A Marginal Code
Today, DLB presents the first of two parts in its practical critique of the WOMMA's "Honesty ROI," as a candidate ethical code for advertisers.
You will recall that on Monday, I presented the three aspects of the so-called Honesty ROI by the WOMMA. You may also recall that I expressed some reservations about the distinctness of the so-called R-rule and the I-rule. That's where I'll start today. I want to collapse the R-rule into the I-rule. I've thought about this, and I think that if a marketer fails to disclose her relationship to a company whose product she's promoting, she's ostensibly doing nothing more than violating the I-rule, because she fails to identify herself as a marketer, and thus tacitly represents herself as an average consumer. So there are really two rules now:
- The RI-rule: Marketers should not masquerade as non-marketers.
- The O-rule: Marketers should not enforce their own (or their employers') opinions on consumers.
| Tagged with: | Design Ethics, Honesty, Social Media, The Branding Syllogism, Trust, WOMMA |