If you Hide the Truth, Someone will Find the Truth.
That’s the fundamental WOM Truth. Deception is ultimately counterproductive. Dishonest word of mouth marketing will always be exposed and deplored.
Urban Nutrition has learned this lesson the hard way. The New York Times recently reported Urban Nutrition knowingly mislead consumers by failing to disclose it paid bloggers for online reviews and by marketing websites as being from independent voices when they were from undercover company shills.
Tipped by a complaint, the Electronic Retailing Self-Regulation Program (ERSP) investigated the marketing activities of Urban Nutrition and discovered the deception.
The ERSP has asked Urban Nutrition to prominently disclose bloggers have been financially compensated for their online reviews and to be forthright in disclosing the websites the company owns and operates.
According to a lawyer representing Urban Nutrition, the company is in the process of making all the changes the ERSP is recommending as well as other changes to become more honest in its marketing efforts.
The lesson is simple: Don’t Fake Your Marketing. In today’s Googlized, the truth can be discovered through savvy searching. If you insist on hiding the truth, someone somewhere will find it and expose it.
A paragraph in the WOMMA Ethics Code says it best…
“Deception, infiltration, dishonesty, shilling, and other attempts to manipulate consumers or the conversation are bad. Honest marketers do not do this, will not do this, and will get caught if they try. Sleazy behavior will be exposed by the public and backfire horribly on anyone who attempts it.”
