The Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s CEO Andy Sernovitz emailed me a batch of documents last night, an early look at WOMMA’s “Ethics 20 Questions.” While the 20 questions are already on WOMMA’s website, they are in draft form, being circulated for public comment, according to the FAQ, among the documents Andy included. The FAQ also notes that these are guidelines, not rules. “This is a tool designed to help you spot potential trouble while there’s still time to act. The WOMMA Code of Ethics, on which this document is based, contains complete rules.

An introduction to the 20 questions advises communicators to ask the questions when beginning a new campaign and to stop any program that raises concerns. Andy believes the questions will “help push stealth marketers out of business by making it hard for them to get hired. We’re ending the ‘don’t ask/don’t tell’ option for stealth marketing.  No one will ever again be able to claim that they didn’t know they were doing something unethical.”

Documents like this are great. Getting people to abide by them is another matter, particularly since they cannot be enforced. (The FAQ notes that only the government has the power to enforce.)

If communicators do ask these questions—and make ethical decisions based on the answers—we should experience fewer troubles like those widely discussed in recent weeks. The questions are divided into categories:

• Honesty of relationship
• Honesty of opinion
• Honesty of identity
• Taking responsibility
• Respecting the rules
• When hiring an agency