Category: Transparency vs. Secrecy

By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , ,

What do you notice about the two images in this photo?

Deceptive comparison ad

Here’s what I notice; the placement and composition of the vegetables and fruits are exactly the same. Look at the carrots, for instance. It is statistically impossible to pose a bunch of carrots in exactly the same alignment for two pictures taken at different times, and just as impossible to find two different bunches of carrots where each carrot has exactly the same shape as one in the other batch and are in the same order. It’s somewhat easier with mushrooms and peppers, but still highly questionable.

What this tells me is that one of two things happened, neither of which are OK if you’re an honest marketer:

1. The same photo was used as the basis for both images. At least one of them was retouched to change the colors, probably the didn’t-use-it one, which also had believability-enhancing touches like aging in the mold on the grapes.

OR

2. The advertising agency took the first photo, and then left the fridge untouched for some period of time, and came back and took the aged picture.

Either way, just like the food in the aged picture, it doesn’t pass the sniff test. The ad claims that these were different batches of food and implies that they were subjected to a scientific comparison. That would mean two different sets of vegetables aging in different but calibrated refrigerators for the same time, one with the treatment and one without (or the same refrigerator used to test each batch one at a time, starting with the untreated one to avoid tainting the results). I do not see any evidence in this photo that this is what happened.

Chose your own term: false advertising, deceptive advertising, misleading advertising—whatever you choose to call it, it’s certainly a major ethical violation and quite possibly a violation of truth in advertising laws such as Section 43(a)(1)(A) of the Lanham Act.

And therefore, I don’t believe the ad. And therefore, I don’t trust anything else in the catalog where I found it (an in-flight sky mall). And therefore, this entire catalog loses any chance of getting me as a customer, forever. And therefore, I am sharing my perception that this company engages in deceptive practices. Perhaps this post could even go viral and be seen by thousands or millions of people.

So on a practical as well as a moral level, this deceptive advertising practice backfired. Big time. My question to the ad agency and to the people at the client who approved it (who may, in fairness, not have realized the ad was deceptive): was it worth it? This catalog company should fire its ad agency for engaging in false advertising, and should look with a critical eye at every other bit of advertising this agency prepared.

And if you’re a marketer, take a look at your own marketing. Have you accidentally or deliberately engaged in similar false advertising practices? Are you aware that one demonstrable lie can ruin a long-built reputation for integrity if anyone publicly calls you out for deceptive advertising in the press or in social media?

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Ethics in Government, Greenwashing, Technology, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , ,

Scary article on Huffington Post: Duke Energy’s Oconee nuclear power plant is at serious risk of flooding–and the NRC has lied to Congress about it. The plant is only 11 miles downstream from Jocassee Dam, whose likelihood of failure has been estimated at a completely unacceptable 1 in 163 per year. If Jocassee fails, it could generate a 16.8-foot wall of water at Oconee–which is only built to handle a 5-foot flood.

This highly dangerous nuclear power plant plant should be Shut. Down. Now. Fukushima completely eliminates the “it can’t happen here” argument.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Demographics/Psychographics, Green Business, Politics, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , ,

In light of the close defeat for the California GMO-right-to-know ballot initiative in this month’s election, it’s worth reading this article on Sustainable Brands that shows customers want non-GMO even more than they want organic.

They say, “if the people lead, the leaders must follow.” We WILL win this  one. Eventually.

 

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Innovation, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Technology, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , ,

I’ve said for years that industrial designers should have to live and work with their products for six to twelve months before they’re released to the market. It’s much easier to fix the bugs pre-release, but the designers don’t actually use the product, so they don’t see the bugs.

This witty and entertaining 20-minute speech by Seth Godin offers seven reasons why products, systems, organizations, or even mindsets are broken (scroll down to the video):

  1. Not my job
  2. Selfish jerks
  3. The world changed
  4. I didn’t know
  5. I’m not a fish
  6. Contradictions
  7. Broken on purpose

“I’m not a fish” is the one that too-often rules the design world. He shows slides of a culvert designed to transport fish—but designed so fish can’t use it. The industrial designer is unable to think like his or her “customer,” and the project fails.

Some of the others, among them “not my job” and “the world changed” lead to other types of stupidity. Most of them are actual real-life examples—but I’m hoping the photo of a sign that says “Caution: This sign has sharp edges. Do not touch the edges of this sign” in large, dramatic letters, and then in tiny letters, “also, the bridge is out ahead” is a joke.

The seventh item, “broken on purpose,” is about thinking differently—about making your project not only attractive to the right people, but unattractive to the wrong people. If you want to stimulate your brain toward genius, pay careful attention to that segment.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Ethics in Government, Peace and War, Politics, poverty, privacy, propaganda, Social and Economic Justice, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is a rare occurrence: Three of my heroes made separate local appearances this week—two from the generation older than me, and one from the generation that follows me.

George McGovern
George McGovern, 89, former Senator, Democratic nominee for President in 1972, and stalwart of the ’70s-era peace movement spoke Saturday to support his new book, What It Means To Be A Democrat, to bring attention to hunger causes—and to support Rep. James McGovern’s (no relation) re-election campaign. (I’m looking forward to having the younger McGovern, one of the most progressive voices in Congress, represent me; our town just got moved into his district.)

Born in 1956, I was too young to cast my vote for McGovern in 1972—but not too young to campaign for him, which I did. I also met the candidate at a campaign rally in the north Bronx (NYC) neighborhood where I was living (not a place that typically attracted national political figures). He impressed me with his decency, although not his speaking skills (charisma was not one of his big qualities). Listening to him on a local radio station this week, I was glad he’s become a better speaker—and glad, too, that he’s still willing to buck the system and oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq…stand for positivity and discourse in politics…and be a voice for the voiceless whose safety net continues to be slashed by both parties.

McGovern, the elder, is a reminder of the days when the Democratic Party actually supported democratic values of peace, an anti-poverty agenda, and civil liberties—values that seem hard-to-find in today’s party, where the Dennis Kuciniches and Barbara Lees, Alan Graysons, and James McGoverns of the world are a tiny isolated minority at the far-left edge of a party filled with “centrists” who are less willing to back a progressive agenda than Richard Nixon was during his presidency. How can you take seriously a party that claims to be progressive and lets people like Ben Nelson and Steny Hoyer define it?

Where are the towering figures like Barbara Jordan, Birch Bayh, Bela Abzug, Shirley Chisolm, Tom Harkin, James Abourezk and so many others—all of whom served with George McGovern in Congress? Where is even a figure like Lyndon Johnson, able to grow past his southern segregationist heritage and shepherd through a series of civil rights bills? These were Democrats who were not afraid to speak their mind, not afraid to fight for justice, and willing to do what they could to steer the US toward a better path. They didn’t turn tail and start mumbling apologies any time someone called them a liberal as if it were some kind of curse word instead of a badge of honor—a disgraceful path embraced by Michael Dukakis during his 1988 Presidential run, and by far too many Democrats since.

Daniel Ellsberg
Another of my pantheon of childhood heroes, Daniel Ellsberg, 80, spoke on a panel of whistleblowers Thursday evening at Mt.Holyoke College. Ellsberg risked life in prison to release the Pentagon Papers, a massive set of documents that utterly discredited any plausible justification for the Vietnam war.

Ellsberg didn’t go to prison, though—because the government’s case was dismissed after it was discovered that the feds had way overstepped their bounds in investigating him. Unfortunately, under laws championed by and passed under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, what they did to him would be legal today. That is a travesty, and part of what I mean when I say the Democrats have abandoned a progressive agenda. Despite whistleblower protection laws and even payment passed since the 1970s, the government is not nice when the whistleblowers go after government fraud. Whistleblowers still risk severe punishment (just look at Bradley Manning).

If you ask me, those who expose corruption at great personal risk are heroes, not criminals.

Rachel Maddow
Local weekend resident Rachel Maddow speaks tonight, also at Mount Holyoke. Maddow, who turns 39 tomorrow, has been a refreshing progressive, articulate, and intelligent voice in a generally desolate mainstream-media landscape. I’ve been a fan of hers since she made her radio debut as a morning-show newscaster on WRNX here in the Valley.

It’s great that there are people like Maddow to catch the torch as my generation, and my parents’ generation, starts passing it. We need more like her.

[Disclosure: I was not able to attend any of the events in person. This post is based on hearing McGovern and Ellsberg in separate appearances on Bill Newman’s radio show on WHMP, and on coverage in the Northampton, MA newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette.]

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Politics, propaganda, Technology, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , ,

Jim Hightower, populist author and entertaining voice for common sense for decades (and a terrific speaker—if you ever get the chance, go hear him!) has a great article on the real agenda of those pushing the Keystone XL gas pipeline from Canada to Texas.

It’s to get that Canadian crude down to oil refineries in the free trade zone at Port Arthur, Texas—where it can be shipped overseas a lot more cheaply.

We Americans get the land takings, the toxic leakage, the interruption of wildlife habitat corridors and all the rest of the “good stuff”; foreign markets get the oil; prices in the US go up. Such a Deal!

Hightower is the former Texas Commissioner of Agriculture and a generally knowledgeable guy. I find him credible, and I trust his analysis.

Thanks but no thanks. Please spread this widely.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability, language, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, propaganda, Transparency vs. Secrecy, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Want to buy a scientist?

When you find a scientist who claims to show that human-caused catastrophic climate change either isn’t real or isn’t a problem or doesn’t really exist, you usually find a money trail leading to one of the worst polluters (usually, oil giant ExxonMobil, sometimes, petrochemical magnates and right-wing darlings Koch brothers).

But ultra-right-wing think-tanks play in this sandbox too. Friday, TriplePundit posted leaked secret anti-climate-change strategy documents from Heartland Institute; they actually have the chutzpah to put $100,000 toward developing a K-12 school curriculum to

…show that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.

Oh yes, and they’ve also set aside $18,000 a monthly to fund pundits who present the climate-change-is-not-a-problem viewpoint.

Hmm, that sounds a lot like the attempts by creationists to throttle the study of evolution and biology. When science can’t back up your position, influence young kids with the Big Lie technique that was so beloved by Nazi propagandists. And the get television news commentators to present a “fair and balanced” approach, pitting your purchased experts against objective scientists as if they were equally credible, and sow doubt in the public mind.

To climate skeptics, I say “look out the window.” In my own area of Western Massachusetts alone, we’ve experienced the following just since June 1:

None of these events are the normal weather pattern around here.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, propaganda, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , ,

In the Dumb and Dumber department: I opened a letter marked “Personal Correspondence,” knowing full well that it was not. It used a very obvious handwriting font, nonprofit bulk-mail indicia instead of a postage stamp, and a sprayed barcode, and on the back was a Washington, DC mailing address with no name.

Personal correspondence, my arse! I opened it up because I wanted to find out who was lying to me.

Turned out to be a charity group that works on gay and lesbian rights issues, a group I’ve previously donated money to. Inside, there was no longer any attempt to look personal. It was a fairly standard fearmongering letter, some slick full-color inserts and a decal. I separated the decal into the trash, put the rest of it in the recycling—but I kept the postage paid return envelope. I’m going to print this blog post and mail it back to the org at their expense, to make a statement that I don’t like being lied to, do not condone unethical marketing even from causes I support, and to make it a few cents more expensive to treat me as a fool.

Doesn’t anyone vet this stuff before it goes out?

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

…But I’m going to write it anyway.

As a young teenager protesting the Vietnam war, I had a huge poster in my room with a picture of a Vietnam-era peace demonstration and the quote,

It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.

—Abraham Lincoln

It is my duty to protest.

I am only one generation removed from the Holocaust, and I wonder how many millions of lives might have been saved if ordinary Germans and Italians had protested and organized in large numbers against the gradual encroachments on their liberty that provided the legal framework for Nazi and Fascist repression.

Earlier this week, while the rest of us were merrily celebrating the arrival of 2012, President Obama signed a truly wretched piece of legislation: The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

In the words of one commentator whose post is entitled “R.I.P. Bill of Rights 1789 – 2011,” this law

grants the U.S. military the “legal” right to conduct secret kidnappings of U.S. citizens, followed by indefinite detention, interrogation, torture and even murder. This is all conducted completely outside the protection of law, with no jury, no trial, no legal representation and not even any requirement that the government produce evidence against the accused. It is a system of outright government tyranny against the American people, and it effectively nullifies the Bill of Rights.

Signed into law by the same President Obama who, as a candidate, was the champion of liberty and “change” who would close the illegal prison at Guantanamo, rein in the torturers of Abu Ghraib, and quickly end the US presence in Iraq. The same Obama who had said he would veto this dreadful bill. (Yes, the soldiers have come home. But it took three years and we still have thousands of “advisors” there, along with a highly fortified embassy in Baghdad  that could easily be the nerve center for US command and control.) Guantanamo is still open, the climate of anti-Muslim racism persists, and the torturers at the highest levels (e.g., Cheney and Rumsfeld) have never been held to account.)

So I am protesting. Even though it puts my own liberty potentially at risk.

In his signing statement, Obama said he would…

interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that …upholds the values on which this country was founded.

Two problems with that. Number 1, he has not shown himself trustworthy in upholding those values in the past.

And second, there is no guarantee that the presidency won’t be delivered to a much more repressive figure with no such scruples. The contenders on the Republican side include several sworn enemies of freedom for those of us who don’t happen to be straight, conservative, and some repressive flavor of Christian: Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum (in alphabetical order).

This is merely the latest in a gradual erosion of our civil liberties committed during both Democratic and Republican governments; two other examples (among many) are the shift over the last two decades of ballot counting to insecure, easily manipulated, and highly suspect electronic counting devices that in some cases don’t even HAVE a paper trail (and that led directly to the disastrous worst-in-history administration of George W. Bush) and the citizens United Supreme Court decision that nakedly grants corporations the power to buy elections.

Yes I protest.

I have never forgiven myself for not doing enough to stop the coup that let Bush seize power in 2000—in part because I didn’t see Gore as any great champion of my values, in part because I could not foresee just how bad that eight years was going to be—but mostly because I was feeling too shut down and disempowered to help organize a movement like we saw in Mexico, Iran, Egypt, and elsewhere.

I still don’t feel like I can personally organize a movement. But I can at least protest, and send some money to a civil liberties group.  I hope you will too.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Ethics: General, Green Business, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with ,

It’s been a good year for recognition of my work for a better world. In October, I was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame (View pictures and read the transcript here.)

And then last night, I received notification that I (as the human face of GreenAndProfitable.com) am the very first business in the country to be certified by Green America at the Gold level (which was a fairly arduous process involving several reviews of an extensive questionnaire covering socially responsible investing, supply chain, commitment to social and economic justice, and, of course, environmental benchmarks, among other things).

I’m thrilled. After 40 years in the environmental world, it is nice to have people notice.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail