I’ve been reading Consumer Reports for decades and I’ve always found it to be a useful resource. Today, it helps me blog!
One of my favorite parts of the magazine is in the very back – a page called Selling It. The page contains “goofs, glitches, and gothcas” – things marketers have done either in error (goofs, glitches) or on purpose to deceive consumers in some way (gotchas). If I were a CEO and my company or product ever appeared on this page, I’d be making some wholesale changes very quickly.
Typically, the goofs are based on sloppy work – someone didn’t proofread something such as a bust of Thomas Jefferson with a plaque affixed commemorating him as our second president. I guess the TV series about John Adams had it backwards – he must have followed Jefferson into the White House. Then there are the ads that promise to “Illuminate underarm sweating for up to 6 months with a single treatment” (Botox) or for an “Insulted Cargo Vest” (I’m not sure who said what to it but they should apologize).
More egregious, in my opinion, are the gotchas – CU catching marketers engaging in deceptive behavior. Not the big guys? How about a box of Kellogg’s All Bran that features “real strawberries” on the front but which contains far more “strawberry flavored apples” in the ingredients than the few freeze-dried strawberries consumers are lead to believe would predominate. As we all know (hey – we’re consumers too!), this kind of thing goes on all the time and it shows a total lack of respect for your consumer.
It’s not hard to stay off this page. Be honest, be careful, have redundant systems to check the checking, hold people accountable, and if something ever does slip through, apologize, make restitution, and be open. And most importantly, fix the problem and the system or people that permitted it to happen.
Consult Keith 