Trusting the lies
Posted on December 12, 2010 by Tom
Isn’t it weird that some marketers think so little about their own product or service that they feel the need to lie about it? Just to make the sell, they risk giving up their most valuable commodity, the trust they get from customers and keeping it. ‘Keeps colours like new’, ‘Performs 35% better’, ‘We deliver on time’,… Do you still believe these things when you read them?
It’s the time of year to think about what we want to do (better) in 2011. Maybe it’s not a bad idea to think of our customers as intelligent people that are understanding. They understand that products or services aren’t perfect, that people can make mistakes. As long as you don’t lie about it. Cheap and faulty slogans are quickly becoming a way to evaluate the quality of the product or service. In a very wrong way, lying has become a way to build trust.
This post was inspired by the fact that the battery life of my laptop is far from what’s been advertised. Seems odd, but it creates a negative ripple effect, because competition will follow, and so on… Battery life is not ‘imporant’ to me in a sense that I usually work connected to the grid, but in the rare cases that I need to go outdoors, it’s good to know that the advertised 5 hours are actually 2 hours.
Marketers are passionate people, or at least they should be. If you know all the details, even the bad ones, and you’re still promoting the hell out of it, than you’re still convinced it has some very effective positive point so why not focus on those? People have different priorities, focus on how to promote the best of a product instead of trying to distort the worst to make it look good.
On the other hand, as a marketer, maybe you’re dillusional or you’re working your way to a monthly paycheck. In that last case, stop lying and please get out of this profession that I so dearly love.