Ethics. Amidst all these blank-cheque bank bail-outs of late, it’s a word I’m yet to hear mentioned amidst all the media pundits’ white noise surrounding the current financial quagmire we find ourselves in.So how heartening it was to read on FT.com recently an article entitled Unethical companies suffer in the long run. A clever Swiss masters student named Julian Kölbel has studied the correlation between negative publicity on environmental and social issues and a company's share price to pose a very timely question, namely: ‘Is dirty business more efficient than ethically sound business?’The outcome is a heartening shot in the arm for honest business people everywhere. Herr Kölbel, it appears, has found that companies with high levels of critical press coverage outperformed in the short term but underperformed over a longer period. A case of what goes around, comes around, if ever there was one.Note to the upper echelons of the international banking community who were all too happy to swap long-term, socially and financially responsible investment practices for quick-fix, what’s-in-it-for-me, bonus-boosting speculation, if I could be so bold: Your Thatcherite, deregulated bubble has well and truly burst.So, dear readers, if you’d like to raise your glasses/mouses/laptops – whatever! - I’d like to propose this e-toast: Here’s to the return of sound business ethics and making an honest buck.Because god knows, the community needs these now more than ever if we’re to survive the current monetary merdefest.
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Rather icky to hear that one in four commuters has bacteria from faeces on their hands, according to a survey by the London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A rather distasteful fact which, curiously enough, makes me wonder if Home Secretary Jacqui Smith catches the Tube into Westminster, given that the Government's controversial Communications Data Bill is destined to be included in the Queen's Speech next month.No, I'm not questioning the Home Secretary's personal hygiene. But with sensitive personal information leaking from several government departments like a bloody sieve in recent months, the Government's plan to establish a single, giant database to store details of every phone call and e-mail in the UK reeks of you-know-what.This expansion plan for government surveillance is a massive infringement on our civil liberties and seems entirely inappropriate for a bureaucracy who can't guarantee the security of the existing data it holds, let alone the billions of records the intercepting of all UK communications would create.But on a more positive note… At a time when the MoD lost another unencrypted computer containing 1.7 million people's data (weary sigh), kudos to Sharon Lemon and her team at the Serious Office of Organised Crime (Soca) for shutting down Darkmarket, a website used by criminals to buy and sell credit card details and bank log-in information. That one individual reportedly had spent £250,000 on obtaining personal data on Darkmarket in just six weeks from which he could have reaped as much £10 million speaks to the magnitude and sophistication of international cyber-criminals - particularly as access to the site was by 'invitation only' (!) and even featured ID-theft tutorials for beginners.It's a scary world out there, alright.
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Welcome to my blog. The 2008 story so far: markets are in meltdown; IDMF has gone the way of the Dodo; the Walport Report has induced a super-sized serve of trade hysteria; the DMA has crash dieted and slimmed its board structure; DM continues to lose channel-share to digital; and Gwyneth Paltrow has started draping herself in fur.Pretty much business as usual, eh? Perhaps, yes. Except for Gwyneth. She should've known better. But then, what can we expect from an actress who named her first child after a piece of fruit? DM's looking a tad tawdry amidst all this chaos, I must say. Maybe we should take a cue from our TV cousins and do some much needed R-work - ie. re-brand, revamp and re-launch. Because at the rate we're going, another R-word - rehab - can't be far away. A destination to which, like Amy Winehouse, I say - no, no, no. As marketers we're meant to have our hands firmly on the response driving wheel. So why is it that: (i) we collectively suck at being green; (ii) our peak industry body is looking about as united and effective as the England football team; and (iii) according to a recent survey, 70 per cent of UK punters are pissed off by the millions of DM missives - incorrectly addressed, offer-mismatched and poorly presented as they more often than not are - pouring through their letterboxes.Blessed be the meek and mild consumers willing to pick their way through piles of DM detritus grimly searching for the odd discount voucher, is all I can say. And brickbats to the companies (you know who you are), content to indulge in a veritable orgy of brand damage by relentlessly strafing every UK postcode with promotional materials day in, day out. I've been quoted recently as saying that data is the ‘new black'. Well, maybe I should extend this fashionista analogy further and join David Reed in observing that, if left unchecked, DM could indeed be the ‘new Tobacco'.Here at the end of the Noughties, for a supposedly mature, self-regulating industry, we, like Ms Paltrow and her fur fetish, should know better. Unless we all affect a profound attitudinal shift - towards the environment, data handling, Westminster and consumers - the perception and effectiveness of our industry will only further deteriorate. Don't believe me? Well, smoke it and see, folks. Smoke it and see...
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Mark Roy
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Member since: 05 Jun 2008
Last login: 19 Nov 2009
Total Posts: 18
