Valley PR Blog

Todd Davis’ Social Security Number is 457-55-5462

By Len Gutman on May 22nd, 2008 In Marketing

You’ve got to admire LifeLock CEO Todd Davis for his hubris, but there’s a real public relations lesson here given the news today about the company pitchman’s apparent deception. It turns out Davis has himself recently been a victim of identity theft and his product failed to foil the would be identity thief’s scam.

Since Davis and his company are Phoenix-based we probably get more news about LifeLock than most, and I for one have heard numerous rumors about Davis’ past legal discretions. Now it turns out some of those rumors may have merit.

But putting aside these issues, looking at LifeLock’s strategy from a PR perspective there are a few glaring no-no’s.

First, common sense tells you when promoting a product it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver. But LifeLock promotes itself as the only company that can safeguard your identity: “At LifeLock, We Guarantee Your Good Name. No one else does because no one else can.” Bad idea number one.

Bad idea number two is to ostensibly challenge would be criminals to try to prove you wrong. Davis acknowledged in the AP story that “his stunt has led to at least 87 instances in which people have tried to steal his identity.” No shit. Never underestimate the resourcefulness of a criminal. I have to admit I’ve thought about trying to beat this guy’s system a few times myself — but fortunately for Davis I’m not a criminal. Still, the guy’s arrogance certainly begs less moral minds to try their luck.

Another PR nightmare in waiting with LifeLock is its million dollar guarantee. A nice advertising gimmick, but it appears the company has no plans to ever pay off any victims because it has narrowly defined what constitutes the breaking of its guarantee.

LifeLock is also being sued in Arizona over its $1 million service guarantee, which the plaintiffs claim is misleading because it only covers a defect in LifeLock’s service, and in California by the Experian credit bureau. Experian accuses LifeLock of deceiving consumers about the breadth of its protection and abusing the system for attaching fraud alerts to credit reports.

Ultimately the main PR lesson here is to be careful what you ask for because you just might get it. I could have told you when I first saw Davis’ pitch a few year’s ago that this company was headed for a big fall someday. And now that the cat is out of the bag on Davis, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see this fall play out very publicly and very quickly.

By the way, anyone can protect their identity in the exact same way as LifeLock promises by simply going to the credit bureaus and signing up yourself to be notified by phone if anyone tries to access your credit. The catch is you have to renew the service every few months and all LifeLock does is simply perform this service for you. To learn how, check out Experian’s web site.

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