HUCKSTERS, SHILLS, SELLING ICE TO ESKIMOS: Why I hold students, co-workers and clients to such high Ethical Standards

Thanks to Congress and Used Car Salespeople, the ad trade no longer anchors the “Most Trusted/Respected Professions” list.  According to Gallup, today we’re held in slightly higher esteem – third from the bottom, up from dead last.  When it comes to how many individual ad people are trusted, seems Americans would turn their back on less than half of us. 

That’s terrible! say too few.  Who cares! say many too many more.

Where do I stand?  If you’ve taken my classes, asked for advice, attended one of my seminars or speaking gigs, been my creative partner, my client, you wouldn’t question it.

There are two ways to look at everything we do.

 

We can be manipulators.  Or we can be motivators. 

We can take advantage of the world economic engine.  Or we can help keep it fueled.

 

Sell ice to Eskimos, bridges to Innocents.  Or speak to people we like and respect.  Honestly communicating product benefits they find important, useful – never exaggerated, over-promised, without choice.

Why bring this up now?  Why me?  I’ve never been afraid of the harder road.  Never sold one of those bridges.

I teach Kamikaze Creative Strategy™ and Advertising Concept/Problem Solving/Copywriting.  A style of thinking so Prospect Focused, that great mass of strangers needing our client’s goods/services/points of view are as near, dear – and morally important – as those we care for most.

Everything we do hinges on Prospect Knowledge, Prospect Respect.  Leading to Prospect Belief. 

Watching late night info scams, reading all those paid/written by social media hack internet reviews, you’d think just the opposite.  But that’s not the kind of work I do.  Not the kind of work I teach.

 

I never think, “wade in muddy waters - do trickster stuff, play huckster games with client money, earn lots of my own.”

I say “connect people with goods and services they need, want or can have fun with using honesty, creativity, prospect knowledge and respect.”

If everyone in the industry took that same path, would it change our public standing?  Perception being reality, probably not. 

Who cares?  In Doreen’s World of Kamikaze Creative™ it means a great deal.  I’ve seen Presidents, Senators, Members of Congress, CEOs, murders, even everyday traffic scofflaws perjure themselves.  For the most part, get away with it.  That still doesn’t mean I should do the same.

A better-than-many presenter, tapped to sell bad work to good clients when no one else could, I often left jobs without plan or back-up.  Often risked my job to disagree with superiors rather than charm and swarm wrong or mediocre work into client approvals.  As a freelancer, I risk clients when what they want – and what their customer needs – are far from one and the same.

It’s the way I live my life.  The way I work.  The way I teach.

I also believe if most people took the time to think about it, they’d choose the same path, or as close to it as reality allows.

So why the bad rap?  Sometimes it’s ignorance.  Sometimes ad “pros” truly don’t know what they say is wrong, aren’t aware there’s a better, smarter way to their Prospects’ heart through their sense of right and wrong.  There’s also the reality your work isn’t just your work, a job’s not just your job – it may support a dozen other people, families, children, as well.  That’s a lot to risk.  I don't judge.

I’m here to tell you there is a better way.  One that’s smarter, truer, more effective.  One that more ad pros endorse, live by, than get credit for.

Let strongly held personal and professional ethics be your guide. 

If you do it, own it.  If you don’t, own that too.  Forget Shirley Jackson* and her derivatives/imitators.  If the fault’s mine, I need no scapegoat.  I own it.  If I’m wrong, I apologize, do what I can to correct my mistake.

What I never have – never will – do is blame my shortcomings, mistakes, off-prospect communications on someone – anyone – else.  Sure, it’s easier to say “the client didn’t give me the right input,”  “the account person told me to keep it,”  “the CD told me all that matters is winning awards.”  We also have the opportunity at every possible junction to say Wait!  There’s a problem here.  We need to fix it.

It’s your career.  As students.  As professionals.  The truth starts here.  Advertising ethics can be meaningful or an oxymoron.  Up to you.  You have only yourself to answer to – you, your CD(s), account people, production people, clients and – ultimately – your Prospect.

 

If asked, I know my clients and co-workers would put me at the top of the “most trusted” list.  What you need to decide, where do you want them to put you?

Advertising is a team sport.  Cheat, steal, slack off.  Lie, make false claims.  It isn’t politics, it’s Advertising.  Burn your creative partner, they’ll work with someone else.  Burn your client, be prepared to be known as the writer who lost the XYZ account and was never seen again.  Burn your Creative Director, hope your portfolio’s in order.  

If the people you work with, you work for, don’t trust you, you may last.  You may even prosper.  But sooner or later – in this lifetime or the next one - no matter how good you are, karma will notice.

Sure, sometimes nice/honest folks finish last.  True, not all cheats get caught.  When they do, many either die denying or try to turn it on another, honest person. 

One of the most popular client company (and sadly, ad industry and creative organization) speaking programs I do is called “How to Judge Ad Creative.”  What I teach isn’t about subjectivity, rules of thumb or individual tastes/insights.  It’s about how to look at work, how to see what it’s based upon, who it’s meant for and how to marry these together – using graphic, strategic and creative education - to properly consider if the creative is right for your Prospect.  And therefore, if it’s right for you.

I believe we’re not here to bury the client, the doubter, the unbeliever.  We’re here to educate them.

That’s the concept behind Kamikaze Creative™.  Being willing to risk your job on an idea good enough, right enough, honest enough to ask the client to risk her/his job, too.  And to make sure that client knows as much as you why the only risk is not taking one.

Every time you present, the unexpected smartness, honesty, educated gut and originality of everything you show must put you both out on that limb.  As long as you’re not selling melting ice or distant bridges, your honest belief, based upon honest, intimate Prospect Knowledge and Respect, will prove it

*Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."  If you haven't read it, you should.

Kamikaze Creative(TM) and Kamikaze Creative Strategy(TM) are trade marks of Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative.  This blog, as with everything else published in this blog, is (c)2015 or earlier by Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative unless otherwise noted