Given the emphasis on social media, corporate social responsibility, transparency and so on, it’s surprising that so much advertising still depends on fabrication, if not outright lies.

Recently there was a municipal election in Toronto. On the day of the election I came home to a pamphlet stuck in my door. It included pictures of the two contenders. One was a badly cropped picture, demonizing the front-runner. The second showed a perfectly photoshopped picture of the angelic competitor.

Is the electorate that stupid? Does it not cross the minds of this particular politician’s handlers that a depiction like that might just hurt their client’s credibility, more so than the front runner?

Not sure if the flyer mattered that much, but the front-runner won by a landslide.

Perhaps the worst abusers of truth are the fast food companies. Why do they continue to lie about their product in pictures? Why do they continue to lie about health and nutritional benefits?

Regardless of the fact that people know they aren’t getting the product shown in the TV commercials, they continue to buy anyhow. Maybe that’s why they don’t bother with the truth.

But this might be changing.

In an Ad Age article, titled “The Competitive Advantage of Truth”, the writer contends that:

People are having conversations these days, only not "with" brands but "about" them. I'd like to suggest that we're at the start of something big -- something bigger than simple engagement or entertainment, and something that goes far beyond the merits of friends and followers on social technology platforms: The ultimate purpose of conversation is to produce a shared understanding of truth.

Doing so will emerge as the only real competitive advantage left to brands otherwise able to copy one another into commodification. Failing to deliver and sustain truth will be indicators of broader operational weaknesses.

He goes on to frame this new reality, or proposed metric as “the truth gap.”

Some brands and companies may have a larger truth gap, while others are smaller.

Large truth gap? Reminds me of a Canadian telephone company that spent millions on a new logo and campaign informing the audience that they were ‘better.'

During the course of the campaign, I needed some service. My call was routed to India where I was forced to endure thoroughly hacked English by the rep on the other end. After two weeks, a box of parts arrived at my home. A week later a technician showed up and said they were the wrong parts. All in all, it took a month of this 'Who's on first' business to get my internet problem resolved.

Perhaps they should have spent those millions on, you know, actually becoming a better company.

Anyhow, we should all hope that truth becomes the new thing in marketing. Brand credibility would certainly benefit. Not to mention consumer confidence.