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Where’s your moral compass?

by hadji williams
Thursday, August 25, 2005. 12:40PM
714 Views 7 Comments

I’m currently coming to grips with the difference between ethics and morals. Consider this newly unearthed quote:

“It’s how you develop an image for companies. So in other words, you give out false statements to mislead the public so they will then increase in their mind the value of your company.” —Russell Simmons, Phatfarm CEO in a 2004 grand jury deposition on why PF regularly lied about its earnings.

Sounds slimy, huh? But it’s actually 100% ethical. Why? Because Simmons didn’t break a single law—he made sure every employee and investor knew that PhatFarm never made more than $20 million in a year despite hustling consumers into believing Phatfarm was a $300 million fashion beast. Plus, hype is standard fashion industry M.O. Everyone from Ralph Lauren to Calvin Klein has overstated and over-hyped their success for generations. Simmons is simply keeping up with the Jones (and the Armani’s). As long as shareholders and the SEC know the truth it’s all good. Besides, as the saying goes: “Lying to investors is fraud; lying to consumers is marketing.”

I’ve seen similar ethics throughout my career. In 13 years of working for some of the biggest brands in the world, the two biggest concerns anyone’s ever expressed to me have been: (a) “Will this sell?” and (b) “Will this get us sued.”

As an adman, I’ve been able to say pretty much whatever I want. I’ve preyed on folks’ insecurities and complexes… I’ve catered to all manner of greed and vices… I’ve even twisted a few stats and facts to benefit my clients’ claims. And you know what? I never broke a single law, not one. Everything I did was always 100% legal and ethical. And more often than not, it worked. But was it moral? Well, let’s just say that if I had it to do over I wouldn’t.

Now don’t get me wrong; marketing isn’t the devil and business isn’t all bad. But what I’ve come to accept is that you have to bring your own moral compass to work every single day. Because if you don’t, sooner or later you’ll get lost; and no one, I repeat no one, will ever come looking for your soul except you.

“It’s truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.” —Henry David Thoreau

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Comments

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Saturday, August 27, 2005. 12:00AM by Marc Lefton
As we all know, there are two Americas. I think urban consumers know they are being marketed too and understand the tactics, and middle America buys into it but inherently knows there's some underlying dishonesty but goes along with it anyway.
Friday, August 26, 2005. 01:54PM by hadji williams
i wonder if it's not so much that consumers don't trust brands as much as consumers (ie. people) have kinda given up/starting to give up on the stuff that we used to hold higher than brands? maybe brands used to be at the back of the pack of things to belive in and trust but over the years stuff like governments, certain religious types, political types, etc. have just slipped up to the point that people start thinking, "sure it's fluff, but at leat I know what kinda fluff I'm getting with Nike, MTV, etc." just wonderin'... thanks for the reply. what a frightening idea tho--if we've gone so far that honesty couldn't work. it be like the guy in the bar who says, "can i buy you a drink" because all he really wants is to buy you a drink but nobody will let him cuz they've all been hustled into believing that anyone who says that has to be lookin' for sex, so the guy ends up havin to lie and come up with some goofy line at some point just to get someone to drink with him... i'm babblin'... have a good weekend.
Friday, August 26, 2005. 01:27PM by shaun arora
Consumers don't trust brands anyways. Lie all you want, they already think we do. And don't even get me started on wallstreet. If we start being honest and build a reputation for honesty, then maybe it would become a worse thing to lie. But as you say, lieing is like keeping up with the joneses.
Thursday, August 25, 2005. 02:42PM by hadji williams
Capers, you're right of course. It is sad, but as many pubs have noted over the years, fashion companies have done it for years, so have record labels. (Is it any wonder that Simmons is in both industries?) but again, the only prosecutable crime here is if a company lies to investors or the IRS or the SEC, etc. By the way: Can anyone really prove that McD's was serving over "INSERT DIGIT HERE billion" folks when they said they were? (it sure sounded good--made them sound more and more reputable everytime the number grew.) Has Dove ever been 99 and 44/100ths percent pure? It's one of the greatest, most successful claims ever. (It was also proven to be false on several occassions over the years.) Did the tobacco folks really have no clue about the side effects of the stuff they were selling for all those years? After all, if they knew ahead of time that they were selling potetntially harmful products and never warned people, that would've been ille---perish the thought, i won't finish the word. Was Joe Camel really designed to ONLY appeal to 21 year olds? Does it matter? (After all, Joe Camel was cool and "Cool" is always a good lie.) How often have companies' claims of "fresh" been proven to be little more than unhealthy hyberole? (When you know otherwise to be true, "Fresh" is always a pretty good lie.) there's others, many in the make-up industry the most common of which have to do with companies (like Dove for example) selling products which claim to remove wrinkles and cellulite which are always found to be false, and oftentimes research shows that the companies themselves knew their claims were false. but man, if the before and after photos don't look good. (ah, the wonders of pohotoshop.) so there's a few for you.
Thursday, August 25, 2005. 02:10PM by Capers Hammond
Give me an example of a good or entertaining lie, Are you talking about Crispin creating a fake website for mini cooper or are you talking about someone purposefully misrepresenting a product attribute. The example you gave about Phatfarm is just sad , maybe that is the accepted practice but seems counter productive to me.
Thursday, August 25, 2005. 02:04PM by hadji williams
Lying is bad for business... but as devil's advocate for a sec--what if it's a really good lie, or a really entertaining lie?
Thursday, August 25, 2005. 01:58PM by Capers Hammond
I know that there are dishonest people in business and in advertising. I can say that from an advertising standpoint for the clients that I've represented, I've never lied once. Brands are built on truth and trust, anything else is tearing your brand down not building it up. A lie may contribute to your awareness or hype but it does not build a brand. Many years ago I worked at JWT and their tag line was " The Truth Well told" I've always considered that a philosophy. Forget ethics and morality, lying is bad for business. Ok I'll step off my soapbox now.

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