From the Trade Show to the Courtroom

A consumer trade show is a perfect environment for putting on a show. You control everything here. The product staging, the right light, the sound, the mood, everything is in your hands if it’s well planned and executed. You decide what people see, you tell a story that sends most customers home impressed and convinced. I had a booth at ISPO, the formerly largest sports trade show in the world. I controlled everything.

A few months later I found myself in a courtroom facing charges of misleading advertising, and there I had nothing under control. That was the most radical contrast I’ve ever experienced. From a system where only the show and the staging count, into a system where only facts and evidence count. That was truly no gentle transition but a challenging mental situation that didn’t come easy to me.

At the trade show I told people how brilliant my products are and in the courtroom the judge told me to please prove that with empirical studies. Two completely different worlds that I unfortunately couldn’t reconcile. Not because I was unprepared, but because my talent for telling stories that sell products came crashing down on me so hard that I was sitting in front of the judge as the accused.

In my marketing world, everything was allowed and the ensemble of testimonials and celebrities and a balance test harmonized perfectly. In court, none of that works. No judge cares what a customer felt and no judge wanted to be convinced either. Judges want evidence, in this case through scientific studies. The studies that were demanded were double-blind, controlled and reproducible. I had none of that and stood there empty-handed.

That’s not a good feeling. I had spent years building this up and was myself convinced of the effect. Thousands of people had confirmed it to me and the hype didn’t come from nothing. I thought it was something substantial, since everyone confirmed that it works. And then you’re sitting in a room where all of that is worthless. Where the only currency is proof. And I had none.

I don’t want to write about the trial itself and all the details and those involved. Not about the outcome of the proceedings and my naivety that led me there. None of that is the point. The point is the contrast. The experience of standing in two completely different realities. In one, you’re successful because people believe you. In the other, you’re nobody and much worse than that, because nothing counts there anymore.

Of course the legal side occupied me and I was also aware of my guilt. But there was also the question behind it: in which of these two worlds do we actually spend most of our time?

The honest answer: almost exclusively in the show world, or rather the world of appearances. We buy things because they feel right or because they’ve awakened the necessary desire in us. We trust the salespeople and the marketing people because they’re convincing and we believe their stories because they’re often really well told. We live in a world of shows, of testimonials, of felt truths. And as long as nobody demands hard proof, it works.

The courtroom is the exception. It’s the only room I know where storytelling stops working. Where you can’t say: but the customers feel it. Where you can’t say: thousands can’t be wrong. Where you have to deliver substance. Hard, sober, verifiable.

And that’s exactly what made me so powerless in that room. Not because it was unfair. But because it showed me how thin the foundation is on which I had made my decisions.

After that experience I started examining many things differently. When someone wants to tell me something or sell me something, I ask myself: would a judge believe this? Not because I’m paranoid. But simply because it’s a good filter. A judge asks: what are the facts? Not: how much do the customers love it, the customers who from his perspective were deceived?

We don’t need a courtroom for every decision. But I’ve gotten used to thinking that way and asking myself, what’s left when I strip away the storytelling and only look at the facts? Often less than I’d like. Because the excitement disappears and gives way to sobriety. And you start longing for a good show again.