This May I stopped in London while traveling to the FCSI Conference in Liverpool, and walking to Waterloo Place, I came across the latest work by Banksy; the statue of a man in a suit and tie walking forward with a flag completely covering his face.
The flag does not guide man, but blinds him; the individual advances decisively and marches forward, but is totally unable to see where he is going because of the symbol that covers him.
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It’s not a lie if you believe it
In today’s digital age, fake news spreads faster than ever. For B2B professionals, the impact of misinformation on brand reputation can’t be overstated. Understanding how fake news can harm your brand, and knowing how to counter it, is essential for maintaining trust and credibility in the marketplace.
Fake news can reach millions within minutes, thanks to social media and the internet’s rapid dissemination channels. A study by MIT (worth a read here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29590045/) found that false information spreads significantly faster and reaches more people than the truth. For businesses, this means a single piece of fake news can quickly damage years of reputation-building efforts.
A lie is typically defined as intentionally deceiving someone by communicating something you know to be false.
While genuinely believing a falsehood may spare you from the moral weight of intentional deception, it does not make the statement objectively true. Clinging to false statements despite disproving evidence can cross into willful blindness and reckless disregard for the facts.
Don’t be lazy to go fact-checking
Fake news in B2B marketing manifests as competitors or malicious actors spreading disinformation about your brand, or brands inflating product claims and publishing sponsored content masquerading as objective news.
To protect brand equity and restore stakeholder confidence, B2B companies must prioritize authenticity and actively manage their digital presence.
As a professional, you should just pick up the phone and call the people affected by rumors, and not just blindly trust people with gossipy tendencies, usually Mr.- Know-It-All (see Banksy above).
I worked for a special project with a startup specializing in fact-checking, that actually developed automated tools and platforms to detect fake news, verify claims, and mitigate AI hallucinations. They leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP), deep learning, and digital provenance to combat misinformation in real-time.
But it’s just easier to complain to people affected by fake news that didn’t do any quick action to prevent it, or they didn’t call you in advance, ah?
DISCLAIMER: Of course, you can be the best marketer in the world and try to fight against customers’ laziness, but you can’t beat functional illiteracy, which is the greatest plague of our contemporary history. If they can’t understand what you are saying in simple words, you have to put three times the energy to protect your brand.
Who is controlling the controllers?
In George Orwell’s classic novel “1984”, he envisioned a country that is always at war with other countries, which meant people had to give up their individual freedoms for safety.
In Orwell’s novel, the government controls all access to information. The hero of the story, Winston Smith, who works for the Ministry of Truth responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism, is spied on and eventually tortured into complying with and believing in Big Brother’s philosophy: War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.
It’s a very dark book, but I think it’s a warning.
Laziness, indifference, blind following, and lack of knowledge are putting people in the top positions without any control.
Remember, when it comes to my area of study and experience, it’s never my word against yours, but it’s my knowledge against yours. And I will speak it out loud.
Choose wisely, my friends. Choose wisely. This industry is full of fake news. And fake people, that only respect people with power.
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Stay data-hungry. Stay data-foolish.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Digital Consultant
