I want to begin by stating that I'm sorry for not responding sooner to Jim and John. I wasn't trying to dodge or ignore their questions. I'm traveling this week and was involved in meetings and other work-related activities until very late at night yesterday. I just got back to my hotel room tonight after more meetings.
To address the questions/concerns about endorsement from someone who has been compensated by Festool, I think that we operate within the spirit of the guidelines of the FTC and what I consider respectable business practice.
Do you know what prompted the FTC to consider these types of rules? Have a look at
this article.
So, what's reasonable? Should Darcy, Jory, Ben, Brice, Paul-Marcel, our sweepstakes winners, contest winners, your forum moderators, me and others have to disclose every time we make a post that we've been compensated by Festool at some point in our lives for a blog post, a video, photos, etc.? I don't think that's reasonable. What is reasonable is that it's clear to anyone in one of our videos, for instance, that they are doing this as an endorsement of Festool. That we not try to "dupe" people by making it look like Darcy made this video on his own, speaking in a way to promote Festool, without any indication that he's actually affiliated.
The people we work with truly have an appreciation for the brand. In many cases they volunteer to work with us without compensation. I think many of you would call us cheapskates for what we might offer someone who does a video or other type of testimonial for us. Why don't we pay them handsomely and load them up with three of every tool? Credibility. This is a word that means a lot to me. These folks speak in their own words, not from a script. They aren't promised wealth, fame, shops full of tools, etc. And the reason is we want these folks to be the voice of our typical customer.
Why do you think we let people come here to a Festool-owned forum and write about problems with tools, opinions that other tools/brands might be better, negative reviews, etc.? Credibility. If we censored or only allow fan boys to be a part of this forum there would be no credibility to our company, our brand, our tools or those who advocate us.
I'm not sure if that's the answer you are looking for. Maybe it sounds like fluff. You can accept as truth or me just trying to pacify you, but being on the inside, Festool is an honest, reputable, trustworthy company. I would argue more so than 99%+ of other companies out there.
Darcy isn't saying what he says because he's a shill or in our pocket. He's a real guy, using the heck out of the tools under tough conditions. He's shoots from the hip and doesn't pull any punches. And, most importantly, he's not trying to proactively hide that he's worked with Festool.
We have had numerous occasions where competitors have come to this very forum, undercover, not disclosing their true identities and in some cases even denying irrefutable evidence that they are not who they really are.
THAT is the type of despicable behavior that consumers need to be protected against.
I wish more people could visit us and see who we are as people, as a company. It's a real shame that culture as taught us that we need to raise and eyebrow and be skeptics, even cynics, because corporations have lost the trust of consumers.
Shane
