The importance of ethics in marketing

In the U.S. right now there is a lot of fear regarding China. Now of course there is good reason. They have a huge army, love selling weapons to dictators, put anyone who looks funny into jail and God knows what else. But the really scary part is China's growing economy. Back in the day there was a term called "Chinese Marketing," which spoke of the fallacy of assuming that because an economy had X number of people you would be able to get them all to agree to purchase your product.

What should be of even greater concern is the concept of a growing move for ethics in China. I was speaking to a colleague just back from China who was impressed by a banner he saw throughout a Chinese company. Loosely translated it read, "Social responsibility is good for our business and our good business is good for you." I laughed when I read it because it sounded so very simple and at the same time was an ideal testimony to what this organization wished to convey to its customers.

This topic reminds me of an article in Business Week last week about a Chinese company whose CEO has made it very clear to investors that they come last in his pecking order. First, is his company's customer's, second are his employees and then come investors. By doing this he has a both a satisfied customer base and satisfied employees who combine to deliver exceptional results that result in satisfied investors quarter after quarter.

Contrast that with companies in the United States who see "flipping," or going public as a quick way to pocket a few dollars and then leave the market. They show no long term interest in growing for the customers and the customer is quite often an ends to a means. I have had the miserable experience of having my sales rep ignore me more or less until the end of the quarter. Then magically we are best buddies if my contract is up for renewal. Sadly this is typical of companies where meeting "the numbers" is what passes for business and as we see from the examples of Enron and so many other companies earlier in the decade, and Bernie Madoff recently, even out and out fraud are often practiced with little regard for the long term marketing problems.

Two companies should be put into the marketing hall of fame for how they handled a problematic ethical issue, which was ironically not of their own making. Johnson and Johnson and the Tylenol issue in 1982 showed how a company should handle any issue that concerns the safety of their customers. They were publicly traded but showed how concern for ones customer can result in a stronger result down the road. Speaking for myself, if I am looking to buy an over the counter medicine more than 25 years after the Tylenol poisoning, I reach for a Johnson and Johnson product when ever possible because to me, they have my best interests in their mind. God knows how many times they recouped the losses from those terrible days.

The second case is less well known but worth remembering as a teaching moment. In the summer of 1993 people claimed they were finding used hypodermic needles in Pepsi cans. Pepsi went back and shut down production to figure out how this was possible and where in there production process something might have gone wrong. They pulled products from any of the areas where the needles were found and then retooled the process so no foreign object can be put into one of the cans.

More importantly, they sat down with Coca-Cola and more or less said, "Today it is us, tomorrow it might be you." Combined, both companies worked out a solution which did two things, it proved the people with the needles were liars but also developed a combined PR campaign which proved that both leaders had worked together to secure their production process from any type of problem,

The take away here is that there is more to ethics in business than simply writing a plan and feeling good about yourself. You need to have a plan in place which will roll in and protect your brand. An ethical breech can cost you millions of dollars if not your entire brand! Act aggressively to be a good ethical citizen and remember social responsibility is good for your business and good business is good for you!

Marketing is a porus medium

A lot of people like to think of marketing and communications as some type of juggernaut that moves forward and leaves only the crushed competition in its wake. Actually nothing could be further from the truth. There are a lot more similarities between the Titanic and most marketing programs than most of us would like to acknowledge.

For those who are familiar with the ocean there is something known as wash back wherein the ocean water flows around the boat but then flows back, or more precisely is sucked back by the engine. This causes great damage to the rudder and engine over time.

This is something that most marketing people do not think of when mounting a marketing campaign. A marketing campaign does not end on the second Tuesday of the month. Instead, it is an ongoing ever living cycle where marketing and communications done today can have implications down the road.

I recall a former client of mine who wanted to do a campaign which said something that contradicted what was said in the previous campaign. As usual it was a case of a non-marketing person thinking that doing the marketing was as simple as ABC-123. They could not, or would not see that by pursuing this course of action would result in the high potential for reputational damage to the organization's brand. They were only looking ahead and didn't see the big wave coming up from behind.

The reason this one stays with me is that I was told to stop living in the past. That is the call of those who do not understand that in the past is where we learned all of our lessons and where we can find lessons for the future. To quote Cervantes, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Sadly far too many corporate types do not take a look over their shoulders to see what has happened and instead plunge forward blindly and, as a result, make avoidable mistakes or even worse repeat old mistakes. The graveyard of marketing blunders is full of organizations who have done this.

The lesson to be learned dear reader is not to live in the past but be sure to pay heed to it. Make sure that the past also serves as a guide post to where you are going in the future. As hikers all know remembering where you came from is the best way to hit the top of the hill!

Dealing with the reliance on technology

Yesterday featured an attack on Twitter which resulted in the service being down for most of the day. The result was wide spread anxiety among the hordes to whom Twitter is as addictive as nicotine or caffeine. I found myself in a state of schadenfreude at how people were lamenting the loss of a service that had not existed five years ago.

This outage proves the point that any technology can be a tremendous value to marketing and PR people in the execution of their jobs. However, the job goes on regardless of what is running or not. You do not delay a product launch simply because Twitter or Facebook are not running at 100 percent. They exist to compliment your marketing service, they are not there to replace it.

My first recommendation to all those who were taken aback by the Twitter outage is take a deep breath. First of all, if you stop and think about it, what is not being said by you on Tweeter? I have seen very few messages that were so Earth shattering that they needed to be sent out immediately, despite what senior executives seemed to think at the moment.

No the Tweeter outage yesterday showed us three things that are good learning lessons for marketing and PR pros. The first one is the most obvious, always have a back up plan. You may decide to send out that press release the day of the next great black out, or you may decide to have your event on the day of the big blizzard. It is essential that there always be a plan B. A lot of managers don't like to have a plan B because they believe that is planning for failure but by not having one, you are in fact planning to fail.

It also proved that new technologies, while helpful and, at times, exciting, are subject to risk. All technology is but the newer ones by virtue of their youth still have bugs to be worked out and are also the target of those wrong doers who seeing them much in the same way that a hungry lion seeks out the youngest prey in the herd.

Lastly, there is an old lesson we need to remember and that is while technology does make our lives easier, it is not irreplaceable. Remember that computers used to be the size of a room and typewriters used to require people who can spell and even on the web we just had basic web sites. So while losing a service can be a headache, it is just that. Having your car in the shop is a bigger one. So keep that in perspective.

Technology is great, but it's loss while a pain is not the end of the world!

RIP-John Hughes

So you have a blog/Facebook and Twitter account, now what?

Companies are jumping into the social media pool faster each day. What is surprising is no one is saying to them, why? A quick discussion with a few PR and marketing professional's the other day resulted in them telling me that they were basically told to do it, do it quickly and get it done. No reason was given towards doing it, other than we need to do it. It is a case of someone outside of the marketing arena deciding that something needs to be done by marketing so lets give it to them.

Plunging into the social media arena without so much as plan is the dictionary definition of dumb. More over, the fact that one person has a blog, Facebook or Tweeter account does not render them as an expert on the topic. I have poked around more than my fair share of them and have found one or two that I chose to emulate in my own efforts but I was amazed by how few were well designed.

The first thing I tell clients or potential clients is that I am not an expert on social media technologies, but then again I don't worry about it because these technologies are so new that it is impossible for any to be. In fact, I often say that anyone who claims to be is either a fool or a liar.

The next step I would offer to anyone who has made the decision to go with a blog or a Facebook/Tweeter strategy is to look around and try and find someone who does it well. Blogs are becoming very influential as a tool for distributing news and, as we saw recently in the case of Sarah Palin, often become news themselves. One possible strategy is to not just create your own blog but make sure to post on blogs related to your own area of expertise. You should use your own blog to demonstrate your thought leadership and show the world why you are the best at what you do. A blog post should be like giving a short presentation and should be consistent with marketing and PR efforts.

Facebook and Twitter represent different challenges and opportunies. Within the marketing community these remain very controversial in regard to how best to utilize their potential for the organization. There are some companies out there who point blank refuse to use any new or social media and try to wall themselves off from its implications by forbidding any comment on any of these outlets. Essentially ceding the field of battle before a shot has been fired. Others have no policy and that can lead to pure chaos.

Of the two, I believe Twitter has the greatest promise for marketing due to its acessibility and ease of use. It allows for quick interaction, while limiting what can be done thanks to its character limits. Facebook in my opinion is much like a fan page or, alternatively, a bill board. You can post something on there and have limited discussions, but you will not likely see open and honest feedback from participants.

That is why I believe that if you really want to utiilze social media to enhance your marketing efforts a blog is your best bet. If you engage in free and open discussion. By using the blog as a platform to develop a clear pattern of thought leadership in your area of expertise and leave an option for discussion with interested parties, you can become a very influential party within your field and establish both yourself and your organization as THE thought leader in your field.

Marketing and bad news.

A few days back I told the story of the CEO who was rude in front of a receptionist and how that resulted in a lost business opportunity. Ironically, the same thing happened to me lately and it is amazing how marketing and PR can have direct impacts on business opportunities that are not in a linear direct line.

My own story is that a few years ago I met with people at an agency about a job and during the first round of interviews things went fine. Nothing unusual and nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently the direct hiring manager was out of the office that day so the HR person told me that I would need to meet with her which again is not anything I thought unusual. I was told that the meeting would take place the next week and we set a time and date.

On the following Monday, I receive an automatic email from the company thanking me for my application but that they had decided to pursue other candidates based on the hiring managers needs. I thought this was odd as I had already coming in for an interview later in the week so I called? I never received a call back and I found that to be both very rude and very unprofessional.

So a few years pass and I am helping on a charity event on its publicity committee. We are told by the charity running the event that they have money for PR and would like to hire an agency. I look at the list and see the same agency on the list and I go to the contact from the charity and explain what had happened and she asks me if I can remain impartial and judge them on the merits of their presentation to which I respond, "of course."

Well they come in and to be honest all the presentations were about the same. No stars, but no one really was terrible either. But this agency's presentation was all about how they care and that with them you will be dealing with human beings and people whose caring for one another was at the heart of what they did. Needless to say that was quite the opposite of what I experienced and they did not get the job for that and several other reasons.

The message here is that unpleasant things happen in business. People get laid off or don't get a job or whatever. It is always better to deliver the bad news in person or at least by a personal method. To be cold and mechanical about it says you don't care and in the karmic universe, what goes around, comes around! Remember to let down any source, customer, potential job candidate or whom ever you need to share bad news with lightly, because today's reject may be tomorrow's opportunity.

There is the classic adage about not burning bridges. Sadly, the market for bridge burning tools is a robust one and many organizations seem to be on a mad quest to see how many bridges they can burn in the least amount of time!

The risk of social media

Social media is currently all the rage in marketing and PR circles. Everybody wants to be on Twitter or Facebook or be running a blog. While these are admirable intentions and, I am very happy to see marketing engaged as a positive force, I do want to express caution as I foresee several areas of concern which are being neglected in a full force rush into embracing social media.

First of all, I believe we may be recreating the same problems that went into developing web sites when the Internet became popular in the late 1990's. Everyone was so keen then on having a web site that sites were designed based on what looked cool and what the latest technology could offer, that very little attention was paid to what was expected of a web site and how the web site would help further the overall marketing and sales goals of the organization.

Similar things are taking place with social media. Organizations are now so keen about being on Twitter or having a Facebook page that very little attention is being paid to how these vehicles can best be utilized to further the marketing efforts of the organization. I know of one company that is up on Twitter and has a number of followers, but what they do is so useless that they receive no benefit. No one is interested in what they have to say because the only reason they set up Tweets is for a customer to chat with a sales person about upcoming product revisions or minor technical issues.

Both Tweeter and Facebook, along with Blogs, have the potential to be tremendous resources for developing thought leadership and establishing clear and solid bonds with their future and potential customers. There are tremendous benefits to social media but they must structured within the larger marketing plan. While you and I may go on these sites for our own amusement, another area to be wary of, for organizations and specifically corporations social media sites are an area that must be managed wisely.

No organization would ever consider allowing an employee to develop and place an ad, or to send out proprietary information to a competitor. Yet with a poorly developed and managed social media policy, you may be doing exactly this same thing. However with appropriate controls, social media can be an explosive tool in bringing the appropriate message to not only a target audience, but one that shares your interest in cutting edge solutions.

How interactions with others can be mean ruin for your organization!

I remember this story that a sales friend of mine told me about a meeting he went on with his CEO and a potential client. They were waiting for the client who was delayed and while there his CEO started talking about someone back at the office and saying how incompetent she was and how in his organization he has no tolerance for fools and that it was his way or the highway. Well sure enough the client comes in and right away the scowl goes away, the smiles go out and they go in and have their meeting.

Well several weeks later my friend calls up the client wondering why they have not heard back regarding what had earlier seemed such a promising lead. The contact told him that the receptionist had overheard what the CEO had said and commented on how rude he was. The icing on the cake is when this was reported back to the CEO, he didn't take it as a lesson learned, he called up and told the client that they were not interested in doing business with them anyway and if that is how they do things than fine.

The point of this story is that every person who deals with the public from the CEO on down to customer service or even accounts payable is a brand ambassador. Each and everyone of them need to realize that all customers are key and that the cost of finding new customers far and away exceed the costs of acquiring new ones. Yet companies seem to think that the only people who are responsible for presenting the public face is either marketing and then by default sales. And sales gets the task by default only.

Every organization needs to review who speaks to the public and more importantly there needs to be some basic training in how to deal with the public and in many cases customers. It is amazing to me how much money an organization will pour into marketing and how much time and effort is spent on color schemes for advertising and what vehicles to use and then from the minute the contract is signed until the moment the license comes up for renewal nothing happens.

Or you can have a case where there is a problem and you get passed around from person to person, none of whom seem interested in helping you. In my mind it is amazing how little time or money is truly invested into the full 360 degree marketing process. Yet ironically when customers are unhappy and not purchasing or purchasing more renewals of the product, it is often the marketing group that faces the blame.

The take away here is that everyone who deals with customers works for marketing. Customers should be treated like the special beings that they are. The reason being is that if you think it is expensive to keep customers happy, try to find new ones to replace those who are unhappy. Of course, don't forget the old adage that an unhappy customer will tell six people for every person a happy customer will tell.