I promise not to keep using these "smileys", but I couldn't help be sad after reading Shona Seifert's (a former Olgivy & Mather executive) "Proposed Code of Ethics For the Advertising Industry". I got the distinct feeling that the main reason she wrote it was because she got caught (jail time + $125,000) and the judge ordered her to do it.
She may be truly sorry now and mean every word in it, but where were all those awarenesses and self-convictions before she got convicted by the law? The first part of it seemed to me to try to lessen her culpability by blaming the entire "system" of large corporations and old sloppy practices. The middle has many good ethical suggestions. She even quotes Jack Welch: "We must rely on the integrity of our people as our first line of defense.", and prefaces that by saying "Without leaders championing the values, ambiguity is created" (smacks of finger pointing to me!). Near the end she says "New laws may be introduced to regulate the advertising industry. Self-regulation is always better than external imposition of rules." Does she mean the FTC may step in at some point"?
This article from Jeff at revewnews.com entitled "Lessons From an Ad Scandal Convict" brings analogy warnings to the affiliate marketing and search marketing industry from the world of the more traditional advertising agency. This is needed since there is always a potential for the dark side of human nature in any industry. When it appears more trust is eroded.
For me, the lesson learned from all this is what Shona Seifert finally said: "The world has changed. Practices that were once seen as sloppy, part of doing business in a creative industry, or even the norm, are now under scrutiny by clients, by consultants, by investors, and by the Government." Yes, the world has changed since 1999 when P & G wanted to have traditional advertising agencies be compensated with more Advertising Accountability. I agree with the Kotler Marketing Group's assessment of the lack of feasibility of this compensation approach with old traditional media.
But, technology has advanced in the search marketing industry to the point where quality web analytics can accurately track many activities-actions up to the online point of the sale including e-mails, and forms-surveys filled out. Offline sales are another story as pointed out in today's ClickZ article entitled Study: Most Marketers Not Measuring Right SEM Results. In my opinion, If the search marketing consultant can agree with the client on a fair to both buyer and seller valuation of the different kinds of trackable actions, then a Pay For Actions = Performance compensation plan can avoid a lot of problems for both buyer and seller. It can also bring long term buyers to ethical and value driven sellers. Now there would be a lesson learned!
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