Published in CommPRO.biz 2013.07.08

Ethical Marketing

 

Marketing genius Seth Godin brought us up sharp with an on-the-mark blog post. He pointed out that many marketers blithely peddle goods or services that they know – or should know – are anything but good for those they entice into using them. It’s easy to look askance at those who market tobacco and other well known threats to our well-being. Godin zeros in on fast food, actually food in general, and our obesity epidemic along with the array of woes it brings with it.

It’s too easy to point out that the occasional burger and fries, or pile of pancakes with maple syrup does not make one obese. Nor that some individuals find it a lot harder to control their weight than others. Neither of those points amounts to a whole lot when we all know that there’s no way to limit what a food maker offers unless we do it, unless we show them a better and more profitable option.

There is another face on this coin, health insurance. Or more accurately benefits, since this sector veered from the insurance model years ago. No one expects a life insurance company to offer a policy to those in their nineties; in fact most policies cut off well before the applicant turns eighty. Nor is it expected that a life policy will be issued to an individual with severe health issues. While we as a people are not going to deny health benefits to those who do not act to care for themselves, some boundaries need to be established by the underwriters, the government and the medical community; the doctors and healthcare facilities.

Godin makes the point that marketing is one of the few professions that does not have boundaries. Law, medicine, real estate, retailing, even food manufacturing all have boundaries. The only fence surrounding the marketing world is a truth in advertising rule. Of course many marketers have ethical boundaries. They won’t work for companies who do not adhere to high ethical standards. But even those individuals and agencies might not feel that a food manufacturer presents an ethical issue.

On the contrary such a company might present an opportunity, an opportunity to create a set of boundaries. Boundaries that never show oversized portions; that offer only healthy recipes and serving suggestions. Boundaries that limit the potential for harm from legitimate efforts to create revenue for the company. There is reason to believe that this is a solid marketing concept. Consumers are moving more and more to products that offer healthy options. So rather than selling more to a limited number of customers, create more customers.

Beyond marketing, medicine and government have work to do on the obesity front. And marketing needs recognize that food and obesity are but a single color on its palette. There’s hardly a company that does not present ethical issues when it comes to creating their sales messaging. We owe Godin thanks for reminding us of our responsibility to follow the ethical model whatever we peddle.

Published 2013.03.04 in CommPRO.biz

Bad Pharma, Trials & Travails

“Everybody’s doing it.” That lame excuse seems the only explanation of rampant bad behavior in the Pharma sector. However, it becomes more than bad behavior when it costs lives. Psychiatrist, journalist, author, Ben Goldacre, a Brit with more degrees and credentials than seem possible for one not quite forty years old, has a new book, Bad Pharma.

This quote from the book sums up his case: “Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques flawed by design, in such a way that they exaggerate the benefits. Unsurprisingly, these trials tend to produce results that favour the manufacturer.”

Dr. Goldacre writes a weekly column, “Bad Science,” in the London Guardian. He has a history of well-researched work taking on the quacks and crooks in and on the fringes of medicine. His research on drugs and medical devices spills into America’s Pharma. The more of Dr. Goldacre’s work you read, the more horrified you become. Evidence that bad behavior is not an anomaly; it is common place, driven by the need to meet the quarterly profit marks Wall Street is looking for. And too often supported by doctors on Pharma payrolls who do not speak up publicly for a host of reasons.

How bad is it? This quote from Dr. Goldacre’s book nails it: “Sponsors get what they want. In 2007, researchers looked at every published trial that set out to explore the benefit of a statin. This study found 192 trials in total, comparing one statin against another, or comparing a statin against a different treatment. The researchers found that industry-funded trials were 20 times more likely to give results favoring the test drug.” When a sponsored trial does not deliver the results its sponsor is looking for, they bury it.

In a New York Times story* Johnson & Johnson, a communications community poster child for its response to the 1982 Tylenol nightmare, comes off practicing the worst of the worst. One of several memos from doctors working for J&J came to light in the first of more than 10,000 artificial hip lawsuits J&J is facing. The consultant was blunt in a memo sent to several J&J “C Suiters”. The doctor’s memo indicated that, “An artificial hip sold by the company was so poorly designed that the company should slow its marketing until it understood why patients were getting hurt.” 

This was not the only such report. Reports that languished for almost two years before J&J recalled the faulty hips. We’re not talking about recalling something simple; a hip replacement involves serious surgery. It would be unconscionable to put a single human being through the risks of this surgery once the dangers were known. To expose tens of thousands was criminal. The human beings –the J&J executives– who chose profit before ethics may have thought “Everybody’s doing it.” It’s time to offer a fitting remedy for such a deadly choice, a jail sentence.
*(02/15/13)