The ‘Value Action Gap’ – are all marketers smokers?

I went to a Social Media Mafia event today (thanks to Rosie for the tip off).

It’s one of those events which are called ‘camps’.

This was my first ‘camp’. I now know what it is. I think it’s basically an event where people can talk over the speaker until they become the speaker. I liked it. It reminded me of growing up in a house as one of five kids. No hair-pulling or dead-arms today though.

Instead, there was some very clever people passionate about social media and coming at it from a variety of different angles- not just marketing. This made for a very interesting conversation (and why I think events like this are far more worthwhile than conferences where people share a powerpoint presentation for £679 a ticket which is on Slideshare the next day- separate post needed on that I think).

Anyway, I digress.

At a ‘camp’, you get to nominate and lead a discussion. Sylvie from 1000 Heads nominated social media ethics (she is their full-time ethicist!).

There was a lot of chat we’ve had before from a branding perspective about (n)etiquette; transparency, privacy, content, control etc. The conversation then turned to values and internal communications as a key driver for how ethics are communicated and indeed carried out.

My thoughts then turned to a recent white paper the COI released about ‘Communications and behaviour change which is essentially a nod in the direction of the very trendy and hotly debated ‘behavioural economics’ (“BE” is going to be BIG in 2010 if Rory Sutherland has anything to do with it).

On page 16 of the report, there is a line of enquiry discussing the ‘Value Action Gap’. It basically describes those situations where a person holds values that are inconsistent with their behaviour. It’s particularly evident in people’s attitudes towards the environment- we have the knowledge but when it comes to actually doing something about it, other factors take greater presidence e.g. economic. Or an example of when attitudes can precede behaviour; smoking, we know it’s bad for us and we want to live a long and healthy life but we still do it.

Is this the social web magnifying this ‘gap’ between a companys’ ‘values’ and their ‘actions’?

Putting ethics to one side, is the foremost recommendation for any digital communicator to be able to challenge any at say Proctor and Gamble, Clark’s, Nike, Whole Foods, Casio employee and be able to identify the values the company has through their actions? After all, it’s the people who make a business and consequently it’s identity, event before social media came along.

Because social media has given a voice to anyone, rather than attempt to clamp down on employees speaking out of turn or providing ‘social media guidelines’ or creating ‘engagement ethics’ etc- are resources best not focused on getting everyone who works in an organisation empowered to represent the brand in and out of work- through sharing the values of the company from top to bottom and expecting everyone employed by the company to adhere to them? If they don’t adhere- ship ‘em out, if they do- encourage and incentivise them to decrease the company’s ‘value action gap’.

Are we not as marketers in a state of ‘cognitive dissonance‘ like smokers? In the COI report, the authors suggest smokers seek to reduce the dissonance by either giving up or by finding new ways to justify their habit e.g. it makes me slimmer.

Are marketers not just finding new ways to justify our habit? i.e. of selling advertising space/ making an ad/ producing a press release/ blogger outreach yada yada? How do we stub out our own cigarette?

With the wave of thinking about ‘marketing as a service‘ and ‘it’s what you do, not what you say‘, should therefore, the future role of the agency be helping those willing to embrace this new model; those focused on closing their ‘value action gap’, by ‘actioning’ their values- doing stuff that communicates what they are about through the best channel going- the people who work in the company. Will the successful businesses of tomorrow be ones with no ‘values action gap’ having realised the best way of marketing their brand is through the people that make up the brand. Case in point; Zappos

Right, I’m off for a fag.

Thoughts most welcome.