There's a LOT in the news right now about people letting us down. People letting people down who had faith in them, trusted them and relied upon them. But they deceived us.
And these are not small time crooks, not chancers but international organisations with lots to lose, who certainly should have known better.
Cruz Wearing Falsies!
Penelope Cruz was featured in an Ad where they claimed their product made your lashes appear 60% longer. What they didn't say was that she allegedly wore false lashes for the photoshoot!
The ASA found the TV commercial misleading. During the investigation, L'Oréal admitted that the star had been wearing individual false lashes. The ASA has ordered L'Oréal to add a disclaimer to future adverts whenever models are shown wearing false lashes. It also told the firm to make it clear that its "60 per cent" claim referred to the appearance of the lashes - not to an actual extension in the length that could be achieved by using the mascara.
The BBC Trust!
The BBC is involved in revelations about faked phone-in competitions, serious editorial breaches were found in six shows, including Comic Relief.The BBC admitted that phone-ins for Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief all featured fake competition winners!
Is nothing sacred?
A number of senior BBC editorial staff have been suspended with immediate effect. I should think so. Meanwhile, BBC director general Mark Thompson has been given a vote of confidence by the BBC Trust. the what? The BBC Trust? Little good they did.
Mr Thompson has also ordered an independent inquiry into footage that wrongly implied the Queen walked out of a photo session. This only happen a few days before the above round of revelations. Charities. The Queen. Whatever next? The Pope? the Bible?
After briefing the trust on the scale of the dishonesty, a shaken Mr Thompson emerged to say: "There is no excuse for deception. We have to regard the deception as a very grave breach of discipline which will normally lead to dismissal.
"Deceiving the public is utterly unacceptable, it is a gross breach of discipline. We have to get our house in order." Challenged over whether he would resign, he said: "My task is not to think about my own position but to roll up my sleeves with the rest of the BBC and make sure we sort this out." So that's what he meat by "normally"!
Viewers were told to telephone a 'live' cookery show, which had in fact been recorded the week before. People watching Saturday Kitchen with Eamonn Holmes were invited to say which meal should be cooked on the show. About 2,000 viewers called, at 25p a time. It was only later that it emerged Eamonn Holmes was in fact presenting a live broadcast on Radio Five at the same time Saturday Kitchen was being shown. As it's assumed the presenter cannot be in two places at once, the ICSTIS, the premium-rate phone regulator, said it would investigate whether viewers were misled.
Erhhhhh ... sounds like it ICSTIS!
According to the report the BBC has apologised for a "genuine mistake", and has promised that all shows would now be presented as live. "Mistake"? that's no mistake ... it's intentional! A mistake is a slip up, an accident, an accidental error ...
This latest scandal comes just a week after it emerged that viewers were encouraged to enter a competition on the Richard & Judy show, even when the winners had already been chosen.
The Tour De Farce!
There has been a remarkable drama at this year's Tour de France. A slew of athletes have been pulled from the race amid doping allegations.
The race's first place rider, Denmark's Michael Rasmussen, was ousted by his team for lying about his whereabouts during training.
This comes on the heels of news that the pre-race favorite, Kazakhstan's Alexander Vinokourov, tested positive for doping. That pushed him and his team out of the running.
"We learned that Michael Rasmussen did not go to Mexico to train as he had told us, but was actually in Italy," said Rabobank Team Manager Erik Breukink in a late night news conference.
In a 24-hour period, 3 more riders were dismissed from the race on charges of using banned substances.
Just hours before Rasmussen's dismissal, Italian rider Christian Moreni was met at the 16th stage finish line by French gendarmes who took him away for questioning. Moreni's blood sample had come back positive for elevated levels of testosterone. All this came just one day after star rider Alexander Vinokourov was thrown out of the race for undergoing a blood transfusion.
Cycling officials were clearly reeling from the pace of the dismissals. Jean-Francois Lamour, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, took to the airwaves to defend the tour.
But cycling writer Barnaby Chesterman said this year's race is no different from any other. Performance enhancing drugs have been a well-known secret for 30 years; it's just that race organizers are finally waking up to it.
I'll post more about how to build credibility and trust and how that may affect your business if you don't in the next post. Until then ...
John Gordon
The Marketing Magician
