#76: Transparency vs honesty, our struggle to recognize facts, unjust law, and my latest talk on marketing to women
Happy Saturday!
In this edition #76 of The World's Best Newsletter:
1. Watch my talk on Marketing to Women in the Era of #MeToo
2. Americans grapple with recognizing facts in news stories
3. Transparency vs honesty
4. Do Women's Events Move the Needle on Equality?
5. Marketers are now supplier of insights
6. Quote of the week - unjust law
1. Watch my talk on Marketing to Women in the Era of #MeToo
You know, it takes courage to book a speaker who brings forward a provocative message, and one that has the possibility of offending half your audience.
Likewise, it takes chutzpah to stand in front of a room of executives and challenge them.
But some messages are simply too important.
This week, I had the opportunity to speak at the ChiefMarketer event in NYC "Marketing to Women in the #MeToo Era." It brought together a powerful room full of of agency professionals working on behalf of global brands, representing millions of dollars in advertising spend.
I was so grateful for this opportunity to share my POV with the very professionals whose decisions can directly impact whether or not brands continue to exploit the women's movement.
Watch it here! There's a byline within as well.
Caption: Katie Martell telling a room full of brand marketers to knock it the f*ck off.
2. Americans grapple with recognizing facts in news stories
Breaking news... human beings are susceptible to spin and inherently biased.
Only a quarter of U.S. adults in a recent survey could fully identify factual statements - as opposed to opinion - in news stories, the Pew Research Center found in a study released on Monday.
Illuminating if not obvious. Read more.
3. Transparency vs honesty
Rand's new book is Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World.
And it's excellent. My favorite quote:
Transparency isn’t the same as honesty. Honesty is saying only things that are true. Many founders and startup teams are honest (in that they don’t directly lie). But transparency requires digging deep to find and expose what others would normally leave unsaid and refusing to take the easy, quiet road. It’s tackling the conversations that make your stomach turn and your voice get caught in your throat. And like nearly everything in the world of startups, swallowing the bitter pill now is vastly superior to letting the disease of opacity fester.
Samuel Scott (another unapologetic truth-teller in our industry) recently profiled Rand in this compelling interview.
4. Do Women's Events Move the Needle on Equality?
HBR asked this question in a recent article.
Spoiler alert: yes.
In one study, the Conference for Women:
Doubled the likelihood of promotion for attendees
Tripled the likelihood of a 10%+ pay increase
Led to 78% of attendees feeling "more optimistic about the future"
It's all about the power of connection.
"There is power in connecting, and it’s not just about gender. Men and women alike can benefit from the power of connection. If you are a manager, encourage your employees to go to events where they can connect with others to remind them that they are not pursuing success and happiness alone. If you are a CEO, invest in conferences that help build up all members of your organization, regardless of where they sit in the organizational hierarchy.
If you or your team are comprised of women working in digital marketing, please consider joining me this fall at the Women in Digital National Conference in Columbus, OH.
Watch the promo video where I demonstrate my super strength in honor of power hour.
5. Marketers are now supplier of insights
As more companies dig further into ABM, marketing’s role is evolving from supplier of leads to supplier of insights to help. Read more in this post from the incomparable Laura Ramos, h/t to Ardath Albee.
6. Quote of the week: Unjust Law
From MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.
Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?
Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
TL;DR: Nonviolent resistance is just, and required, in face of unjust laws.
Have a great weekend,
Katie
Katie
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Upcoming events:
Who's going down at the #B2B Marketing and Sales Feud at #FlipMyFunnel 2018? (Can't we all just get along?) Come cheer me on! Details and promo code in this blog.
I'm excited to be your emcee for the 2018 Women in Digital National Conference. I'll also be sharing a talk on (R)evolution: Suffragettes to Social Media. Join us in Columbus, OH this fall.
Can I have your attention please? Hear me share my strategies for breaking through the noise at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum in San Francisco this November.