Lies = bad marketing

Seth Godin might have written that ‘All Marketers Are Liars’, those who read the book know that marketers are not liars, rather story-tellers. They tell stories on which we base our perception of the product, and our perception is our reality. What we believe becomes true.

This is actually the reason why marketers should not lie to customers. I regret it, but in a market where prices are unreasonably rising (the food market), I see companies making up more and more lies every day.
They lie when they try to lower the quality of their products in order to be able not to raise the prices too much. They tell themselves that customers only care about prices, and that they won’t notice the difference in quality.
They lie when let the customer believe that you can get the exact same thing for half the price with a B-brand, but trust me there are differences between the cheap brands and the expensive ones. And I’m not talking fancy packaging or margin, I am talking quality again.
They lie when they replace an ingredient by a cheapest one to make more money, thinking again that the customers won’t notice the difference.

I say: we should never act as if our customers were idiots. As a marketer, if you do not believe that ethics is good enough a reason not to do so, tell yourself that everything gets known. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but sooner or later. And when the word comes out you lied to your customers, it will be the end of your business. I am not even talking about life-threatening lies. I am saying that if your customers realize you fooled them, it will ruin your reputation, and you won’t find anybody to support you.

So yes, let’s tell great stories about great products. Let’s give our customers a great perception. But let us not fall into this trap and tell them lies just because it is easy to.