LG and Samsung,
For many business people I know, especially those in sales and marketing, trade shows are often a fact of life. From an ethical perspective, trade shows can be a challenge. On a personal level, I have witnessed trade show attendees stepping way over the boundaries of personal conduct during and after show hours. It isn’t necessary to elaborate; I am sure many of my friends and followers know the kinds of behaviors to which I refer. These behaviors reflect on personal conduct – or the lack of it.
However, during show hours many corporate representatives may sometimes tend to forget that their presence in the booth, or on the tradeshow floor is literally an extension of their offices, corporate policies and general management.
In an interesting article for CNBC (February 17, 2015) by writer Arjun Kharpal entitled: “Samsung sues LG for vandalizing washing machines,” we have a very interesting ethical issue.
“A top LG executive is being sued by Samsung for allegedly vandalizing the company’s washing machines ahead of a trade show. Jo Seong-ji, who heads up LG’s home-appliance business, has been indicted by South Korean prosecutors on charges of damaging four high-end Samsung ‘Crystal Blue’ washing machines before a trade show in Berlin in September 2014. Jo also faces charges of defamation and obstruction of business…
The company has never disputed that its executives visited and inspected the washing machines, but maintains that if the appliances did break, it was because of poor workmanship from Samsung.”
Both LG and Samsung are South Korean companies and they are fierce competitors. There have been arguments in the past where LG executives allegedly vandalized Samsung products in actual use to give them a bad reputation.
In regard to the Berlin tradeshow referred to above, LG executives do not deny they visited the booth, and in fact they have released a surveillance video on YouTube showing that they were just visiting the booth and nothing else. Surveillance video is subject to editing, of course and often proves nothing; but why bother in the first place?
Know where you stand
Though the scene described above took place in Berlin and the competitors were South Korean, I have seen similar behaviors occur at trade shows in Toronto, New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.
Ethically, I like to think of a tradeshow booth as a store front. The store front is “locked and sealed” before and after business hours. If you sell baked beans, motor oil, plaid pajamas or garden mowers, you probably wouldn’t appreciate a team of sales and marketing people poking around in your booth before the show begins.
Even worse, suppose you started to sample or sell your products and prospective customers commented that your products tasted or looked substandard or poorly made or ripped or whatever kind of flaw you could imagine? Chances are, you might suspect some type of vandalism or tampering.
In knowing where you “stand,” it is important to recall the age old adages that govern ethical behavior. Vandalizing or tampering or even putting oneself in the position being accused of such behavior is so ridiculously ‘Old School,” that is an embarrassment that it cannot be tolerated.
I do not know what went on in the booth where the LG executives were poking around the Samsung booth, but it was unnecessary and a very amateur move. Why wouldn’t they come into the booth during show hours when it was fully staffed? That answer is obvious; there is so much animosity and distrust between the two companies created by poor ethical behavior in the past, that such a “visit” would be unwelcomed.
In addition, given the sheer volume of modern day information, I seriously doubt if any feature of one model of washing machine would have been unknown to the other company for very long. Conducting an unauthorized booth visit did infinitely more damage than good. It was a bad choice that may lead to legal consequences.
What is lost?
There is always a price for poor ethical behavior, at a trade show or anywhere in the workplace. In this case, reputation was lost. Even if the visit by the LG executives was innocuous, albeit ill-advised, given the contentious nature of their relationship in the past they should have taken the high road and simply sold their own products on their own merits.
It is wise that companies present trade show attendees with common sense ethical rules to govern behavior. The trade show is not a place where good ethics are automatically relaxed because staff members are away from the normal office environment.
