Thank You For Your Loyalty. Now Buy Something!

Some might think this is a little thing, but the truth is that it is not. And I know that unless I write it down I will carry it around for hours if not days.

Earlier today I received an unsolicited phone call purportedly (and I will come back to this distinction later) from my internet and cable service provider. My household has been purchasing services from this company (let’s call them Company R) since 1987 – yes THIRTY-NINE years. At one point we had 3 cell phones, 2 cable TV packages and 2 internet services (we had two household accounts with them, a family thing) with them, but over the last few years we moved all the cell phones elsewhere and removed the extra internet and cable accounts. We have remained, due to convenience and laziness, with just cable and internet.

The phone call from a person claiming to be with the company (they often aren’t; these types of calls are farmed out to other companies, acting on behalf of Company R), in a very perky voice begins by saying:

“First of all, I am calling to thank you for being such a long term and loyal customer. As a way to express our appreciation, I would like to offer you special rates on additional services such as cell phones, home security….”

I interrupt, feeling peevish, and ask somewhat rhetorically:

“Let me make sure I understand you. As a gesture of appreciation, you are asking me to spend more money with you. You are not offering a discount, a one time reduction on my monthly bill, an extra cable channel at no charge, or anything that might be interpreted as a gesture of gratitude. You are simply asking me to spend more money and using a scripted gambit to position that request?”

The representative paused for a moment.

“Well, you can interpret this offer any way you choose.”

“Okay, this is how I choose to interpret it. Have a lovely day.”

I mentioned that I would return to my use of the word “purportedly”. I alluded to it briefly when I noted that these marketing calls — marketing (m-a-r-k-e-t-i-n-g), not acknowledgement calls — are usually farmed out to other companies. This is actually quite telling. Such calls are commonly outsourced by the company to a third-party call centre, often located offshore, where the representative may make significantly less than a full-time Company R employee. Such is the true nature of their gratitude and appreciation — extended not only to me, but to their own employees.

Even though it sometimes feels that way, it’s not always just about me.

Let’s leave me aside for the moment and examine the outsourcing of these sales calls to other companies, typically overseas. Company R is based in Canada, owned by a Canadian family, and makes much fanfare around using only “Canadian based” customer service representatives. “Canadian based” is a bit of a hedge. The majority of their “Canadian based” staff is very heavily accented, and while they may physically reside in Canada, they are clearly newcomers. I am not against newcomers being employed in Canada. When I moved to Italy, I was the linguistically challenged newcomer working in customer service. I get it. But the companies who employed me never touted my geographical location, nor did they dress me up as though I were native to their country. Yes, what follows is cynical, but my suspicion is that Company R is not hiring newcomers out of any genuine social conscience. They are hiring them because a newcomer will work for less.

Company R is publicly traded and that matters in this context. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize profits. To do otherwise, to do what is “right” or “ethical” or “moral” or even “generous” without a clear correlation to an improved bottom line would be a dereliction of duty. In countries outside of Canada, that dereliction could actually be actionable.

In case anyone thinks I’m being somewhat over the top, it is worth recalling a famous lawsuit involving none other than Henry Ford.

Now, Ford was no saint and certainly no champion of the working man, and looking back, most of what he did he likely did for reasons of self interest. But what is interesting is the case itself.

The Dodge brothers, minority shareholders in Ford Motor Company, sued Henry Ford in 1916 after he announced he would cease paying special dividends to shareholders and instead reinvest the company’s substantial surplus into new plants, higher worker wages, and lower car prices. Ford made the tactical error of saying so publicly, and in his own testimony declaring that his ambition was to spread the benefits of the industrial system as broadly as possible.

The Michigan Supreme Court was unimpressed. In 1919, it ruled against Ford, ordering the company to pay dividends. The court’s reasoning was unambiguous: a corporation exists primarily for the profit of its shareholders, and the directors’ powers are to be employed toward that end. Whatever Ford’s actual motives — and scholars have since argued they were far more self-serving than philanthropic — the moment he declared otherwise under oath, he handed the Dodge brothers their case. He told the truth about his intentions and lost because of it.

Over one hundred years, much has changed, but much has also stayed the same.

I can hear the protests already…. “But that was over 100 years ago!” “Look at all the charitable donations that corporations give to…” “A company has to promote their products or services, and increase their sales!”

Yes, it was over a century ago. And yet the legal framework that governed Ford Motor Company in 1919 remains substantially intact today. Company R is not operating under some enlightened modern charter that has superseded shareholder primacy. It is operating under the same fundamental obligation: return value to its shareholders. The century that separates us from the Dodge brothers has given us better technology, faster communications, and considerably more sophisticated public relations, but it has not rewritten the foundational architecture of the publicly traded corporation.

And the charitable donations? It is worth pausing here, because this objection sounds generous — as intended. Corporations do give to charity. Company R almost certainly has a foundation, sponsors local events, and attaches its logo to hospital wings and arts festivals. But consider the mechanism. Charitable donations are tax deductible, which means the public subsidy reduces the actual cost to the corporation. They generate press coverage, brand warmth, and customer loyalty — all of which appear, in due course, on the balance sheet. The marketing department and the philanthropy department are often, in practice, the same department.

This is not cynicism. It is an accounting.

A corporation that gives anonymously, claims no deduction, and seeks no recognition would be a very different creature. You will be waiting some time to meet one.

And let us take a moment to cast an eye over the chosen charities — corporately palatable, middle-of-the-road causes, motherhood and apple pie. Things like cancer research, children’s camps, sporting events, services for the blind and the deaf. What monster would possibly object? Those chosen typically align with brand image, stakeholder values, and risk management goals. Causes that struggle with corporate palatability are those that are polarizing, conflict with a company’s own business operations, or address highly stigmatized issues. You are unlikely to see Company R — or any other high-profile brand — vociferously funding real environmentalism (as opposed to greenwashing), abortion access, gun control, prison reform, or addiction harm reduction. Corporate donations target low-risk, high-visibility causes that enhance brand reputation and engage employees and customers.

Corporate self-interest dressed in the bright hues of philanthropy.

As for the sales call — the one that evoked this — yes, of course, a company must promote its products and grow its revenues. No argument there. But there is a meaningful distinction between a company that calls you to sell you something and a company that calls you to sell you something dressed up in the language of gratitude and appreciation. Company R did not call me to make a forthright sale. They called me on the pretense of offering gratitude for brand loyalty, with the intention of selling me something more — performing the fiction that the call was a gesture of thanks. I can respect an honest sales call. Dressed up in a costume, I cannot. And it is the costume — the scripted gambit, the perky voice, the “first of all I want to thank you” — that reveals the gap between what a corporation is structurally required to be and what it would like you to believe it is.

That gap is not new. It is just, after 39 years, a little harder to overlook.

There is a scene in the 2000 film Boiler Room that is worth recalling here. Seth, the protagonist, is himself a high-pressure salesman of deeply questionable ethics. He receives a breakfast-time cold call from Ron, a newspaper subscription salesman, who opens with “Hi, this is Ron calling you from the Daily News. How are you doing this morning?” Seth immediately says he’s not interested. Ron folds: “Okay. I’m sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice day.” At which point Seth, rather than being relieved, turns on him. “That’s it? That’s your pitch? You consider that a sales call?” He makes Ron start again. This time, when Ron asks how he’s doing, Seth answers honestly — “Shitty. What do you want?” — and Ron explains he is offering a substantially reduced subscription price to people who have never had home delivery. Seth immediately grasps the implication and asks Ron to confirm it plainly: so everyone who already has a subscription is getting a worse deal? Ron doesn’t flinch. “Yeah, I guess so.” Seth’s response is not outrage but satisfaction: “Good. I can live with that.” Ron goes on to make his actual case for the paper, and finishes with a genuine pitch. Seth’s verdict: “Alright, Ron. Now that was a sales call. Good job.” Ron asks if Seth will subscribe. “No. I already get the Times.” He hangs up smiling.

The entire transaction took honesty, survived a direct question about who was being disadvantaged, made no pretense of gratitude, and ended with Seth’s genuine respect — but no sale. Company R’s representative, by contrast, opened with a performance of appreciation, was stripped of it in about fifteen seconds, and retreated into “you can interpret this offer any way you choose.” Ron from the Daily News knew exactly what he was selling and who was paying for it — the existing loyal customers, whose continued business was simply being taken for granted while new ones were courted at a discount. He said so when asked. Seth could live with that. The transaction was brutal but legible. What I cannot live with is the costume — the scripted performance of gratitude wrapped around a call that was, at its core, doing exactly the same thing.

Perhaps this is a fair summary: what is likely actionable is not precisely a CEO being sued by shareholders for being too generous or too civic minded at the expense of profitability. Oddly, what has proliferated — at least in the United States — is state attorneys general suing companies for pretending to be socially responsible when their financial conduct suggests otherwise. The performance of virtue, it turns out, carries its own legal exposure. There is a meaningful downside to playing dress-up. Which is exactly, albeit on a considerably smaller stage, what Company R is doing with its commissioned marketing phone call — dressing a transaction in the language of gratitude and loyalty while the structure beneath it remains precisely what it has always been.

Ironically, as I was adding the finishing touches to this essay, I received yet another marketing call from someone representing the same Company R, once again thanking me for my loyalty. She said that she wanted to tell me, the loyal customer, about some wonderful new offers. She advised me that the call was being recorded for customer service purposes — as they all do. Rather than listen to her whole script, I simply stated that I did not give my consent to having the call recorded. There was a moment of perplexed silence. She told me that:

“Unfortunately we cannot continue the call unless you consent to the recording.”

I reiterated that I did not consent. Again, confused silence, followed by this plaintive response:

“Then we cannot continue this call.”

“I guess we can’t then.”

Another deep pause and the representative continued:

“Then you’ll have to hang up.”

“No, I don’t have to do anything. You called me and by the way, are you still recording me after I expressly withheld my permission?”

”Yes. You will have to hang up.”

”No ma’am. You started this call, now you can terminate it.”

”I’m not sure I can from here.”

”Ahhhh, then what would you like me to talk about while you attempt to hang up?”

Silence for a very long five minutes, then she somehow managed to disconnect. Perhaps she called over her supervisor.

Yes, I know, I can be a little mean at times.

Citations

Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 170 N.W. 668 (Mich. 1919).

Roe, Mark J. "Dodge v. Ford: What Happened and Why." Vanderbilt Law Review, vol. 74, 2021. Available through the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2021/12/01/dodge-v-ford-what-happened-and-why/

"Dodge v. Ford Motor Co." Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co. Accessed June 2026.

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. "Navigating the Landscape of ESG-Related Shareholder Litigation." Pillsbury Law, October 29, 2021, https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/esg-related-shareholder-litigation.html

"Recent ESG Litigation and Regulatory Developments." Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, July 25, 2022, https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2022/07/25/recent-esg-litigation-and-regulatory-developments/

"Trends in ESG Litigation and Enforcement." Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, August 10, 2023, https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2023/08/10/trends-in-esg-litigation-and-enforcement/

Screenplay: Younger, Ben. Boiler Room. 2000. Script consulted at https://www.scribd.com/document/260170437/Boiler-Room-2000-Movie-Script-Screenplays-for-You