(Courtesy of NBC News)
Hi everybody, my name is Ali and I have started my internship with this well-established branch of an international humanitarian relief NGO in Malaysia, which I am not intending to disclose its name here. So what did I really learn in my first week?
Fact #1: Philanthropic donors do not like to be betrayed by their favorite charity organization. I had to inform my supervisor about my findings. This NGO can cause more damage to itself in promoting and selling fake products as branded stuff than to help the poor people. I mean people are not blind and they can easily distinguish the not real from the genuine one. I still wonder why they ‘lied to me’ about the origins of the materials and introduced it on the first day as “branded and worthy of thousand”!
Fact#2: As a future PR practitioner, I have to only suggest transparency in communicating the origins of the commodity. But is this NGO willing to tell the donors that these menswear are fake?? Imagine saying, “Would you buy some fake materials with a reasonable price for charity?!” Well, it sounds silly to me really.
Action: I emailed the advertisement link to my supervisor, to the gift/donation officer I am working with, and they both ‘noted’ it and guess what?
Reaction: A day after, the advertisement in that Malay website WAS BROUGHT DOWN!! Coincidence? Indeed! People look at me differently now! My supervisor said “But the price is still reasonable, isn’t it?” What she really meant by this, is that she was confessing on their insincerity regarding the menswear without bothering to fix it for the future matters even!
Lesson#1: Do not lie to your interns! Because it will only damage your organizational reputation (especially if you are doing charity and humanitarian relief on the world scale) and will create a bad memory that may linger on.
Lesson#2: Do not underestimate your interns! Nowadays very few secrets can remain in the closet, especially when the world is connected through all types of search engines and social networks as the image above also portrays!
Leson#3: Be honest and candid with your target public. It does not matter whether you want to do marketing or PR, transparency is the key to credibility and credibility leads to reputation. No transparency, no reputation.
What would you do, if you were in my position? Please share your views.
Ali.
LUCT.
6 comments:
Great post, Ali!
What an experience you've had, eh? Honestly, if i were in your shoes, i would turn a blind eye to the whole "fake goods" fiasco. Why? Cos i don't think we as interns are in the position to point out such things. But nonetheless, i applaud you for your "ballsy" move hahah
Take care Ali!
Hey Ali! It’s Ratang here.
What an experience! I wonder how I would have reacted if I found out such a truth, I believe I would have feared to voice it out in a way. My first consideration would be that I am only an intern, a newly hired intern for that matter, who could have been susceptible to being fired at that instant. Really it would have been such a ‘huge’ dilemma for me.
Well I admire your confidence in voicing it out fearlessly; it goes to show that you are very much clear about your principles, good going. First of all you did the right thing by carrying out research on your own; I am pretty sure that nobody had asked you to do that, but you did anyway and see what it got you, the truth. I mean in this dog-eat-dog world we want the truth but we all know that we will not always hear the truth. People climb up the business ladder through lies, yes it’s all lies. Human nature I guess. What ‘your’ organization did was uncalled for, it is not fair to you, worse off to the customers who are going to buy those men-wear.its more like the NGO…is swindling people out of their money…I mean RM 200 is a lot for a fake stuff…I mean you might as well go to china-town and bargain it for a mere RM50 or even less. Those people seriously need to re-visit their principles if they have any! I know they are doing it for charity but charity does not by any means equal cheating. The fact that they are in it to help others does not mean that they should get funds the wrong way….for all we care, once people find out the truth, all hell shall break loose, I mean no one in this world wants to be cheated…you may cheat but once you are caught it will not be ‘fun’ any more.
So what is going to happen? Are they still going to sell the ‘fake stuff’ for RM 200? Or they have reconsidered their actions?
...wow...
To start with,i want to congradulate you with the steps you have taken.You have really shown the public that you are a Public Relation student...Thats my concern,many organisation are talking about p.r yet they dont practice it...Firstly you did the right think to research about that particular brand before notifying the supervisor.Many people,especially when they are interns are scared to voice their views,because they think other staff many start gossip behind their back.But who cares,as long as you know you are doing the right thing,I mean what kind of organisation can be concerned about making profit than telling the truth to its clint---honesty is the best policy....As a pr practitioner you have to practice c.s.r,and thats what you have shown them..
I wish you all the best.
amogelang
Dear Shannon,
We have a saying in Farsi that literally means "a good year is measured by its spring"! And I have had a really unpredictable spring so far in this 'not for profit organization'! Thanks anyway :)
Dear Ratang,
How wonderfully you have put this, I really liked it when you wrote:
"...I know they are doing it for charity but charity does not by any means equal cheating..."
Unfortunately I have felt no change in their communication strategy regarding the issue. I wanted to suggest changing the target consumer, hopefully we can get those low-income citizens who would like to pay for this kind of stuff! But the problem is even low-income citizens are not supposed to be cheated or treated in this way!! Oh My God!
Dear Amogelang,
My ethic box, my professional code of conduct, my principle of objectivity has come from the scripture (in my case Holy Koran). FYI I personally don't care what my organization wants me to do! Oh! Yes! Shannon may call it a "Ballsy" statement again ;) but honestly, I have got lot more in trusting God in my life than trusting institutions or people, either earthly things or non-earthly ones.
Thank you very much Amogelang for your input.
Thanks all again.
wow Ali!! awesome stuff!!
I honestly salute you for bringing this up to your supervisors.
I do believe that as a PR Practitioner, transparency and honesty will play a major role. Everyone absolutely can and will lie at some point to maintain their good image and i think it's time for the next bunch of PR Practitioners will walk in dignity and base it on professionalism and honesty. from the way i see it, you may be the next person who will bring up PR up to the entire new level. Where people will respect PR Prac more based on their transparency and honesty in giving out relevant information, no? :)
hi!
Thats big man!. But after what you did, did they not start some kind of hatred on you.
But i also agree with everybody that what you did was right.People were going to realize that they are fake in the end and that would have harmed the reputation of your organization.It shows that the organization did not even do a lot of research on the markets if am not wrong before they bought the merchandise and i believe its one of the recommendations you gave to them, to do more research in the future. more damage would have happened there.
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