Act fast
Andrew Carrier
Strategic marketing and communications leader | Financial Services | Fintech
Damning associations demand your brand's immediate reaction.
Read on?to learn why:
①?We all have a moral obligation?to draw a line on hatred.
②?Even the strongest brands can be tarnished?by association with toxic partners.
③?IMTW must be read?by someone at the financial regulator.
④?For now, regulation and reputational risk?protect finance from tech giants.
⑤?Twitter will rely less on advertising?and turn its attention to payments instead.
⑥?It’s time to let go?of much of what used to define the workplace.
⑦?Vowels?deserve our protection.
What's new
After dithering for what felt like months (it was 10 days),?Adidas finally reacted to its partner Kanye West’s anti-Semitism this week.
In short:
Why it matters
Have you noticed?how quiet sponsors of this year’s dubiously-located World Cup are being? At too many brands, someone in marketing renewed the multi-million dollar sponsorship deal months ago because ‘hey, it’s the World Cup’ and they’re only now giving proper thought to what it means to be associated with a reprehensible regime. The Kanye West issue is an order of magnitude worse than that.
① Whether you enjoy his music, admire his shoe designs, or sympathise with his mental health problems, West - indeed anyone with an audience - can’t be allowed to normalise hatred and discrimination. As Scott Galloway?wrote this week, we have a “moral obligation to draw a line.”
Outrageous claims seem less outrageous the more they’re repeated. Which is why repeating them must have severe and immediate consequences. And you might think that, given the complexity involved in untangling what was doubtless a complex commercial relationship, 10 days is close enough to immediate. But it wasn’t immediate enough to protect the brand from damage that was avoidable.
② Even the strongest of brands can be tarnished by association with toxic partners. But if you’re - let’s say - a luxury car company whose products used to be favoured by a fascist Führer or, in the case of the clumsy shoemaker, a consumer brand with a murky history tied to Germany’s national socialists, you should be finely attuned to anything that might put the spotlight on your past. By failing to act swiftly, Adidas attracted the ire of the Central Council of Jews which lambasted the company. “I know sneakers are a big business, but on an issue of anti-Semitism this cannot be an obstacle for doing the right thing,” said the council’s president Josef Schuster, calling the issue “a litmus test for the company”. Quoted in the Financial Times, Schuster also pointed to Adidas’s historic responsibility as the German company had been “enmeshed with the Nazi regime and benefited from it”.
This wince-inducing reputational damage would have been avoided if Adidas had skipped attempts to “privately resolve the situation” in favour of decisive action.
What to do about it
Take action
I would never encourage knee-jerkism, wokeness or that most awful of modern phenomenons, ‘cancel culture’. But, as I hope is already crystal clear to you, that’s not what we’re talking about here.
There are some issues - you can likely count them on one hand - that don’t require nuanced debate, consideration or risk/reward analysis. It’s binary: they’re just plain wrong and demand your immediate reaction: speak up and cut ties.
Identify these issues, right them down if you feel the need to, and ensure your senior team feels empowered to take steps the moment they occur. Inaction is action too - and occasionally it’s the most damaging action you could take.
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Top stories
The other articles?that are worthy of your time.
FINANCE
③?IMTW?must be read?by someone at the financial regulator.
TECHNOLOGY
④?Onerous regulation?as well as high reputational and political risk form the ever-shallower moat protecting traditional finance firms from the tech giants.
领英推荐
MEDIA & MARKETING
⑤?Twitter will rely less on advertising?and turn its attention to payments instead.
WILDCARD
⑥?It’s time to let go?of much of what used to define the workplace.
Off cuts
The stories that?almost?made this week’s newsletter.
FINANCE
TECHNOLOGY
MEDIA & MARKETING
The last word
⑦?Pilita Clark?on?rebranding:
“There is absolutely nothing modern or hip about stripping perfectly serviceable vowels from names.”
About
Written for CEOs, marketers and other leaders in the financial sector,?InMarketing This Week?is a showcase for news likely to impact them - delivered with insight on why it matters and ideas on what to do about it. It’s published every Sunday to give you a head start on the week. Read it?here, or?subscribe?to?have it delivered straight to your inbox at six, before it's available anywhere else.
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2 年Whats wrong with vowels Andrew?