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Last week, one of my favourite marketers (and marketing analysts) Seth Godin wrote on the ethics of marketing as follows:

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“Placebos, manipulation and preying on the weak

Marketers make change happen. Good marketing can change governments, heal the sick and bring a new technology to the masses. Marketers spend money (sometimes lots of it), take our time and transform our culture. It’s quite a powerful position to be in.

Who decides, then, what and how it’s okay to market?

At a recent conference for non-profits, a college student asked me, “What right does a public health person have to try to change the behavior of an at-risk group?” That one was easy for me. How can they not work to tell stories and share information that will help those at risk change that behavior?

And then, just a day later, I heard the story of a marketer who intentionally bankrupts the elderly by loading them up with worthless ‘investments’. He said, ‘Hey, if it makes them happy in the moment and they voluntarily buy what I’m selling, who cares? I’m not doing anything against the law, and if it’s not against the law, I’m not going to stop.’

Shame.

Or the spam phone banks that steal brand names and generate tens of thousands of calls a day, tricking small businesses into buying fake SEO services, or the e-cig makers who market to kids, looking to build a long-term business based on addiction…

For me, the line is clear. If the person you’re trying to change knew what you knew, would they want to change? And so the placebo is ethical, because in fact, it makes people better when they believe. And the expensive wine is ethical, because it’s a placebo, purchased by people who can afford it. But the fraudulent penny-stock scam is wrong, because the withheld information about the fraud being perpetrated is a selfish lie.

If you’re okay saying to yourself and your family, “I tell selfish lies to the weak, the young and the uninformed for a living,” then I guess we need better laws. I’m hopeful, though, that we’ll figure out how to do work we’re proud of first”

(© Seth Godin, Blog for December 4, 2014).

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I want to go one point further than this, on the ethics of marketing.

We as consumers also need a heavy dose of common sense, preferably administered as we were raised by caregivers, to provide a crucial capacity for resistance in us. If you or those you know can’t financially afford the placebo (e.g. the particularly costly cortisone shot that rarely works or the expensive wine) but still give in to interpellation (in Althusser’s sense)  by the medical system, the education system, the church, the police, social structures, such as marketing and advertising, etc., then you likely will feel yourself victim to these forces. And I don’t think we should avoid the “v” word here, at least temporarily. There are many organizations (what Althusser terms Ideological State Apparatuses) that prey on the vulnerable or weak.

And if that happens to you, you shouldn’t stay the victim, but defend yourself, try to master (not repress) the lesson of exploitation and keep fighting. Fighting is the right metaphor for the psychological resistance we should provide to marketing and being “sold to,” not only by the shady, unethical kind. Why–because altruism doesn’t actually exist, even in good actions taken by good people (including good marketers) who may act because it makes them feel good to help or to justly “make change happen,” as Godin’s says. And I include all marketers like him (and me) in this. We need the acts of justice, to be sure, but not the assumption that they come without their own interests or agendas.

Continue reading “On ethics in marketing”

Today’s case: “You All,” “Y’All” and “You Guys”:

A humourous use of the contraction “y’all” occurred to someone in my faith community, in western Canada, several years ago. Over a cup of coffee, she recalled the “culture shock” of attending a conference in the U.S. South and being greeted (shortly after she arrived and after entering a local shop alone) with “Hi Y’all! How are y’all doing today?” This friend (whose was born, raised and educated in Scotland) instinctively looked beside and behind her, to see who else was being addressed! And of course, it was only her.

Etymologist Bryan Garner writes that many residents of the American South and Southwest, “even highly educated ones, use the uncontracted ‘you all’ as the plural form of ‘you.’”

He writes that the usage has developed out of convenience, since the pronoun “‘you’ alone can be either singular or plural — and therefore is sometimes ambiguous.”

He adds, however that “you all” is “less susceptible to raised eyebrows than ‘y’all,’” (which my Scottish friend received) and which is often thought to signal the speaker’s lower class origins (e.g. recall the language of the old television program, “The Beverly Hillbillies.”  I’ll look for “y’all” soon in the new “Corner Gas” movie, soon to be in theatres.)

Garner notes a further trend that there is “a noticeable tendency in [Southern U.S.] urban areas to replace [‘you all’] with ‘you guys,’ even if those addressed include females. One Texas writer calls ‘you guys’ a ‘horrid Yankee construction.’ Steve Blow, ‘What’s Up with Y’all?’ Dallas Morning News, 27 Sept. 2002, at A25.”

Garner adds that “‘you guys’ . . . may have resulted from the great influx of a geographically diverse population” in large cities in the Southern U.S. “throughout the 1980s and 1990s, coupled with a growing sense among natives that ‘you all’ and ‘y’all’ signal provincialism.” ((c) Bryan Garner, “Usage Tip of the Day,” August 20, 2014)

Have you ever caught yourself using “you all,” “y’all,” or, more commonly on the Prairies, “you guys?” None of these constructions pass muster with the expectations of education and gentility that are associated with business writing. But such uses do occasionally appear, in social settings around us. And of course the likelihood of your adopting them increases if you visit a community where they are the linguistic norm. (Although my Scottish friend admittedly did not adopt the “y’all” in her time in the American South.)

Please share with me your linguistic anomalies and questions through the “Contact” page on my website (www.elizabethshih.com)

And I hope y’all have a good day!

Readers might be surprised to read that I didn’t enjoy the first half of the recent autobiography/business biography of Huffington Post’s editor-in-chief, Arianna Huffington.  She is a much lauded celebrity: she was named as one of “Time” Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People,” has written a syndicated column and many books. Huffington has also given prominent TEDtalks and hosted a radio program on business–she’s about as high profile as it gets.

In her latest book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom and Wonder (New York: Harmony, 2014), Huffington (like Sheryl Sandberg and Debora Spar before her) describes hitting bottom in exhaustion, from trying to “do it all,” at work and at home. Opening with a fall she suffered in her home office due to sleep deprivation, she spends the first half of the volume describing how the relentless pursuit of the “two traditional metrics of success – money and power” caused her  to sacrifice family, health and ultimately her career, from stress and burnout.

Thrive embodies her theory that we need a “Third Metric” for redefining success, besides the usual two, if we (women and also those men to whom the argument applies) are to live healthy, balanced and meaningful lives. This third set of values consists of our ability to draw on intuition, inner wisdom, our sense of wonder and our capacity for empathy and giving to others. Continue reading “On “living in the moment” with wonder—visiting Arianna Huffington’s business bio, _Thrive_ (2014)”

Today, I return to what I call “wordsmithing”—revisiting word usage from Bryan Garner’s learned volume, Garner’s Modern American Usage (Oxford UP, 2003).

One especially interesting phrase and concept are “weasel words.”

On the origin of the phrase, Garner cites a speech by Theodore Roosevelt in 1916: “One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called weasel words. When a weasel sucks eggs, it sucks the meat out of the egg and leaves it an empty shell. If you use a weasel word after another [,] there is nothing left of the other” (cited in Garner 826-827).

So weasel words are supposed to be “intensives,” but actually weaken a statement. The following are weasel words: “clearly,” “obviously,” “somewhat,” and “very.”

Some examples of usage:

•   “But I had clearly marked the suspicious area with chalk.” (implies that the area was not marked clearly).

•  “When we arrived, it was obviously too late to call” (implies that it was not too late).

•  “He was somewhat indifferent to her attentions” (implies he was not indifferent).

•   “She agreed that it was very true that she had overlooked the child’s needs” (implies that she had not overlooked the child’s needs).

Garner further reports that “some writers have incorrectly assumed that the metaphor suggested itself because of the wriggling, evasive character of the weasel” (827). Although that is not correct, weasel words are nonetheless associated with a subject failing to take responsibility for an action, thought, mood, etc.

Do you find yourself speaking or writing with “weasel words?” How can you return to the action, thought or mood that the “weasel word” modifies, to evaluate the subject’s (e.g. your or others’) potential irresponsibility?

The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that gratitude means “thankfulness, appreciation of kindness.” The passing, last weekend, of Canadian Thanksgiving made me consciously reflect on the many blessings in my life, for which I do feel much gratitude.

Thanksgiving falls near my and other family members’ birthdays and the fall celebration is always mercifully less commercial than Christmas. For these reasons, I find that it’s easier to become aware of the good things at work in my life and reflect that awareness in interacting with others—be they clients, prospects, colleagues, competitors, family or friends.

I feel particularly grateful to all of the people who offered me psychological support throughout my years at university and to those who have offered me support as I have invested hard work and in building my communications business. At least 20 folk come to mind, including some whose paths no longer cross with mine, but whose influence continues.

What an extraordinary blessing I receive to work hard on projects that interest me and that make a difference to my clients and to the larger communities where they work and live. And to have readers like you who take the time to read my blog: Thank you for being a part of my circle. I am deeply grateful for the life-enriching gift of having meaningful work.

In this war-torn, conflicted and endangered world that endangers civilians in Syria and Iraq; that violates the rights of people of the Ukraine; and besets the most vulnerable in an Africa beset by Ebola, it’s vital that we take the time to be conscious of the blessings of our lives. So much of contemporary life has us complaining and “venting” to colleagues, families and friends. We need to do that to cope with stress, true. But who among us actually has a “gratitude circle” of peers with whom we quite consciously count our blessings, especially in tough times?

The health-giving effect of feeling gratitude has been documented by many schools of medicine. And in various faith traditions, gratitude is also essential. . . . In the Quran, gratitude involves a threefold awareness that blessings come from God; that appreciation should be expressed to the Creator; and that people should proclaim those blessings.  . . . Not so differently, in the Christian tradition, we also must acknowledge that all good things are created from God, including us.  There are nearly 100 passages in the Bible that refer to God’s grace and the human need to express gratitude, for that grace.

If and when your world is beset by struggle, loss or difficulty (be it professional or personal), do you have the support of others near you to enable you to achieve peace of mind? When you do find stability and security, does your well of gratitude flow as abundantly, with these people? That is my wish for you, this Thanksgiving.