Here’s the very beginning and the very end:

“Toyota reminds me of a guy who buys flood insurance the day after the big rain…

It’s this process of being heard that gives companies the opportunity to speak to customer emotions. After all, this is empathy. This is a chance to change an ethical crisis into a recommitment to good behavior.

An open dialogue might just allow your brand loyalists to save you during a crisis. Imagine that.”

Believe me, the middle section is worth your time. Find the full post here: http://experiencematters.criticalmass.com/2010/03/11/crisis-management-begins-before-the-crisis/

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Marketers are faced with ethical quandaries every day.

Sometimes these are big issues – What is the lawful (and tasteful) line when marketing to children? Could I work for Big Tobacco?

Most times though these decisions are small – decisions that determine which tactics are fair game and which are off the table.

This subject got me thinking about ethical strategy. Does it hurt or help a marketer to live and work by a strict ethical code? How can we be as persuasive as possible without sacrificing our souls?

A Path With Roadblocks?

A strategy is a plan to reach a goal – a path leading to the achievement of business objectives, in our case. As I first thought about it, an ethical strategy seemed limiting. It seemed as though ethics would limit the tactics marketers could use to reach their goals.

An ethical strategy, for instance, might limit the number and types of magazines we advertise in. It might limit the extent we can distribute content across the web. It could alter the way we talk to customers. These limits would act as roadblocks on our strategic path and slow or stop us from reaching our goals.

The Golden Rule

But, maybe I’m wrong.

If we can agree that the most widely accepted rule of ethics is the Golden Rule – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you – then ethics must have some connection to emotions.

Emotions and the Golden Rule require us to:

• Understand others (or at least try)
• Develop empathy and sympathy
• Grow our Emotional Quotient – the ability to access and manage one’s own emotions as well as those of others or a group
• Accept our social role – humans as social creatures within a structure of mutually agreed-upon rules

Employing these traits could help us to craft new, more focused strategies by listening and caring about our customers.

If we accept that emotion and these traits are required for an ethical strategy, could this actually be a benefit rather than a roadblock?

Ethical Strategy, Better Tactics

What if, with emotional understanding and an eye to the Golden Rule, we could create better strategy and better tactics than if we went down an unethical route?

After all, what have we learned with the advent of social media than that our networks and our ability to connect and relate have great power?

Maybe unethical shortcuts are really no shortcuts at all. I now think we’re in a world where an ethical strategy would actually be more effective. Developing a strategy that involves your customers or fans, requires honesty and transparency, and generally celebrates collaboration – aren’t these common elements in some of the most amazing success stories of the last 10 years?

And those who hid or lied or cheated – doesn’t that always come to light? The Enrons of the world are many, but nowadays they are far, far more likely to be found out and publically shamed.

What About You?

I changed my mind when it came to ethical strategy. In addition to thinking it’s the correct way to market, I now believe it’s the most effective as well.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your opinions on ethical strategy. Is it the best option for online marketers? When have you felt like you crossed an ethical line? What did you do about it?

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Last night I was perusing an article from the Harvard Business Review by Ed Catmull, cofounder of Pixar, entitled “How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity.” I was really struck by how their principles for inciting creativity are the very same I’ve written about here for marketers.

It shouldn’t be surprising; anyone who has been in marketing for some time knows just how creative you need to be to succeed. Sometimes it’s the “big idea” kind of creative. Other times it’s a creative endeavour to include 10 message points in one sentence or create a feasible campaign in a week and a half. That’s creative too, believe me.

There are 5 ideas in this article that Catmull speaks to that really struck a nerve with me. I’m going to link to some past articles that relate to these points – I hope you take a minute to read them. It proves that not only is marketing a creative field, but that creativity is an exercise only for the brave.

How Do You Promote Creativity?

1) Embrace Fear: Catmull says, “[I]f we aren’t always at least a little scared, we’re not doing our job…This means we have to put ourselves at great risk.”

Not too long ago, I wrote about how risky marketing is, and how we should embrace the fear that comes from it. Today, as I read this quote, I think it’s even more true now than it was when I mentioned it.

“Once you get over the fear of being different, of possibly failing, a world of possibilities opens up. Are you still worried? Well, maybe this will help tip the scales:

You’ve got no choice.”

Embrace the fear. Everyone feels it. And fear can be debilitating or any amazingly creative stimulus.

2) Welcome Risk: We work in an ever-changing industry. It will never be the “same old, same old.” If you don’t want to risk your ass, you shouldn’t have put it on the line by placing it in a marketing office.

Catmull has some advice for the leadership: “[W]e as executives have to resist our natural tendency to avoid or minimize risks, which, of course, is much easier said than done.”

This reminds me of my “Failure Isn’t Fatal” post:

“As I wrote earlier in the week, our job as marketers is not to mitigate risk by going along with the status quo. Our job is to manage the risk and sometimes we fail.

That stinks, but there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s inherent to the job. So it’s better to get in there and figure out your best odds of success (and learn from your mistakes).”

Which leads perfectly into…

3) Learn From Failures: You won’t get rid of risk and you are going to fail at some point in your career. But the most creative marketers are the ones who figure out why they failed and learn from it. Failure is inherent in creative people.

From Catmull: “If you want to be original, you have to accept the uncertainty, even when it’s uncomfortable, and have the capability to recover when your organization takes a big risk and fails.”

4) Realize That Community Matters: Catmull contends that “community matters” in the sense that a group of highly talented creatives can turn out extraordinary things.

For marketers though, community is something outside of our team usually. They are the hordes we hope to influence (hordes in the nicest way possible, I mean). And we can’t do that by simply interrupting more loudly or more often.

I think Joseph Jaffe is correct is his definition of the new creativity – one in which a piece of marketing is gauged by the community’s adoption of it.

“I don’t know how much originality is in the idea itself, but it’s in the execution where you see the real beauty of it. And ultimately that control and that power – and to what degree it becomes a meme and to what degree it lives on and gets a life of its own and gets embraced by the consumer – is ultimately in the hands of the consumer.

And maybe that can become the new definition of creativity.”

5) Always Be Excellent: Catmull states that the success of Toy Story 2 was, “[I]t became deeply ingrained in our culture that everything we touch needs to be excellent.”

It’s easy to be crass about excellence. “Blah, blah,” you might be thinking.

But I’ve seen it happen a bunch of times: the kid who excels in everything he does – though he might fail and get scoffed at and underestimated – he eventually almost always reaches that gold ring he’d been shooting for.

It’s intimidating to see someone so much an active participant in their success. Intimidating and awesome.

What Did I Forget?

What did Catmull and I miss? How do you promote creativity in marketing?

There’s a lot to worry about, a lot of potential pitfalls. But that’s never going to change. How are you seizing the awesome today?

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I’m a terrible sleeper.

No, scratch that – I’m a terrible waker-uper.

I set at least two alarms – one placed clear across the bedroom – and hit snooze enough times to wake and enrage BG (rightfully so). While I used to be disciplined enough to rise at 4:45am to write, I’m not disciplined enough to get up at 6am to even go to the gym.

That is, until I got a zen alarm clock (if you’ve never heard of this, you’re not alone. This is one type we’ve got.)

This morning, progressive bells gently roused me from sleep instead of the heart-palpitation-inducing air raid siren alarms of the past. Slow and steady chimes was the order of the day and damned if it didn’t work. I was up and out the door quicker than ever.

What does this have to do with your social media strategy?

I see so many people rush into things. They’re scared – “We don’t have a Twitter!” – and with a sudden burst they emerge on the scene. They follow 2,000 Twitterers or flood a blog with 20 posts in a week. And what inevitably happens?

They sputter out. They podfade. They don’t garner followers or readers or friends.

Is your social media strategy the equivalent of an air raid siren alarm? Is it sudden, panicked, and rushed? These are not qualities of good strategy.

Instead, try a slow, reasoned approach to social media. Develop your tribe over time. Find an audience organically. Give before you get.

Try the zen alarm clock approach to your social media strategy. I can’t guarantee you’ll succeed, but you will definitely do better (and get more out of it personally) with this approach.

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In the latest Marketing Minute video, I discuss a trend I’ve been seeing: an increasing focus on “raising awareness,” whatever that means. It’s vague, worthless, but prized by the C-level suite.

I believe we need more honest discourse. We need real communication, real requirements, real expectations.

I hope you enjoy this Marketing Minute video.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

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