Recently in Ethics Category

Here's a two-birds-with-one-stone approach that I like:

Catalog Choice, an organization that seeks to reduce paper waste by helping consumers get off catalog lists, has teamed with The Overbrook Foundation to sponsor a $20,000 Paperless Choice Challenge to help non-profits move into the digital age and away from paper.

What I like about Catalog Choice is that they aren't just a naysayer... they're actively giving merchants a way to achieve a goal of reducing their use of paper. And, of course, now they're helping out non-profits by giving them access to successful campaigns that use digital fundraising instead of paper fundraising. (Interestingly, I found out why: Individual donations currently make up 75% of U.S. philanthropy, according to the Idealist.)

It's a cause I'm down with. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the more non-profs you give money to, the more fundraising envelopes you get from non-profs you've never heard of.

Meals on Whales? Girls Gone Wildlife Fund? Habitrail for Humanity?

You can just go too far, I tell you.

(Photo by dfulmer)

So here we are on Tuesday, a little groggy still from the 3-day "summer kickoff" weekend.

Maybe you went to a friend's barbecue or bought an appliance or mattress (hopefully not from the place pictured above) at a heavily advertised sale.

But what if someone (maybe a woman from another country) asked some of us, "Well, what does that have to do with the day set aside to commemorate the men and women who died while serving in the American military?"

I, for one, would have to own up that my camping trip this weekend had absolutely zilcho to do with it.

And I'm guessing most people in the US would have a similar answer.

Over at the Fast Company site, Steve McCallion, Blogger and Executive Creative Director at Ziba Design asks the question, "Why has Memorial Day, like so many of our national holidays, been reduced to appliance sales, fast food specials, and vacation deals?"

His 3-part blog series (which really should be turned into a multi-page article for the magazine) looks at the erosion of meaning for the American holiday and how it "is just one of many examples of the growing gap between the promise of America--freedom and opportunity through sacrifice and unity--and how people experience Brand America. Like any brand, America will have to close this gap to thrive in the future."

Before you poo poo him as a downer after your amazing weekend, take some time to look at his clear argument how our country violated its own brand strategy by making Memorial Day about convenience, rather than day of remembrance and, yes, inconvenience.

And trust me, this isn't one of those articles that points to Marketing as the black hatted bad guy getting everyone to go to Macy's instead of putting flags on headstones at Arlington National Cemetery. In fact, he goes onto point out ways companies such as Google, PepsiCo, and Facebook can help us realize the importance of the holiday.


(Photo by angusf)

We've all been there. The Too Good to Be True Zone.

As someone who works in and around Marketing and sees the the retail aisles full of gimmicks to get me to buy a particular product, I have a pretty jaundiced eye when it comes to Too Good to Be True.

But in this day and age of the Twitter Democracy, you wonder if running a Deal of the Century campaign with a bunch of small print full of caveats embedded in it might not just bite you in the bum (as the British might say).

Case in point, the Mouse Print blog is devoted to the fine print in advertisements.

Or the print that makes you say, "Ah, so it is too good to be true!"
 
Like these recently covered topics:

A Kmart advertisement that promises a $10 debit card when you purchase ANY of the $3+ items pictured in the ad. (Unfortunately the fine print contradicts the body copy of the ad, you need to purchase at least $25 worth of the products to qualify for the card. D'oh!)

Nabisco offers free Chips Ahoy cookies when a consumer visited their Facebook page. Not so fast, it's not as straightforward as, say TGIFriday's offer of a free hamburger when you visited their page. To get the cookie coupon, you need to first 1) buy a gallon of milk, 2) buy a package of Nabisco cookies and 3) become of fan of the cookies on Facebook. (In other words, it's MUCH easier to just go and buy the 2.99 cookies yourself.)

As Twitter evolves, it'll be interesting to see if the upswing of consumer advocacy will help clear out some of the little tiny fonts littering full page ads.








(Photo by Bascom Hogue)

Okay, here's something new: the branding and marketing agency BBMG has launched "a private online community to connect socially conscious consumers with sustainable brands and causes."

Called The Collective, the social network community is, according to AdAdge, "creating a community of 2,000 'conscious consumers' who will help shape policies, practices, products and marketing efforts of a variety of causes and socially responsible companies in what BBMG calls the "Age of Co-Creativity."

I'm still a little fuzzy, even after poking through the site, how this is all going to work. But here's a hint in their What's in it for You section:

* Have your voice heard by socially responsible brands in a secure, private community
* Be among the first to see and test new product ideas or concepts
* Connect with other members who share your values
* Take action to help develop new markets for socially responsible products and services
* Be part of an exclusive group of trendsetters
* Enjoy rewards and perks (discounts, gear and other exclusives) from our brand partners

And what's in it for BBMG?

"We (the branding firm) learn a lot and gain credibility as an educated, knowledgeable partner and advocate for the conscious consumer."

Well, heck, I sincerely hope it works for them, because it looks like a good deal of time, effort, and money will be going into the project.

(Photo by Ubi Desperare Nescio)

So it's 40 years since the first Earth Day. Weirdly, for an event that was mired in anti-corporate sentiments, I've gotten maybe a dozen or so emails and have seen 5 times that many advertisements from companies wanting to sell me their "green products."

No, I'm not being cynical, nor necessarily bad mouthing the companies that want to sell light bulbs that use 70% less electricity than their incandescent counterparts. And I do realize that at the first Earth Day event the likelihood that you could recycle your Coke bottle or get more than 8mpg from your Ford Station Wagon Country Squire edition on the drive to the rally would be right next to nil.

But something struck me when I read an article in the NY Times. The Coordinator for the very first Earth Day commented about the marketization of the holiday, "This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green. It is tragic."

As a marketer, it makes you wonder about the thin line created by a politically-charged holiday. I'm thinking about a blog I read awhile ago in which the blogger received an email from HP letting them know about their upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Sale. His response was his blog title: "Martin Luther King Day Must Be About Service Not Sales". Which is an really valid point. And do you really want to alienate your customers because there's a good opportunity for a sales push?

It also brings up an interesting thought about Earth Day itself: is it about moving your product or doing something service oriented, such as company members going out and planting trees or running an e-waste drop off at your electronics superstore?

Or is it do you (as Slate put it in their column, "Did Earth Day Sell Out to Corporations?") do like Greenpeace and team up  with technology giants like Cisco and Google to hold a Web seminar on reducing the nation's carbon footprint?

So here's the question: are you ethically charged, as a marketer, for doing the right thing when it comes to respecting your customer's opinion?


(Photo courtesy: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center)