“Truthfulness” probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the public relations and advertising industries. Spin is what we do, right?
Yes, to an extent. It is our job to make our clients look and sound their best at all times. But while there is certainly a lot of whitewashing and “creative” messaging employed by marketers, I can truly say that in 10 years I’ve never told a client to lie or lied to a reporter myself. It has always been our policy at KGBTexas that lying to the media is only going to get you into more trouble. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford could probably attest to that today.
I had two experiences this week that reminded me just how unattractive dishonestly is in a person or a company. Looking someone in the eye and knowing they’re lying to you, or getting a less-than-straightforward answer from a once-trusted company is one of the most destructive exchanges that can occur between people. Besides the fact that lies almost always end up getting the liar into deeper trouble, the damage that dissembling does to a person’s or company’s reputation is truly irreparable.
These two incidents made me re-examine just how honestly I communicate both personally and on behalf of clients. As marketers, I think we have to ask ourselves how we’re helping to perpetuate the culture of spin. Do we embellish facts in the pursuit of story placement? Are we promising something we know the client can’t really deliver when developing a new campaign?
While it is our job to put our clients in the best possible light, we would be steering them oh-so-wrong if we encouraged or allowed them to be blatantly dishonest. We would eventually be the ones helping them clean up the mess.
A very wise friend said to me the other day, “When I was young I would be dishonest if I thought I was going to get caught doing something wrong. I was so scared of failure. When I got older, I got defensive. Now, I hope I’ve learned to just step up and admit when I’ve screwed up.”
Sometimes telling the truth is hard. But the consequences of lying are usually much greater than whatever the liar is afraid to admit.
