I was always an enthusiastic marketer. When I was four years old, my parents had to ask me, with some amusement, to remove my crudely lettered Tomatoes for Sale sign from our front yard. They explained that it was early Spring, and we had not yet planted the seeds my father had ordered from the Burpee catalog. Much later, while going to school, I sold shoes in a retail store, and then jewelry in a Kredit Jewelry store in New York City.

Being straight laced and somewhat naive, my real-world understanding of ethics in sales and marketing evolved slowly as I witnessed some doubtful practices. My fellow shoe salesmen did not always sell the proper shoes to their customers; they sometimes sold whatever they had in stock, even if it meant fitting a size too small. And the sales through that jewelry store were not really intended to be sales at all. The objective was to get a large down payment from immigrant customers who could barely speak English, repossess the flawed diamond ring when they failed to make the first payment, and then sell it again later on credit to another customer.

History is full of stories of deceptive sales. The Greeks, for example, successfully promoted their massive wooden horse to the citizens of Troy, who assumed that it was a peace offering, only to learn the hard way that the Trojan War was not over after all.

But, most importantly, I have also learned that the vast majority of business sales and marketing people are scrupulously honest and fair. They tell the truth, and they try very hard to do the right thing.

The American Marketing Associations Statement of Ethics says that sales efforts should avoid false, misleading and deceptive promotion and that marketing personnel should reject manipulative sales tactics. Wikipedia states in its Marketing Ethics article (under the heading Is marketing inherently evil?) that it is wrong to damage personal autonomy, to infringe on a buyers self-determination or to manipulate social values.

How then, can selling food stamps to stubbornly proud Appalachian mountain residents, who kept saying they didnt need them, possibly be justified? Heres the story:

The Ashe County, N.C., Department of Social Services won the highest award as a Hunger Champion from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a very important strategy in counteracting what they described as mountain pride and appealed to those who did not wish to rely on others. They did it by first offering free seeds to their clients and then, having gained that foothold, progressing to food stamp welfare (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

The USDA celebrated its victory by bragging that Ashe County In 1 year had increased its SNAP participation by over 10 percent and that, as a result, other forms of federal welfare in the county had also increased dramatically. But as writer John Bennett, who grew up in that area, describes it, the strategy worked by degrading the character of a proud people.

Hmm – manipulation, deceptive promotion, infringing on self-determination and damaging personal autonomy… Should we ask why the USDA doesnt hold itself to the same responsible sales standards endorsed by business marketers? And should we also ask why the government is involved in marketing welfare at all, much less awarding prizes for it?