Marketing and Ethics
Posted on | January 12, 2008 | 1 Comment
By Tom Polanski
Marketing created to exploit the uninformed is reprehensible. For better and for worse, depersonalization and anonymity are part and parcel of the web. Since online companies no longer have to live and work in the communities they sell their products and services too, they’re left with names and numbers without a human connection. Too many online marketers have forgotten that we’re still doing business with people who have hopes, dreams and fears just like we do. Many of us have lost or have never been granted the gift of empathy and, interestingly, isn’t a lack of empathy one of the hallmarks of the sociopath?
In 2000, I was invited to join a “start up†company for the purpose of offering “stored value cards†to people who either had damaged credit or weren’t able to obtain debit or credit cards through banks. I spent about a week there and left. Even though I liked the concept and thought it could potentially be something that would be of legitimate service to millions of people, I wasn’t able to get comfortable with senior management there.
I left to work at a major agency in Los Angeles and what I saw there changed me for good.
As we know, the web is competitive. It’s a super highway. PEW studies indicate that end users will scan ads for less than a second and give a website less than a second before a judgment is made about the sites aesthetics, usability and reliability. People are in a hurry on the web. One reason may be that about 75% of online shopping is done between the hours of eight and five which, of course, is when most people are at work. Let me use myself as the protagonist in the following scenarios: the Boss is at the other end of the office but he has this annoying habit of walking in unannounced and peering over my shoulder at my monitor so I have to move fast as I have, at best, a few minutes to scan listings for that Blu-Ray player I’ve been lusting after. I want to get deal done because stock is limited and I have to get back to work as soon as possible. The boss could pop his head in at anytime.
For those who use morally gray marketing methods, our impatience is easily exploited. In this next scenario, I’ll illustrate how so many of us are ensnared by continuity programs. Let’s say, one day, my spirits are low and see a banner for a “free trial†from a skin cream company. I’ve noticed a few wrinkles around my eyes. I’m not growing old gracefully and maybe I didn’t get that promotion because I’m showing my age. Who knows? Can’t hurt to try it, right? It’s free. I go to the landing page and I see that, seemingly, my only commitment is to pay for shipping and handling. I think I’ll give it a try. I enter my credit card information to pay for the shipping and handling. Just maybe this anti-wrinkle skin cream will work and help me to start feeling better about myself.
Ultimately though, I probably won’t feel so good because I’ve, unwittingly, just signed up for a continuity program. This means that I’ll receive at least one full shipment of products at regular prices. How can they do this? Well, they have my credit card number which I gave them to pay for shipping (they make a margin on this too, by the way) and somewhere in the site it said that signing up for a “free trial†means I’ll get regular shipments unless I cancel. I may receive several cycles before I can get a cancellation processed. It’s easier to cancel paying a debt to the IRS than it is to cancel a continuity program. At least in this scenario I’d receive products, but there are other types of services where, since I don’t go over my credit card statements (too busy), my cards are charged again and again before I notice. I’d have to spend hours getting out of those deals, too.
Most unfortunate are those who are in financial trouble and aren’t as familiar with the web as I am. Let’s say, you’ve had a bankruptcy on your record or you’ve had credit troubles or, worse yet, what if you’re an undocumented worker? Suppose you see an ad (probably a pop up generated by the adware or spyware you unknowingly downloaded) for a company that promises to issue you a credit card for a low monthly fee? You sign up. You need the credit card and you don’t read the terms and conditions (who does?) where, hidden in the verbiage, it’s indicated that there’s a $159 activation fee. Your already feeble banking account is either immediately debited that $159 or a check for a $159 is presented to your bank by the credit card company for that amount. Wouldn’t that hurt? Can you imagine your feelings of betrayal? What if you started filling out the form, got as far as entering your social security number and banking account information before having a change of heart and clicking the “X†box only to find later that you activated an evil javascript which interpreted that click as an authorization?
It happens all of the time. The business I walked away from in 2000 is built on morally gray marketing tactics and I was told recently that company’s worth $30,000,000. Ah, but that was before the FTC stepped into the picture, froze the company’s assets and then fined that company over $2,000,000. I have no idea what the company is worth now but I know they’re trying to market themselves as leaders in internet honesty compliancy…just like Al Capone when he started the Better Business Bureau. What rationalizations does the management of that company use to justify what they do? How do these people go home to enjoy family, health and wealth knowing that they duped countless people?
Could you do it? We can’t. We don’t market questionable products and services. Has that cost our companies money? You bet. However, my team and I looked around and noticed that a high standard of living doesn’t necessarily equate to a high quality of life. Money can buy me a new car, a big house and vacations around the world. But I can’t buy feelings of lasting peace and security with money. A clear conscience does that.
It’s true that my job, ultimately, is to get people to take the action my advertisers want them to take. However, I believe there are rules to this type of engagement and that the pay off received for dealing fairly with others will be proven in the length of the relationship, the enhanced equity of the brand and in the life-time value.
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Tags: > Advertising > business > marketing > small business > thomas polasnki > tom polanski
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One Response to “Marketing and Ethics”
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January 14th, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
I am impressed with this topic. I am a strong believer in ethical tactics – not just for the purpose of being an upstanding business person in the community – but basically to add value to what you are trying to do and separate from the bottom feeders. To apply your topic to e-tail, I always like to use the theory, “If all things were equal between two companies, would something like ethics put one above the other.†I think without dispute the answer is yes. And here is why:
If two businesses had the same product, navigation and pricing, but one had its phone number in bold across the top of the homepage and the other had it buried in a contact info area (or not shown at all), which would you feel better about ordering from?
If all things were equal, and you saw a physical address listed for the company in plain view (specifically a retail company), wouldn’t that make a difference?
In many ways, companies make things so impersonal that if a customer has a bad experience they can’t even begin to know where, who or how to notify. So ethics don’t always have to mean above and beyond customer service – although this is extremely important. It can just mean making your face as a company visible. A customer service email reply with an actual name and contact different than the main company line – basically, just plain being accessible.
Accessibility implies nothing to hide. Those companies who lack ethics typically are impossible to reach. And internet consumers know it. Stamping your contact info in prominent areas of your website I believe reinforces the perception that you run an ethical business. And it’s a good way to make a customer into a “friendâ€.
To your “friends stick with friends†point, all it takes is one person in a social group to say, “This company was impossible to get a hold of.†And you may as well have given out their credit card number to a third party in their eyes.
Also, little things such as hiding or masking unsubscribe links from email campaigns, misleading tag lines, and anything that is intended to confuse – all point towards crappy ethics. Most customers are good and do not want to abuse promotions or policies. These same customers won’t want to deal with companies who are not straight with them.
Thanks for the stimulation –it’s a nice article which says a lot about you personally. It’s a topic that gets lost in today’s quest for ecommerce growth. “
Jon Fahrner
Ecommerce Director, Arthur Beren