The Marketing & PR Conundrum: Lying to Customers
In a recent BNET post “Lying to Your Customers? Come on, Everyone’s Doing It,” author and customer advocate Christopher Elliott shares six companies who have lied to their customers: Tavern on the Green, Ford, Microsoft, Office Depot, Cablevision, and Apple.
Lies or Business As Usual?
The chef at Tavern on the Green lied about gluten free pasta. What is the big deal, right? If a diner has food allergies, it is a huge deal. While Chef Damian Cardone may not have thought too much about the “white lie,” those with gluten allergies likely suffered the consequences of their meal. Tavern on the Green’s reputation is known far and wide—making it an iconic brand. Now, it’s doors are closed after filing for bankruptcy.
A Ford engineer told NPR that the gas tanks in Ford cars register full when they are not actually full. We are currently living in a depressed economy and gas prices are soaring. With all of Ford’s efforts to be social and bring customers to the center of their organization, how does this admission affect their brand? Is stating that the gas gauge’s purpose is “giving a customer ‘a prediction’ of what will happen” enough to protect the reputation they have worked so hard to preserve? If all car manufactures have this same challenge, is it a lie or a limitation of technology?
Due to pressure, Office Depot sales people lie about stock in order to upsell customers. There is just one little problem with this sales philosophy: customers have changed. They are more likely to have done their research, reached out to friends and experts, read all of the reviews and calculated the level of risk they are comfortable with. The days of thinking customers do not know what they want are over, they know want long before they walk into a store. Upselling them from their needs will most likely make them walk on over to the competitor.
Cablevision lied to its customers about an FCC ruling allowing them to earn potentially millions in additional revenue. According to The Consumerist, the FCC is well aware of the lies. Is lying acceptable in regulated industries? Are consumers so addicted to TV that they’ll just pay the price?
Apparently, Apple employees lie to customers all of the time about things like why they shouldn’t unlock their iPhones. However, this is just one employee’s “inside scoop.” Does one bad apple mean the whole company lies? Of course not. It does indicate, however, that a larger issue might be brewing inside of corporations today. Employees can be just as much a threat to your brand reputation as customers.
The Benefits of Lying
- Sick Customers
- Reputation Challenges
- Lost Sales
- Indentured Customers
- Rogue Employees
Not to mention everything that comes along for the ride… like negative word of mouth, blog posts, tweets, reviews, etc.
Not Lying—Easier Said Than Done?
Is a little white lie—or even a big one—okay when it means more revenues? The obvious answer would be no, one would hope. But perhaps there are times when lying is a necessary evil of doing business. Who is to decide what is ethical and what isn’t?
How does a marketing or PR professional handle this internal conflict?
Additional considerations: Do you do as told to keep your job? Is counsel regarding what could go wrong enough when money is the shiny object in management’s eye? Who is the customer advocate?
[Image source: toptenz.net]
Even More Goodness! Related Posts:
Tags: Apple, Brand Reputation, Branding, Cablevision, Ford, Marketing, Marketing Management, Office Depot, Public Relations, social business, Tavern on the Green
12 Responses to “The Marketing & PR Conundrum: Lying to Customers”
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Q: Is a little white lie—or even a big one—okay when it means more revenues?
In my opinion, no. But reading a NYT piece today, I was struck by one mention in the piece (it was about B Corporations, which I’d never heard of until this piece http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/a-scorecard-for-companies-with-a-conscience/?ref=opinion )
The article states: “The law states that the duty of a business’s directors is to maximize profits for shareholders.” Well, if that isn’t an incentive to stretch the truth (or outright lie, although I think most companies will just blame marketing for stretching the truth), I don’t know what is. In short, we have created, perhaps unintentionally, a business climate where publicly held companies have to show profits, accurately forecast earnings, and oh, if they don’t maximize those profits they are breaking the law. There’s a lot of incentive for fudging things there.
Makes my little PR heart sad, because I think this is where marketing and PR get at loggerheads. Marketing is tasked with communicating in a way that reinforces the profit message, while PR is tasked with corporate reputation. You can’t “white lie” on the marketing, sales, or PR side and maintain a positive corporate reputation. At least not for too long.
Lots to think about…
Jen
Jen, I think I can make your little PR heart happy again. With all due respect to the writer of that piece, she is completely misguided in her comment about “The law states that the duty of a business’s directors is to maximize profits for shareholders.” There is no law that dictates such a thing. I have worked for many a public company and shareholder wealth had been sacrificed on more than one occasion for the health of the company. As well, if it were true… What’s the law? And what’s the penalty (fines, jail time, etc.)? She seems to have conveniently left the important details out to make a case for B-Corps. On a side note, Sarbanes-Oxley was created to regulate public companies and hold them accountable from things like lying (i.e. accounting, financial filings, etc.). So, with that off the table… How then can PR professionals counsel their employers/clients when it comes to lying?
No, no, no! There is NO place for lying EVER! You don’t do it in your personal life. You don’t do it in your business life. Isn’t that, after all, how we got in this economic mess to begin with?!
Sure there is incentive for fudging things on Wall Street, but I’m a big believe in the good guy always wins and lasts. It may take longer, but not lying will get you MUCH further than stretching the truth.
I’m with Jen…my little PR heart is sad.
Gini Dietrich recently posted..Three Ways You Suck at Listening to Your Audience
Gini, easier said than done? Most of us know that lying isn’t a good move. But what is a PR professional to do when management knowingly asks for a lie? Should they quit? Should they counsel to no avail? What’s realistic here? Would you fire a client who is asking you to help them when you know what they are offering or saying is something that’s not factual? I’d love your thoughts there.
You raise a good point. I’m definitely in a position a lot of professionals are not. We would DEFINITELY fire a client if they asked us to stretch the truth (and, in fact, have…three times). As a young professional, I was asked to be moved to a different profit center because of what the partner of our group was spilling out there (and move me, they did). It’s really too bad companies are run by fear and the economy is so bad that people stay in jobs, even when they know what’s going on around them is wrong. But, until we stand up (not just PR pros, but business pros), lying will continue to go on. It’s sad, but you see how it turns out for the companies you used in your examples.
Gini Dietrich recently posted..Three Ways You Suck at Listening to Your Audience
Gini, I couldn’t agree more. However, as that PR pro who tried to stand up against fabrication, I can assure you it landed me at the top of the lay off list years ago (the last bad economy). I learned a viable lesson regarding what’s perceived as being a “corporate team player.” However, social media wasn’t the catalyst it is today back then. Thankfully times are changing and a lie most likely won’t stay one for long.
Ethics vs. Greens… Oh, the eternal fight between David and Goliath. Now who turns out to end up in first place is what defines a professional from a… (gosh, what’s the word I’m looking for?) Cheers Beth! ~Paul
It’s not necessarily the “lie” that is the worst offender – in business it is typically the “omission” that is the problem. Businesses thinking… “if we can just not talk about [fill in the blank] with this client…” or “let’s focus on X instead of Y”, even though Y is clearly the most important element for the situation.
One of my *favorite* quotes about lying is “Those that think it permissible to tell a white lie soon grow color-blind.” That’s the biggest problem. If Ford will lie about their fuel tanks, it makes me question what else are they lying about? Are their cars really safe? What else might they be hiding?
Also, one of the most common lies happening lately is “greenwashing” and when is it okay to hedge the truth about how green / organic / eco-friendly your products really are. Like the Office Depot example illustrates, consumers today have already done the research before they walk in to your store. They’re much less likely to be vulnerable to a bait and switch and as the Cone green study highlights (http://www.coneinc.com/honesty-over-perfection-in-environmental-marketing), consumers are not that forgiving and less likely to buy a product from you in the future.
Honest mistakes will happen. Just stand-up and take responsibility for the mistake, and correct it. The short-term hits your business will take will be smaller than the potential hits brought about by lawsuits, recalls, employee turn-over, customer attrition…
Great post! Looking forward to more comments. Pat
From what I understand, Damian Cardone was not working at Tavern on the Green when the “gluten” incident happened. It’s on his resume but has nothing to do with the story.
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