The Truth Has Become Everything In Advertising

On Wednesday Sue Unerman published a story for the Guardian entitled "Do consumers care whether brands tell the truth?" Her resounding answer being, absolutely."Of course consumers care about truth. We all do. So the best way to sell stuff to them is to tell them the truth. Half a century ago David Ogilvy said: "The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife"."


Unerman details how brands have put spin on the truth and "creatively" detracted from it. So yes the truth has become more and more important to brand integrity and this is something that marketers should be aware of. For her, the brands that are adapting well are showing this and as so too are the brands that are not.

But how important is the truth to well established brands?

I would argue that an advert depicting a gorilla playing the drums to a Phil Collins track will not put chocoholics off their favourite Cadbury's treat. Neither will dancing eyebrows. The fallacy in advertising of non sequitur, ie irrelevance in connection between the advert and the product, has become common place and acceptably so. These adverts are absurd yet entertaining and the brand is at a point in its growth that reputation is maintenance based. This is the exception to the rule.

So what about new or little known products?

The answer is as Unerman suggests - the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Paramount to building brand reputation is consumer respect. In today's social media dominated world, advertisers should not risk upsetting consumers by making false claims about a product or putting "spin" on the facts. The effect of losing one customer can roll over to initial sales in general once the disappointed shopper takes to Facebook to warn others. And as we know bad press can go viral like wildfire, just look at the Jimmy Carr tax scandal which was all over Twitter within minutes.

Old newspapers are not archives and forgotten like the old days,where reputation had a better chance of recovery because not everyone had seen that article. Online papers offer database archive search and so information is accessible and living forever. The Guardian has embraced the new truth based media arena with their "Open Journalism". Their new style of reporting is interactive and gives readers a chance to comment. This means that it is not only the journalists point that we have access to, and this further strengthens the sense that truth and integrity is becoming everything in media and advertising.