Years ago I learned a great lesson from an entrepreneur who – I guess confusing cause and effect – told me: «Remember that ethics is convenient».
Believe me, it’s a great truth, as long as you don’t misunderstand ethics for convenience. Because not all that is appropriate is necessarily ethical. If, for example, you trick the budget data to make your business situation more flourishing, so much this offense in Italy has been deprecated, you aren’t ethical: you are only one who knows how to get rid of it. And if you decide to unilaterally renegotiate the compensation of your suppliers, because you have received less than you expected, perhaps due to excessive superficiality, you aren’t ethical: you are only one who tries to get rid of it. Or again, if your company uses pirated software, because you don’t run an actual risk to be driven out, you’re not ethical: you’re just used to getting rid of it…
Abraham Lincoln’s lesson on ethical communication
Be careful, though, that not only has all this “getting rid of it” nothing to do with ethics, but also it is very dangerous. The day on which a negative astral conjunction happens and credit institutions, suppliers and Guardia di Finanza start off respectively with further verifications, sue proceedings and checking of software licenses, hardly such a poor business could face the heavy consequences.
The same applies to corporate communication, which, persuasive and impulsive though it aims to be, must never become opaque, mystifying or, which is worse, mendacious, because, as Abraham Lincoln already stated in 1858, «You can fool everyone for some time and somebody forever, but you just can’t fool everyone forever».
Inflating the sales data of our product to raise its price or induce more users to buy it, in the long run isn’t good: see what happened to Il Sole24Ore. Lying about the quality and care of our products and services in the long run isn’t good: see what happened to Amadori. Passing the responsibility for our mistakes on the outsourcer as well as on the intern or on the hackers who have attacked our account, in the long run isn’t good: see what happened to former mayor of Rome Ignazio Marino. Today’s web-based exchange of information, Internet’s elephant memory and the tools to share one’s experiences can destroy a company’s reputation or a person within seconds.
All the mistakes you shouldn’t do
Here are seven ethically-free behaviours that must be overcome – or corrected as soon as possible – to avoid any risk. Because in the long run, ethics is really good.
- Don’t mash up rules and morality
Very often, when it comes to ethics, it is thought that “rules to be respected” are discussed. Sometimes the two things actually coincide, but while rules only concern compliance with the laws of the State where we work (which of course vary across the world), on the contrary ethics concern immutable universal values, such as professional conduct, morality, honesty. So, don’t limit yourself to strict compliance with norms. Instead, make sure that those who work with you really apply values such as education, transparency, integrity, consistency. Being rude while talking at the telephone or posting on social media doesn’t violate any Italian law, but it certainly doesn’t enhance your brand. And this is communication too.
- Never lie about your product
Lying on the characteristics of your product or service will undermine the brand-to-consumer trust relationship that is the basis of every successful business. An ethical marketing communication, on the other hand, helps consumer get objective information and tools to increase both his/her awareness and his/her degree of freedom in the purchase process. If you do this, the industry will recognize you and will undoubtedly reward you. Instead, manipulating consumer choices with false or ambiguous, incomplete or imprecise communications can work in the short term, but sooner or later someone will notice it and the word of mouth will turn devastating.
- Don’t pass your faults on to others
It’s another classic: it was the agency, it was the graphic, it was the switchboard operator, it was the hacker or the aliens… Apart from the fact that it doesn’t work anymore because screaming at the wolf doesn’t make you believed any longer (not even when there is a wolf actually), please tell me: what image do you think you’re giving of your brand? And I’m not just talking about customers (who sooner or later will gather the truth, you bet), but also of your suppliers and employees, taken as lightning rods because you lack the honesty and courage to take on the responsibility for an error.
An old adage says: “The man who does a great deal is often wrong; the man who does a little deal is seldom wrong; the man who does nothing is never wrong”. Errors just take place and admitting them is a sign of strength. Indeed, if communication is handled well, you run the risk to earn billions of dollars even from a crisis, as it happened to Domino’s.
- Mind your image (including both photography and reputation)
Looking for images on Google and using them for your communication – especially on social –media – is a well-established but incorrect practice. And not only because it is a big threat – plundering the gallery of a professional that shares his/her online portfolio is heavily sanctioned for copyright infringement – but also because at the best we will be sneezed for our lack of both ethics and originality, with screenshots proving our bad faith (and that’s what normally goes viral).
- Don’t send email messages or newsletters without the recipients’ consent
Long-lasting problem: how did you build your contact database? Did you collect your stakeholders’ business cards here and there, between fairs, congresses and business meetings? Here, be careful not to make free use of these addresses: you miss the consent of the recipient to receive your communications. Which not only has ethical implications (it can’t be the brand to choose whom to communicate to: it is the recipient who has to choose which brand to interact with, otherwise it’s spamming), but also legal: in Europe, who sends email messages without the recipient’s consent risks severe sanctions that can reach up to 10 million Euros (or up to 2% of the total turnover of the previous year). You got it right: up to 10,000,000 Euros!
- Resist the temptation of fake reviews
In America they call it “astroturfing”, it is illegal and there are those who have already had to pay very heavy fees. Fake reviews are a widespread practice, not entirely immune from comprehensible legal implications, but definitely deleterious also ethically speaking – for everyone, not just for customers.
Actually, when a non-existent restaurant on the Garda lake ends up topping TripAdvisor’s charts, losers are not the consumers (no one can be crawled by an imaginary restaurant), but the tool itself and its advertisers: both the portal allowing fake reviews and the reviewed restaurants, especially – absurdly – those with the highest scores, lose their reliability. Good job, isn’t it?
- Avoid censorship
With the exception of trolling and flaming – offensive or illegal comments must always be censored –, answering critics by hiding them is definitely unreasonable. Again, this is a lack not just of ethics (putting a gag on our customers’ free opinion has the bitter flavour of a dictatorship), but also, and more seriously, of a communication strategy making listening and and facts its best weapons. Provided that everything that comes into the Internet will last there long whatever it is (even the least hi-tech users know by now how to make a screenshot of their online conversations), the most convenient action to undertake is to argue the unfounded criticism through objective data and valid explanations.