Future Digital Marketing

Recently we all heard of Scott Thompson who faked his resume and ended up losing his job as the CEO of Yahoo. It is common for junior level employees to fake their resumes for jobs but it is really not expected that CEO’s and people from top management would do so. Here are some executives who during their career have faked their own resumes:

• Bruno Sorrentino- Head of IT & Director of Research, Telstra

Dr. Bruno Sorrentino was hired in August 1993 by Telsra. As per his resume, he had 30 years of experience, 3 professional degrees including a PhD in Physics from Imperial College, London. Impressive, isn’t it. Unfortunately in October it was discovered that he in fact never attended Imperial College.

Sorrentino’s resignation immediately followed stating “personal reasons”.

• Jeffrey Papows- CEO, Lotus Software

Jeffrey Papows, CEO of Lotus Software with an amazing track record of generating 30% increase in sales during his 4 year tenure with Lotus. His resume mentioned him as an aviator for the US Marines which he left as a Captain. He also had a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and he was so successful even though he was orphaned at a very young age. He had a PhD from Pepperdine University, California.

There was some skepticism about his resume and Wall Street Journal began digging into him. It was discovered that every single thing mentioned above was a lie. As per Marines, Papows was an air traffic controller. Moreover, his parents were still alive. He never had a black belt and no PhD either. He later resigned from IBM in 2000.

•  Ken Lonchar- CFO, Veritas Software

Ken Lonchar, who had been a CEO with Veritas Software resigned in 2002 after being with the company for 5 years. In his case the MBA degree from Stanford which was mentioned in his resume was fake.

• Dave Edmondson- CEO, RadioShack

This one is a shocker. After serving in RadioShack since 1994, Dave Edmondson became the CEO of the company. His resume stated that he had degrees in Psychology and Theology from Pacific Coast Baptist College, California.

When the Fort Worth Star-Telegram began to look into this found out that Edmonson only completed two semesters and moreover, the college didn’t offer any degree in Psychology.

He later resigned in 2006.

• Laura Callahan- Deputy CIO, US Department of Homeland Security

It is one thing to fake in private organizations, but to fake in the Department of Homeland Security is something serious. Imagine a department that is responsible to keep terrorists away from USA has employees with fake resumes. Laura Callahan mentioned having a PhD and kept reminding everybody to call her as Doctor. As she didn’t have good relations with her colleagues, one of them, Richard Wainwright did some investigation. He found out that Callahan’s “doctorate” had been issued by a diploma mill, an unapproved body that sells degrees. She resigned in 2004.

To everyone’s surprise when later US government did some investigation, they found out that almost 500 other employees had done similar things on their resumes.

Source: http://www.techworld.com.au/article/424537/faking_it_5_executives_who_lied_their_resumes/?fp=4&fpid=19

You’ve probably never seen a banner ad as long as the one made by Stride gum. The gum claims to be a very long lasting gum and to highlight the same they created a long banner ad.

You might find it ridiculous, but the ad won a webby award.

The banner ad challenged its users to click and hold the target area as long as possible to win $500. In the process, they would throw all sorts of distractions to not let you win. It’s a great concept and worth the win. The longest record was 46 minutes and 27 seconds.

Nokia Lumia is one of the latest attempts by Nokia to make some strong impression in the smartphone industry. To promote the phone they came up with a challenge in a mall where users had to post on Youtube and apparently Nokia Lumia comes out as the winner.

I have personally not used Nokia, so users of this phone please share your comments about this claim.

Last week Verizon came up with a new commercial promoting their 4G directly attaching AT &T. The commercial is named “Bad Idea”. You will see a group of middle aged men talking about horrible ideas while stretching courtside. Once everyone has shared, a title card appears with the text “BAD IDEA” written on it.

Now, if you were there in the 90′s and watching Saturday Night Live, you would find this commercial similar as this was once done on an episode on SNL.

Either Verizon was paying a tribute to SNL with this “Bad Idea” ad, or it has just lost creativity and resorting to copying satirical ads for promoting its actual products. Wonder what AT&T will say in reply to this ad….