When Your Marketing Says "We Care" 🎭 But Your CEO Makes Mustard Gas

(Or: Why Your Company's Ethics Are Probably Bullshaet—And What to Do About It)

Behold!

Your company's "values" page is lying to everyone, including you.

I sat down with Ken Ziegler—AI ethics advocate, anime blogger (yes, really), and professional corporate BS detector—and we basically spent 30 minutes roasting how companies pretend to give a damn about ethics while actively... not giving a damn.

The Nonprofit That Exploited Kids While "Helping" Kids

Ken dropped this absolute nightmare fuel on me: United Way. You know, THE charity everyone's heard of? Yeah, their CEO was literally exploiting children while running a children's charity.

And people kept donating.

He didn't even get fired.

Let that sink in while you sip your fair-trade coffee in your open-concept office.

Monsanto: When "On Brand" Means "Yeah, That Tracks"

We got into Monsanto (you know, the mustard gas people), and I made a joke about how their sketchy farmer practices don't surprise anyone. Ken goes, "That's the problem—when bad behavior is on brand for you, your brand is cooked."

Chef's kiss.

The thing is, Monsanto actually created Golden Rice that could cure blindness in vitamin A-deficient regions. But nobody will let them test it because their brand reputation is somewhere between "sketchy landlord" and "that guy who microwaves fish in the office."

When "yeah, that makes sense" is the response to your company doing something awful? You've got a relationship management problem that no amount of SEO or client retention strategies can fix.

The Sandbox Ethics Strategy (AKA: Actually Give a Shaet)

Here's where Ken got spicy: companies need to use "sandbox ethics"—basically, test your ethical positions like you're a kid learning to share toys, but make it corporate.

The idea? Experiment with your ethics in a controlled way. See what resonates with your stakeholders. Build trust BEFORE you screw up.

Because here's the thing about authentic client connections and humanizing business relationships: people will forgive your occasional farckup if they actually believe you're trying. But if you're already sus? One mistake and you're done. Cancelled. Ratio'd. Whatever the kids call it now.

That Gravity Payments Guy Who Paid Everyone $70K

Remember Dan Price? Dude slashed his own salary so everyone in his company made $70K minimum. His employees literally bought him a car because they thought he deserved better than what he could afford.

Now, sure, people tried to cancel him later (because the internet), but the principle stands: when you actually walk the walk, people notice.

That's what stakeholder engagement strategies and relationship-driven revenue growth actually look like in practice. Not a farcking pizza party and a LinkedIn post about "our people are our greatest asset."

The Gray Area Is Where the Money Lives

Ken and I nerded out about how nobody wants to swim in the gray area anymore. Everything's black and white, good or evil, with us or against us.

But reality? Reality is gray as hell.

And if you're building business relationships in the digital age while everyone else is screaming from the extremes, you're gonna stand out. You're gonna build high-retention client relationships because you're the only one making sense.

The executives searching for "reducing client churn in startups" and "improving client satisfaction scores"? They're drowning in AI-generated content and growth-hacking BS. They need someone who gets that business is still H2H—human to human.

The AI Rant (Because Of Course)

We also went off about AI ethics, and honestly, it deserves its own post. But the TL;DR: None of the AI companies are ethical, they're all training on stolen data, and the real power is in how YOU use it, not hoping they'll suddenly develop a conscience.

Consumer behavior drives policy. Not the other way around. So stop waiting for regulation and start being the change, etc etc.

The Bottom Line (For Real This Time)

If you're running a scaling company in health tech, medtech, or SaaS, you're competing in a market that's already noisy AF. Everyone's got "innovative solutions" and "customer-centric approaches."

You know what nobody has? Actual ethics they can defend. A real point of view. The guts to say something true instead of something safe.

Your competitors can copy your features. They can undercut your pricing. They can hire away your team.

But they can't copy your character—if you actually have one.

That's the proactive client relationship management nobody's teaching. That's the company culture transformation that actually matters. That's why trusted advisor relationships exist in the first place.

Because when shaet hits the fan (and it will), your clients will remember whether you were real or whether you were running the corporate equivalent of a Instagram filter.

Watch the full episode. Ken's got way more gems than I could fit here, and honestly, his anime blog metaphors alone are worth your time.

P.S. If your immediate reaction to this post was "but we CAN'T be controversial, we have a board!"—congrats, you've identified exactly why your customer advocacy programs aren't working. The call is coming from inside the house. 🏚️

Now go fix it.

P.P.S. Seriously though, watch the episode. Ken talks about the Sydney Sweeney thing and how conservative media literally manufactured outrage for 5 days before anyone cared. It's wild. And extremely relevant to how you're probably getting manipulated by your own marketing department.

P.P.P.S. Yeah, I know that's three postscripts. That's how storytelling for client success works now. Buckle up. 🚀

Karl Pontau hosts The Human Connection Podcast, where we talk about the stuff that actually matters in business: the humans running it. Because whether you're B2B or B2C, it's really H2H—human to human. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode where we probably say something that'll make your HR department uncomfortable.