Deny, Doubt, Delay

Just returning from a guest lecture at University of Portsmouth, on ‘Ethics and Marketing’.

We talked about the power of marketing - of telling stories that stick.

The workshop covered the ‘Tobacco Playbook’ of Deny, Doubt, Delay, and how we saw it repeated by fossil fuel companies, and how it’s being repeated again in the tech industry …

We also looked at some examples of how this power can be used in a different way - to tell different stories.

Fundamentally, I hold that this - like so many other things - comes down to our values …

What do we believe?
And how do we want to show up in the world?

So we also spent some time figuring out what our values are. How can we make ethical decisions if we don’t know what we stand for.

If, as Zak Stein puts it, “education is intergenerational transmission” - then I feel it was a good session: hopefully the students learned something …

I know I did.

PS Feel free to contact me if you’d like more information on my ‘Ethics and Marketing’ workshop.