service will succeed in the marketplace. No need to make it tougher, though, by connecting its brand to questionable spokespersons.

Credibility Implication to Consider: In light of all the unpleasant revelations in recent years about paid spokespersons, consider adopting four hard and fast rules: 1) pick your spokespeople the way you pick your doctor, with just as much scrutiny about qualifications; 2) when it comes to identifying the relationship between the company and spokesperson: disclose; 3) disclose; and 4) disclose.

* Marketing to Those Who Don't Understand That You're Marketing to Them. Veterans of PTA and school board meetings know the battle cry: "You can do what you want to me, but don't try it with my kid!" Marketers who are actively soliciting business from younger children and anyone else who is not capable of fully understanding the implications of marketing are rolling enormous dice with their brands and their companies.

You didn't read it here first, but you are reading it again: given the skeptical world that we now live in, such marketing will inevitably be lassoed to the ground by government intervention, customer anger, public outcry, or all of the above.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reported in a 2006 study that 38 percent of food-oriented websites encourage children to purchase products, that 85 percent of leading food brands that employ TV advertising also used branded websites directed at children, but that only 18 percent of such websites clearly explain that they are advertising. Just as predictably, the report's release was followed by a gaggle of politicians who decried the data and the trends.45

Marketing Communications Implications to Consider: The phrase "playing with fire" does not do justice to the dangers that lie ahead for marketers who are still free to market to the very young or otherwise gullible, but whose freedoms may soon be curtailed with unreasonable force. Better to market with self-imposed constraints than to be constrained by forces that could wreak more havoc than any competitor.


A Summary and a Few Questions

Violators of marketing integrity will always be with us, but the bolder they get the more likely they will attract all the wrong kinds of attention to the industry in general. Too many of us in marketing are unnecessarily self-inflicting wounds.

It's now becoming more urgent to reassess the credibility of our marketing as new and very exciting communications vehicles are coming to the fore. The suggestion that we market honestly, not just legally, requires that marketers stay ahead of trouble by policing ourselves before others do it for us.

Here are a few questions to consider in the meantime:

1. Do you know what your customers consider truthful and untruthful in your industry? Have you found out what customers and prospects are most concerned about in terms of honesty and fair play? If not, you may be unnecessarily adding to your future marketing challenges.

2. Has your brand or company ever harmed its net brand equity by intentionally or inadvertently deceiving your customers with your marketing communications? Did you thoroughly analyze the incident(s)? Do you understand what happened, why it happened, and what the full short-term and long-term consequences were?

3. Does your company use buzz or stealth marketing responsibly? The term "responsibly" is certainly not very definitive in this new channel, but if you do your research you will discover how the public in general, and your customers in particular, believe that term should be defined. (See Appendix C for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Code of Ethics.)

4. What protocol do you have in place to detect and stop deceiving marketing communications before they get out the door? The standard legal checks are a good start, but rarely the final say. You might consider setting up a rotating panel of customers and prospects to see what they believe are honest communications, and what might be less so.

5. Do your communications programs follow both the letter and the spirit of applicable laws? Now this is one for the attorneys, but be certain that they have been given carte blanche to be very candid, and encouraged to take an issue up the command chain if they think it risks problems in the marketplace. The spirit of the law is technically a legal term, but it perhaps should best be interpreted by those who are being asked to buy the product or service. Buyers may not know the letter of the law, but they likely have a good feel for its intent.

© 2007 Lynn Upshaw.
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