“We respect and promote practices that abide by an understanding that the consumer – not the marketer – is fundamentally in charge, in control, and dictates the terms of the consumer-marketer relationships.”
This is a key statement from the WOMMA ethics code that just flashed on the screen. It’s not perfect, but it reflects a very important attempt to establish a set of voluntary parameters for marketer self-discipline and self-regulation around word-of-mouth ethics. Ethics was a key motivating for establishing WOMMA in the first place, and it remains a driving issue for those of us who care about the future of not only word-of-mouth marketing, but the broader integrity of marketing and business. That said, this is a very difficult and complicated issue, laced with ambiguity, changing definitions, and an every evolving and changing “social media” landscape. It’s difficult because it’s almost impossible to evaluate WOM ethics independent of other difficult questions like “disclosure” in product placement. It's complicated because it calls into question the practices of one the world's most respected and revered marketers, even though the company is a die-hard believer in the principles and tenets of quote above. And to add yet anther twist, it's messy because even the consumers themselves are contributing to a confusing and potentially deceptive atmosphere, evident in today's Boston Herald story noting that BzzAgent is elimating 10,000 "pests" from their 190,000-strong panel for "gaming" the system with abuses like creating multiple accounts.
Companies Setting a High Standard: Fortune 500 company Dupont is one player that has not only been proactive on word-of-mouth ethics, but who has established itself as a highly visible “case study” in word of mouth ethics. Gary Spangler, Dupont’s e-Business Leader and WOMMA board member, just delivered a powerful “follow our lead” presentation around WOM ethical guidelines. Importantly, he explained how he managed to educate his entire organization on the importance of WOM ethics, and ultimately sell through a full endorsement of ethical guidelines that not only now permeate the entire company, but reinforce Dupont’s core values. Consumer respect is at the core of Dupont’s philosophy on this issue. Spangler, borrowing from the literature of non-other than Spiderman, flashed the following quote on the screen:
“With great power comes great responsibility”
Uncle Ben to Peter Parker (Spiderman the Movie)
On one level, this is easy quote to brush off or mock, but coming from a large corporation, it's appropriate and resonates. What’s clear here at this 400 person conference is that companies, brands, agencies, and consultants are looking for guidance and leadership and “best practices.” Large brands like Dupont, Intuit, and P&G clearly carry important “currency” in the eyes of others, and the standards they set can set the pace for the entire industry.
In an effort to advance this discussion, Ann Moravick of Rowland Communications offered an excellent framework for helping brands understand what’s ethical and what’s not. She offered seven scenarios that are all worthy of Harvard Business School “what’s the right thing to do” case studies. This was so good I’m republishing some of the scenarios verbatim.
“Your company has hired vendors to monitor disease-related blogs and chat groups. Now you are ready for he next step – to influence some of that discussion. The plan is to hire medical professionals to log on to sites where there is negativity about your products, and to steer the conversation in a more positive direction. You are planning to have them identify themselves as healh-care professionals, but not mention that they are indirectly on the company payroll…is this appropriate? “
“In training a buzz advocate for your company’s product, you identify one advocate who is generally critical of the brand. As a result, you decide not to include him in your campaign and tell him you’ve got too many advocates already? Ethical or not?”
“You arm a series of evangelists with information to spread he word about your product. You tell them that timing is important. A Consumer Reports article is about to publish. You know it will be critical to your brand. You don’t want to dampen the enthusiasm of your evangelists so you unleash them without pointing out the CR report to come. “
All these scenarios form the basis of an important discussion and debate? The WOMMA code is relatively straightforward in calling for honesty of identity, opinion, and relationships. Do these scenarious meet the "torture test."
Pete - keeping companies on the trust track is exactly why I put together the workbook, "In Women We Trust." It's for both sides of the buy/sell equation where the one side (the consumer) is dominately held by women. The other side is held by those who have to deliver on the message who don't live in the marketing department.
Posted by: Mary Hunt | June 21, 2006 at 10:56 AM