Osama Bin Laden was a bad man and the world’s a better place without him. And I’m just as patriotic as the next guy.  But mark my words, soon you’ll see ads with American eagles and the American flag popping up, just like after 9/11 as advertisers aimed to capitalize on American emotions.

With thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars invested, using this tact is lazy, tacky and patently offensive.  If your company really cares, don’t commercialize–donate a portion from each sale to a veteran’s organization or one of the many groups that have been impacted by terrorists here and abroad.

A surprising perspective regarding B2B email marketing was published recently in the Harvard Business Review blog that got one of our client’s hackles up, and I think it will yours too.

In B2B’s: Your Email Marketing Policy Could Hurt You, the author essentially argues that spam is okay as long as you are a B2B marketer.

My comment was one of 48—most in violent opposition to the idea:

As we all know, the phrase “permission marketing” was popularized in Seth Godin’s book of the same name in the late ’90′s. By his definition, email needs to be “anticipated, personalized and relevant” or it’s spam, and I agree with him.

Would it be good for business to be able to communicate with their customers via email? Of course.

But if a customer doesn’t want their inbox to be filled with messages from their IT company, their marketing firm or their any other B2B partner, it’s their right.

Almost 10 years ago, research was done at the University of London regarding the effects of information overload on knowledge workers. At that time, the average knowledge worker was interrupted 168 times/day on average. This influx of information resulted in an average short-term reduction of the worker’s IQ by 10%.

We’re busy at work. We have things to do, customers to serve and many of us, hours to bill.

I’d argue that B2B spam is even MORE harmful than B2C spam. At least when we’re reading our personal email, we can deal with the clutter at our leisure without thinking twice. Hitting the delete button on B2B spam is more difficult—we’re processing our inboxes as fast as we can, but have to stop and review the latest spammy message from one of our vendors to make sure there isn’t relevant information we need for our jobs.

[B2B spam] shows a lack of respect for a customer’s time and is clearly irresponsible marketing.

While it’s true that there is some level of permission granted to communicate with your customers, it’s not an open door to send them all your marketing communications until they ask you to stop.

‘Nuff said.

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Special thanks to Andrew Johnson for bringing this post to my attention.

Here’s what Earl is saying:

Tiger, I am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are. And did you learn anything?

On the surface it may seem like a bit of a head-scratcher for Nike: Woods’ father wasn’t faithful, either.

But consider this: Most of Tiger’s sponsors have bailed except Nike and it’s in their best interest to see him restored. This video shows a remorseful Woods looking his fans straight in the eye. By approving and participating in this ad, he’s showing he hasn’t forgotten his roots. That he knows his father wouldn’t approve. And that he’s learned something.

Opinions are polarized from the general public. Here are two from YouTube:

This is brilliant, Nike’s invested too much time and money into Tiger Woods to not do something like this. I give this a thumbs up with the reasoning that it isn’t often a sponsor will put money into saving a sports figure. And I think Tiger approving of it means he’s really showing the amount of change he’s willing to make to appear as an honourable sports figure again. I LIKE THIS. ~nboysis

Corporate damage control and a well-orchestrated PR campaign. And who really knows what Earl would say? He’s DEAD. Now? Tiger and Nike are bringing him back from the dead to pimp him out for greed. Poor taste Tiger….you would come across better by keeping a low profile in my opinion and working on your marriage to save your image, not your corporate whores. ~zenstate

So, is Nike’s new Tiger ad responsible or not? What say you?

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That’s right. At a time when Apple could be cross-selling any number of their new offerings, they are using one of the four sandboxes on their homepage to share their supplier responsibility practices. You know, the info that’s typically buried in the “about us” section of a company website—if it exists at all.

Strategic posturing? Maybe.

But consider the timing: Apple is on the cusp of their biggest product launch since the iPhone.

And consider the real estate: Whatever the company puts on their homepage sells.

Apple realizes at a time when their fortunes are good and the stock price is up, maybe putting social responsibility up front just might the most responsible thing they can do.

That’s my take. What’s yours?

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But your positioning has to be more than simply unique and matter to your prospects. It has to be true, too.

With that in mind, watch this:

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If you are selling “the world’s toughest phone” that’s “virtually unbreakable,” perhaps it should be.

While Sonim XP1 CEO Bob Plaschke handled this with an amazing amount of grace, the fact is it would appear to some that this is nothing more than another hollow marketing claim.

Persuasion, good.
Puffery, bad.

Not just because you might get caught. It’s because it doesn’t respect the people that ultimately pay the bills—your customers.

Is Sonim guilty of the age-old marketer’s practice of marketing puffery? Considering their “unbreakable” phone broke, does it really matter?

What do you think?

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One of the Seven Keys to Responsible Marketing is being message responsible. That means marketers should respect all their audiences by seeking permission, telling the truth, honoring privacy and avoiding clutter.

Yelling at consumers isn’t very respectful, and the U.S. House of Representatives has recently approved a bill which aims to limit the volume of television advertisements.

Eric Weaver at Tribal DDB in Vancouver calls it “A win for consumers, a loss for self-interested advertisers” and I couldn’t agree more.

But what do you think? Should the government regulate annoying advertising?

Comment below to weigh in.

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Well, here’s “The 7 Keys to Responsible Marketing in 2 Minutes,” featuring the characters you’ve grown to love (or hate) in our Responsible Marketing web shorts.

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There ya go—with a video that short, now everyone has time to learn about Responsible Marketing. Share away.

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That’s the message of this Audi A3 “Do Your Part” advert:

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I get the idea: Show you can be environmentally responsible without having to put yourself out. You can have it all.

Here’s one point of view from @motorad666 on Twitter:

If ads are supposed to make you want to buy stuff, the Audi A3 Clean Diesel ads are working on me, and I should know better. Good work, VBP.

And the counterpoint from @markapennington:

bike riding: green. bus riding: green. buying an audi: not green. http://bit.ly/hD8TN Is this “green-jacking”?

Some might call this greenwashing because it implies driving a diesel is as good or better than riding the bus or a bike to work.

But this ad’s greatest offense is that it mocks its target audience. Was the Members Only jacket and tie for the guy on the Segway really necessary?

So what do you think? Is Audi’s “Do Your Part” ad is Responsible Marketing or not?

Comment below to weigh in.

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You’ve heard it a million times. So many times it’s gotta be true, right?

Hell, even the Devil himself says it’s true in our second of seven Responsible Marketing web shorts, here:

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Why not believe it? You just heard it from the Devil himself.

Well, because it’s all a lie.

Sex sells sex.
Sex gets attention.
And sex creates controversy.

But it seldom converts attention to action.
And most people don’t recall the brand the ad was for.

Men respond better than women to sexy ads, as expected. But in Buyology, author Martin Lindstrom shared this interesting tidbit: One study found that even for men, recall for sexually explicit ads was less than 10%, but recall was nearly twice that for the non-sexually charged ads.

Steve Hall of Adrants puts it perfectly when talking about sex in advertising call it:

. . . a lame cop-out used by marketers who lack imagination to create more compelling work that will sustain itself beyond the initial titillation.

I couldn’t agree more, but what do you think?

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The nearly unbearable gritty realism of a head-on collision features heads snapping back and forth on impact, gushing blood, a child crying for its dead parents and a dead infant has created controversy, and as expected—conversation.

• The argument against: It’s simply too explicit.
• The argument for: Desensitized youth will actually pay attention.

There’s merit to both points, but seeing this video made me wonder, “If this wasn’t a PSA—if this was an ad for child seats, OnStar or another product—what would the conversation look like?”

Are we more accepting of questionable content in PSA’s because it’s for the common good and not for profit?

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Thanks to Deston Nokes and Martin Pierce for sharing this video with me last week.