Its all a bit sad really!

In any case, thanks much for your response. Greed seems to be a branded tarnish that follows us as business people in the eyes of the youth. It is unfortunate that some students leaving college and entering the work force associate this attribute with business in general. Not all of us are greedy and many business owners run very respectable and mutually beneficial work environments.

This leads me to say shame on us if we capitalize on it. Personal accountability must come into play. And that goes for business owners, marketers and consumers. Business owners must create the culture for honest ethics. And walk the walk. It may not always be profitable. Actually I’m wrong. There is profit in ethics. It is called a good night’s sleep!

So the manufacturer, the business owner, the designer/ad agency and the consumer greed will always be here. The trick is to recognize the trap and not embrace it.

And it is time for ethical conduct and accountability to the customer to have a higher value than the biggest profit. And it is time for the consumer to be loyal to those companies that embrace that practice. That becomes true power for a business and the customer.

“All of the above,” seems to me to be the answer. In each category there are a spectrum of people who enhance or degrade the brand relationship and potency. On one end you have the abusive and/or greed driven and on the other you have the smart and ethical. In the middle is most people share some shade of both extremes. Until we can harness the capacity for human corruption, we are stuck in this dilemma of really bad faith.