Network security companies emerged from the woodwork, deftly tying the airborne attacks to the impending danger of computer viruses. "Security Experts Warn of Cyber-Terrorism" says a September 12 release from Panda Software. Videoconferencing companies displayed equally questionable taste, taking the opportunity to market fear. Enterprise video provider Forgent opened a September 13 release by asking, "Can you get a flight? When will that flight actually leave? How much time will it take to go through appropriate security measures? Is it safe to fly?" In light of the FAA flight ban after the attacks, these questions aren't entirely inappropriate. But neither are they well timed.

The media blundered as well. Reports from Mediaweek and The Associated Press noted that a sales manager for The Honolulu Advertiser sent a memo to reps suggesting they write notes mentioning the terrorist attack to the publication's top advertisers along these lines: "In the aftermath and shock of the terrorist attack on America, I couldn't help but reflect on those who are really important in my life—family, friends, and valued customers." Though Mike Fisch, the paper's publisher, insists the memo was well intentioned, he nonetheless stopped these messages.

Burl Burlingame, a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin who posted the leaked memo online, has a different view. "Gannett executives like Mike Fisch are trying to blame this sympathy-card fiasco on those who made it public," he says. "They got caught. They're just scuttling away from the flashlight. They just smelled opportunity in the smoke from the disaster."

Decorum

But many companies simply saw an opportunity to help tactfully, showing that there is a way to offer genuinely useful services in the face of tragedy. New Jersey–based dotPhoto is a case in point, offering to host photos of missing persons at no cost. CEO Glenn Paul says he originally killed the idea because he thought it inappropriate. "One of our first questions as we were trying to understand all this was, what can we do?" he says. "We have this wonderful tool; surely this can be used for somebody. Some of our folks were talking about this and I was afraid that it would be perceived as commercial. And it just wouldn't be right. You haven't seen us go out there and say we're real concerned, because everyone's real concerned. I think that's kind of self-serving.

"I said to our vice president who was working on this, well, please get in touch with the relief organizations, because that would really be the way to make this happen," he says. "Unfortunately, you couldn't get through to anybody. And what really sealed the press release for me was when I called the missing persons hotline in New York and it was busy. When all the other systems break down, that's what the Internet is there for."

Unfortunately, lack of prior coordination limited the utility of the gesture. And despite good intentions, Paul reports he still encountered resentment, saying, "I did put a note on a survivors board [about what dotPhoto was doing] and somebody wrote me and told me that I was a terrible person."

Leonard M. Lodish, professor of marketing at Wharton-West, suggests exploitation, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. "It depends on how people perceive it," he says. "You should be asking consumers how they're reacting to what you're doing rather than trying to make a decision like that yourself.

"What you want to do is understand what your customers are looking for and how your product or service can help," he explains, noting that the World Trade Center tragedy "may change what's important to them."

Like the New York skyline, says Ketchum/CTC media relations executive Jim Matthews, the marketing landscape has changed for good. "Even when things return to normal, there's a new normal," he says. "People are deeply affected by this, and you have to understand that. The aftereffects are going to be with us for a long time. Now does that mean we eventually get back to pitching products and things? Sure." But at the moment, he recommends trying "to help the media out as much as you can rather than using this as a platform to promote yourself. Because that's not going to get you anywhere."

Rajeev Batra, professor of marketing at the University of Michigan Business School, echoes these sentiments, noting that most marketers "will be reluctant to seem to take advantage of this and will present themselves, position themselves, as being extremely sensitive to people's patriotism and moral outrage."

Says dotPhoto's Paul,"We won the Cold War not because we had better weapons—we had equal weapons—but we just totally out-innovated them. We created a better way of life, and I think we've got to get back to work."