I want to thank my friend Oilman, from the Warrior Forum, for bringing up this question. He wanted to know if marketing under a pen name was ethical. He was having some personal problems with it and wanted to know how others felt. Instead of posting my response there, where only a few people will see it, I’m going to answer the question in this article. Please understand, this is only my opinion.

For starters, let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. Marketing under a pen name is not illegal. People do it all the time. The list of authors who wrote under pen names is a mile long. Certainly nobody really believes that there is a Geico gecko. I know I don’t. Point is, companies have been using fictional characters of all sorts to endorse all kinds of products. I think the public is intelligent enough to know that this is just a representation.

But what about the person who uses XYZ name to promote a product that he has created and people begin to identify the product with him, especially if he promotes himself as the “friendly” marketer, or the “average Joe” marketer? What if that’s the name he actually uses, something like “Average Joe Wilson” and his real name is John Smith. Is this ethical? Is this person getting sales based on a persona that he has created that he wouldn’t have normally gotten otherwise?

Well, maybe he is. But that still doesn’t answer the question…is it ethical? Okay, here is how I look at it. If the product does what the persona claims, made up or not, then I see no problem. If I create a product that fixes relationships and I call myself the “Relationship Repairman” does it really matter that my name is Steven Wagenheim? And yes, that’s my REAL name. I mean my goodness…who would make up a name like Steven Wagenheim? Certainly I can do better than that.

Point is, it’s what the product promises and delivers on that matters. If I used my real name and created a product that was garbage, I think THAT should be a crime, especially if I’m making claims about the product that aren’t true. The name I use shouldn’t matter. And again, according to law, it doesn’t.

Yes, there are some gray areas, such as you can’t call yourself a doctor if you’re not an MD or at least a PhD. That is fraud and punishable by law. But if you want to call yourself “John Darling The Romantic Specialist” in an effort to sell custom Valentine cards, I say power to you.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

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