Comments

I think it's the latter. It seems to me that, justified or not, there is a trend toward cynicism these days. Trusting people are seen as dupes. With a growing feeling that we can't really trust people, I think that the people who are seen as needing something from us, (money, votes, etc.) receive a larger share of this new distrust.

When it's cool to be skeptical, the most common opportunity to distrust comes from advertisements. And once you get in a habit of assuming that commercials are lying to you, it's not a big leap to call marketing people ethically challenged.

Posted by Christiana Ellis at December 10, 2004 1:04 AM

Thanks Steve for the latest - people are MORE AWARE of facts, truth, best buys, and so forth - mainly because IT IS EASIER to find 1000 channels of TV, EASY INTERNET NEWS, Blogs, et. al.

The last election was a case in point - the democrats outspent by 30% [527's big] the repuplicans - however the electorate WASN'T buying their spin for president, congress or state houses - amazing?

Posted by Freeman at December 10, 2004 11:07 AM

Another issue could be advertisers lack of respect for the audience. Respect for the audience means allowing them to put the pieces together and not always spoon-feeding the message. Spoon-feeding often requires the agenda behind the ad to be obvious, breeding distrust.

If we respect our audience, we create advertising that dots the lines and allows the audience to connect those dots. It's a much more interactive approach even in a one-way medium, giving the audience partial ownership of the message... building trust.

Posted by Dustin at December 10, 2004 12:12 PM

In so far as advertising has an outdated, unrelenting, smart-ass attitude, its ethics will be rightly compared to telemarketing's.

To a large extent advertising still assumes the consumer is a target who isn't smart enough to move out of the way before capture. But in a media-savvy culture, the consumer responds with growing awareness of this predatorial attitude. Complicating things further, advances in self-directed media technologies, e.g. blogging and RSS technologies, allow the consumers to buffer themselves against the onslaught of persuasion.

Advertising has to catch up. It has to work to earn trust by bridging the divide between consumer and advertising director. This will require a deeper relationship with the so-called target: advertising has to be part of a process that demonstrates really useful insight. If not, it'll continue to be correctly perceived as a manipulative, smart-alecky broadcaster, and dig itself deeper in the ditch with every win-lose campaign "success."

Posted by John at December 10, 2004 11:26 PM

It's that damn Lovemarks book.

Posted by Bill Seitz at December 12, 2004 7:42 PM

The posts above are interesting but I think miss the basic point. When you lie to somone they don't trust you. When you build a track record of being straight people trust you. This isn't about not connecting or not spoon feeding the message - it's basic ethics. The marketing industry is all about putting a positive spin on things - not aligning customers needs to product features. Do I think marketing should/will change - no but I think we are kidding ourselves big time if we are surprised by a result like this!

Posted by PaulH at December 14, 2004 9:58 AM