Brand Belief: How your company can socially integrate and culture-shape in an outraged world
Last week, Chase, a leading US bank, tweeted a #MondayMotivation message to its current and future potential clients (aka followers) to help them become more aware of their unnecessary spending habits and poor account management.
The tweet looked like this:
It’s completely understandable. We overspend daily on the brands we trust — a $5 Starbucks coffee, a $9 Taco Bell meal and a $7 three-block Uber ride — amounting to a whopping $21 per day or $441 per month based upon the average 21 working days. This money could be left in a bank account which would see you $5300 better off each year. Or with less debt looming over your head if you’re already in the red.
Well, what appeared to be sound advice was, within a few hours, deleted by a regretful Chase. Replies on Twitter hounded the company’s message and pointed to a $25 billion bailout they took from the US Government over a decade ago for their own mismanagement of funds. This was paid back in full a year and a half later plus the interest. Other users flared up and pointed to economic worries such as a widening income gap and excessive debt levels thanks to wage stagnation and inherently broken systems like education and healthcare.
How possibly could a company who has been financially irresponsible in the past advise others on their financial irresponsibilities?
Can a financial institution no longer dish out advice to its clients on frivolous spending without appearing condescending towards other people who are not in a position to do so? Now, there was absolutely nothing wrong with that tweet. Chase were simply participating in the social media pop culture of memes and decided to create something humorous yet totally in-touch with the reality of most of its customers. But instead of standing their ground, they bowed down to social pressure and retracted. As a brand, if you actually believe in what you’re saying, should you not stand firm and face the social pressure?
Chase clearly sees the Starbucks, Taco Bell and Uber debits coming out of accounts that run close their limits so surely they could say something along the lines of: “We’re seeing an increase of $10 or less payments to certain institutions from bank accounts lacking healthy balances or savings. This tweet is designed to build awareness with our clients so they can relate and improve their habits.”
But it isn’t that easy anymore.
As we’ve seamlessly merged unto an all-inclusive and overly-conversational playing field, brands are struggling to satisfy all audiences. Companies want to be where their customers are to take part in conversations and even lead the constant evolution of what is known as popular culture. As brands try to push boundaries of humour and emotion to shape these culture shifts, they often face backlash for being insensitive and tone-deaf to certain groups. Muffled justifications and explanations are nothing compared to the ever-increasing collective strength of social media outrage today. Audiences and consumers have the power to temporarily damage and even take down brands whilst using their savviness to instantly seek alternatives that better-suit their values. Can’t we just all get along?
How the hell did we get here?
Social media is primarily about the interchange of information between people. Me and you. In the beginning, you had a social media profile along with its newsfeeds and notifications that kept you spending time there. We all used to be friends. We’d engage and relate to each other’s content showing up on our feeds and actually enjoyed it.
“Oooh, Brenda got a haircut, doesn’t it look nice?”
We narrowcasted to our intimate amigos and shared our freshly-mowed lawns, baby pics and dog tricks but then, eventually, curiosity had us searching for a wider audience. The natural novelty of discovery and validation pushed us to post publicly and we began broadcasting to an unknown viewership who, in silence, built an opinion based upon our actions. We blindly kept on churning out more and more content as we documented everything from pool-dipped toes to Saturday’s avocados. We began to feel more and more comfortable knowing less and less about our audiences as long as we got the positive feedback we came for.
Then as social confidence soared, people were challenged publicly. We witnessed (and partook in) relentless tirades, disputes, name-calling and subsequent blocking when no common ground was found. Be it political, racial or any other demographical or ideological differences, fights were fought in a relatively new space where everyone had a solid opinion and an intolerance of anything that opposed it. Some watchers sitting on the fringes even engaged by posting GIFs of Michael Jackson eating popcorn as the battles played out. Other agitators chimed in with random barrages of abuse whilst hiding behind profile pictures of Dragons or American Bald Eagles (never engage with the anonymous).
We soon decided who was on our side and played an initially-tepid game of identity politics; seeking validation inside our newly-formed cluster communities and groups. As our dopamine releases increased with every cheer, comment, and like from our tribe, our positions, previously only slightly left or slightly right of centre, slid to a more extreme standpoint and new levels of stubbornness. We certainly didn’t dare let ourselves be publicly corrected during an online debate; we’d just diverge, delete or block the oppressor from commenting any further.
After all, our reputation relies upon this, right?
Before we knew it, we’d appropriate, offend, condemn and eventually be labelled extremists in our attempts to find relevance. We just didn’t have any accountability for our words or actions online. “Free speech, baby!” In a previous age, if you had something to say against a particular group or institution, you’d head to the town square and shout about it. You’d advocate for change while being heavily exposed. The public, in agreement, would cheer and opposers would pelt you with rotten tomatoes and possibly stones. If that’s not accountability, I don’t know what is!
The new town squares — our public domain for exercising our freedom of speech — are on social media. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have become momentary watering holes where a multitude of identities, cultures, beliefs and experiences crouch on the banks lapping up the best of it whilst keeping a watchful eye on the behavioural traits of everyone else.
“Wait, so these people aren’t actually our friends?”
Nah, not really. The people we’ve been reputation-building amongst and working to impress for so long are the very same people who we now offend, not based upon the intent, but more-so the effect of our words. As we lived out different interpretations of experiences and drew knowledge from opinionated bites of information we naturally grew apart and we began to rub shoulders with people belonging to thousands upon thousands of minority groups, some we agreed with, some we didn’t and others we didn’t even know existed.
To cut through the noise, we became sensationalists. Sensationalism shocks and causes us to react either by amplification (e.g. retweeting) or condemnation (e.g. commenting or resharing with a comment). We suddenly had a fight on our hands.
Wasn’t Facebook’s algorithm dangerously supposed to show us just more of what we wanted to see? Were we not supposed to float gracefully inside our harmonious echo chamber and talk of utopias?
The birth of Social Media Outrage Culture.
Social Media Outrage Culture, or SMOC for short, is a powerful, yet volatile pop-culture-spin-off which can swoop down on you at any minute and from any angle and leave you dumbfounded. When SMOC attacks, you may choose to stand strong and true to your opinions or you may retract, delete or apologise and promise to change. And you may not be attacked because of something you say today, or tomorrow, no no… what you said yesterday counts too! Resurfacing of old tweets and posts from a yesteryear and a yester-culture will somehow offend the sensitive ‘them’ today. We’ll seem to learn a new reason how we do wrong every day all over again.
You’ll have to be careful how you watch Eddie Murphy’s ‘Raw’ or ‘Delirious’ stand-up comedy shows from the 80's without the 2019 you feeling a little awkward and looking around the room every time a minority group is mocked. In his opening line, he lays down some rules, the first being that “faggots aren’t allowed to look at my ass while I’m on stage”. Now, in 1987 (and throughout the 90’s and 00’s) you’d probably be rolling around on the floor laughing without a second thought but today we’d more likely say “ouch” and wince. Because we knew less back then. We were less educated on the values of others. We didn’t mix and blend as we do now. Perhaps this has lead to genuine empathy and sympathy that we did have inside us before.
So should our histories, beliefs, opinions and personalities be erased as we evolve under the influence of pop culture? Is it a danger to leave everything online? Should we stay ephemeral or can we genuinely be proud of our progress from ‘who we were back then’?
Kevin Hart, deciding boldly not to give in to internet trolls, gave up the biggest (and toughest) job in Hollywood due to resurfaced tweets with homophobic references and thus, for the first time in 30 years, the 2019 Oscars took place without a host. Nobody wanted the job. Not with the SMOC watching. He admitted that that was who he was back then. He’s a different person now which didn’t warrant him apologising or deleting the tweets. Congratulations on becoming a better person, Kevin.
Even Guardians of the Galaxy writer and director, James Gunn, was fired (but later rehired) by Disney for decade-old tweets that joked about rape and pedophilia. Those who spent hours trawling through his archives must have basked in their take-down and temporary win. The stars of his movies fully backed him and eventually, the franchise rescinded their red card.
So now we have now begun to tread carefully, tip-toeing around difficult subjects while trying to combine creativity, humour, political correctness, thought-leadership and opinion. It’s a difficult task. “But I thought this is what my audiences wants?”, come the declarations. Initially, finding that relevant slither between what you want to say and what people want to hear is becoming more and more difficult with the addition of ‘how not to offend anyone’. It’s not just about cutting through the noise, it’s about delivering real value to everybody. Or is it?
“But how can we satisfy everyone when everyone is from everywhere and believes in something else?”
Some now are taking a ‘safer’ path and going back to segregation, choosing tribes wisely and it’s becoming US vs THEM all over again. The discovery novelty is wearing off. Facebook groups are flourishing and old friends we have nothing in common with are being blocked — after all, why listen to someone else’s opinion? Our conflictual tendencies even spill onto our family dining tables and result in Uncle Frank, the complete racist, not being invited to Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays?) dinners anymore. “We warned you about that bright red MAGA hat, Uncle Frank, you racist!”
Popular culture + freedom of speech + the history of absolutely everything x time.
The biggest problem now isn’t our inability to understand or to be considerate of all identities and cultures (previously referred to as ‘diversity’ and now ‘inclusivity’), but the lack of time to do so. With more people on social media following even more people than ever before, we have less and less time to learn and digest other people’s values and the histories propping those values up. We’re completely uneducated in our debates and fail to listen and comprehend; instead, projecting our current biases as recaps and subsequent judgements and criticisms — just what our own audiences want to see and hear. Wikipedia and Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V exists for a reason, right?
I recently sat flabbergasted watching a Channel 4 interview with Dr Jordan B Peterson, a clinical psychologist, as the interviewer, Cathy Newman, failed to grasp the complexity (and data) of Peterson’s arguments and continued to play a victim card almost as if she was on playback. This was a dangerous intellectual mismatch and Peterson’s patience throughout the interview is nothing short of astonishing. If you have a spare 30 minutes, I suggest you watch it.
We do not know everything and we cannot know everything. As individuals, we strive to become specialists in certain topics and are (in theory) on a quest for ever-increasing wisdom; refining and adjusting our positions as and when we are exposed to new angles of logical reasoning and conscious processing. We are the sum of everything we have been exposed to and we experience based upon those previous exposures. Hence, everyone experiences absolutely everything uniquely. We continue to proclaim our rights to the freedom of speech and the freedom of expression yet on the other end somehow feel (or pretend to feel) offended for the things other people say. We believe they’re being insensitive to our views and values without questioning the why but, put very simply, your right to the freedom of speech is directly equal to your potential exposure to the freedom to be offended.
“In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive.” — Jordan B Peterson
Today, those playing ball on the all-inclusive social playing field (i.e. all of us) are offending a loooooot of people. Popular culture smothers and silences personal histories — the unique source of our values — and we no longer have the time for depth, but rather to just fire slingshots into the air before retiring into the hedges. We must question if we are celebrating different cultures or appropriating them when we dress like them? Do we just stomp all over history without any consideration at all?
If we don’t know any better, are we deliberate offenders?
Was Keziah Daum deliberately peddling a colonial ideology by wearing a qipao (Chinese-style dress) to her prom or did she just love the dress? A Twitter nobody, Jeremy Lam, certainly gave her a history lesson off the back of what initially seemed like a harmless tweet of an important milestone in her life. Could Lam be called out for wearing a grey T-Shirt in his profile photo? Origins dating back to the 19th century when laborers would cut their jumpsuits in half to keep cool in warmer months. Do you also overheat and struggle working outside all day in the hot summer sun, Mr Lam? Or do you, like me, just wear a T-Shirt without even knowing the history? Thank you, Google. How deep do we want to go? How deep can we actually go?
The SMOC is thriving inside cluster communities and groups and often drives a new purpose into the lives of many and allows outrage to move forward at a faster pace than ever. Many add fuel to the fire by just sharing sensationalist headlines without even reading or understanding the full story. Once a minority by numbers, many cultural and political identity groups are now a majority by values, voice and virality.
Brand Belief and not faking your values.
Brands also have the same issues we have as individuals. In a world where we’re all striving to distinguish ourselves — or self-identify — and expect others to just understand and respect without any logical comprehension, a brand’s identity will very much fluctuate in the eyes of its audiences and consumers. An existing consumer will already trust the brand. A member of an audience may not. Brands talk to both and must be fully-aware of this. There is no longer a one-size-fits-all marketing persona who you are supposed to talk to. We’re beyond demographics, beyond interests, beyond behaviour; we’re at values and sentiment. So how do you get to a point where you never have to retreat with your tail between your legs? By building Brand Belief. And it’s an inside job.
Companies, who operate brands, are simply a collection of individuals who believe in a series of values, a vision, a mission and a potentially more prosperous future guided by a CEO they trust. The common consensus is that tomorrow will be better than today: in the offering of products and services, the public reception of such offerings and in a higher future compensation for being part of this value delivery. This culture, built on the inside, is directly referenced by what you project on the outside. Asymmetrical information is more or less dead and the transparency that exists throughout brands and its employee advocates is exposed for all to see. Each individual inside your company is most probably using LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to actively work on their reputation and stay relevant. They’re probably engaging in debates online, the aforementioned. Their personally-expressed views have a knock on effect into the wider scope of things; the brands they’re part of. These people, in some form, are decision-makers at every level of the company so they better not only have the brand values embedded in their day-to-day but also be a major part of the open-door feedback policies that continuously put your brand values and the trickle-down culture in-check. We should ask the question regularly…
“What values or beliefs do you currently have that you feel are not represented by our brand either internally or in our communication externally?”
It was someone inside Chanel who gave the go-ahead, as since 2005, for a $1325 black boomerang which, some claimed, appropriated Aboriginal culture. Chanel said that it “deeply regrets that some may have felt offended” which was a clever play on words from their PR team. We’re sorry you’re offended. We’re not sorry for anything else. And should they be? Should they be the only brand called out for selling boomerangs or do we now pick on others that have a lesser brand value? I, for one, had no idea that a boomerang was so instrumental in the Aborigines’ fight for survival. They used it as a weapon to hunt for food and defend themselves against colonists. All I knew was that when I was 7 years old, I was given one by my dad and he said “throw this and it should come back”. What he didn’t say is “listen, son, before you throw this, you need to understand its history and how the Aborigines used it to stay alive. Think of this every time you throw it.” If I eventually became a fan of boomeranging and I bought the Chanel boomerang, would I also be promoting cultural appropriation? Would people walk out of my house in disgust after seeing it on the mantlepiece? Would I be just as guilty as someone who did the same whilst actually knowing the history?
It was someone at Victoria’s Secret made the decision to not make lingerie for plus-size women. The ‘body positive’ movement was expected to be embraced by the iconic brand but in the end, their more ‘diverse’ fashion show was a display of arrays of skin colour rather than body size. More complaints ensued. But let’s go a little deeper here…
L Brands, who owns Victoria’s Secret, actually had a dedicated plus-size brand called Lane Bryant before selling it. Marketing Chief, Ed Razek, said “Lane Bryant still sells plus-size lingerie, but it sells a specific range, just like every specialty retailer in the world sells a range of clothing. As do we. We market to who we sell to, and we don’t market to the whole world.”
He makes an important point here.
In fact, in 2000, Victoria’s Secret did do a plus-size television special and the results didn’t deliver. The interest just wasn’t there. Why would they attempt once more to tap into a new consumer group at such a high cost? Can’t they just continue to sell to women inside a certain size range? Would those publicly calling them out commit to purchasing if they agreed to make plus-sizes once more? Could the planned closure of 53 Victoria’s Secret stores be related to that? It could be. Or it could also be related to the general decrease in brand fidelity and increase of new brand discovery thanks to platforms like Instagram. We’re no longer afraid to hand over credit card details to any company on the internet; knowing our goods will arrive or we’ll sure as hell make a public fuss if they don’t. The barriers to market entry have decreased and new VS alternatives like Gooseberry Intimates or Valisere have built thriving businesses off a trust-led and experience-inspired Instagram backbone. So what comes first for a brand? Audience satisfaction or sales? It’s actually becoming a tricky balance because social reputation is more important than ever.
Should all brands cater to as wide an audience as possible or should they carve out a niche and thrive inside it? Once you’ve built your core consumer group, should you risk alienating them through diversification and that lack of time people have to comprehend a different angle or the inner depths of a story?
The choice really is yours as a brand but you must stand by all decisions. Brands have been trying to do good with social impact for years — it’s a fast-track to building trust. Corporate Social Responsibility has seen such a rise in recent years and it is more-often now embedded into the core of a brand’s offering. Like Tom’s giving a pair of shoes to those in need for every pair you buy. They’ve now given away over 60 million pairs. Or Lush, who promises no animal testing and all products are 100% vegetarian. Would vegans still complain though? There are now deeper stories behind the products we buy; allowing us to better-identify inside the purchase process; from consideration and decision to emotion and advocation (influence) around the dinner table.
Brand Belief – the real values inside a company are born and must thrive within the culture; each and every individual. Could a team of men make dresses (and marketing messages) for women who want to go from desk to dinner with the same outfit? Could women create the perfect razor and shaving cream for men to use daily on their faces? Can an all-white male team champion messages of diversity and inclusivity? Probably not.
Sure there’s market research that can always be done but at some point we, as marketers, who are more-often documenting instead of creating, are going to get called out. We’re going to offend even the tiniest group who may not even contain our target consumer. People make mistakes which means brands make mistakes. People can say sorry, but brands, who apparently should know better, could see millions of dollars wiped off their valuations that an apology couldn’t reverse.
The diverse team behind the inclusive dream is what will differentiate the future of Brand Belief. Companies are talking more like humans every day and should have a stance, a political view and a real value-driven identity that it stands behind no matter what. Like Bumble creating a safe environment for women to meet, date and do business. The female-first approach is evident absolutely everywhere inside their company. From Whitney Wolfe, its founder, to everyone in the Austin and London office who I personally worked with whilst handling PR and events for their brand in Spain through my agency. And wow! Their women-focused brand values and the commitment of each and every member of their team are on another level. They frequently kick people off the platform for oppressing behaviour towards women. I even once got flagged for jokingly saying my occupation was “selling drugs to kids” (it was supposed to be light-hearted humour. Who remembers that?).
Or like Nike doubling down on Colin Kaepernick and going after a determined segment of the market. For Nike, the bet on urban (I think NYT means ‘black’) culture makes complete sense. In terms of everyday fashion and the movement of trends, I don’t think there’s any sport that translates from its field of play to the streets any better than basketball; which is dominated by black super-athletes. It’s a bold move that will surely have Under Amour and Adidas strategising as to how to capture the sneaker burners who Nike lost. Nike stood true to their values because that Brand Belief exists inside the culture of their company. Each individual knows the values of the culture and understand that corporate messaging, including social media conversations, is an extension of just that. If they’re addressing political, racial or ideological issues, they’ll have the capacity in-house (with agency support – call me, Nike) to cope with and develop a response to reinforce their original message.
Addressing the SMOC.
When someone in your audience shouts “you don’t sell to me, a plus-size woman”, can brands reply “no, but other companies do” or “no but there’s clearly a demand so why don’t you go create that brand yourself?” And will a Goth girl complain about Princess Perfect’s (hoping that’s not a real brand) clothing options? Or should she just go shop at Goths R Us?
If a news publisher (as they always seem to do now) picks up on a situation and runs an article with the sensationalist headline “Users outrage on social media at X brand”, brands will know precisely how to react but also know that time is always a healer. We humans are bombarded with so much data that it makes us easily forget the past unless we’re dedicated to digging it up. So yes, temporary silence often dampens the fire. We can’t all be Wendy’s on Twitter and just throw shade all over the place but we can push back if it aligns with our Brand Belief. In this data-driven world, when the SMOC attacks, we can choose to defend or attack back! We have better cross-platform audience insights as to who is delivering the negative sentiment and can call them out on their hypocrisy or lack of knowledge. Sure, we may alienate and isolate some but we’ll also strengthen the trust we’ve already built; hopefully increasing the lifetime value of a customer.
Using platforms like Facebook Ads, we can hyper-segment audiences and deliver hyper-specific messages to avoid the discerners and wasting those advertising dollars. We already do this by reaching beyond demographics, interests and behaviour targeting but the next stage will be sentiment and value targeting. You know how the like button turned into wows, sad and angry faces? Well, that targeting segmentation will be coming soon. The one-to-all brand message will no longer exist and that’s the beauty of harnessing the data on social media: you shouldn’t see a single message that wasn’t intended for you. It should feel one-to-one. Advertisers have access to a wealth of data (too much according to the $5bn Facebook has set aside for SEC fines) and once we understand how to manage it properly, the results will be incredible. We’ll pay more to reach but we’ll get more in return.
Start building your Brand Belief. Now.
Let’s face it, there will always be people who are outraged and try to call you out. Some really do find their life’s importance in it. They will complain that something doesn’t cater for them or a brand is appropriating a culture that their next door neighbour’s dog’s ex owner belongs to… [breathe] but this is also a good thing in the wider scope of things. There’s clearly a massive gap in the market for anyone to start a brand and focus on a core group or niche. Projecting your values through a company you create is now easier than ever. As long as you clearly define them and stay true; putting rigid internal missions in place for when you expand and hire talent — a common major disputer of a sweet culture – everyone must be onboard or state why not. Don’t hire based upon the positions you need to cover. Hire based upon your audiences, the consumers you want to reach and by knowing a lot more about each candidate’s views and values. Ask them taxing questions which may entice them to get personal, even conflictual. Take complex scenarios and ask them to explain their positions. Do you believe white privilege exists? Do you think the #MeToo movement has had a negative impact on females in the workplace? Is Donald Trump good for America? How did you feel about the Gilette Toxic Masculinity advert? These candidates don’t have to agree with the interviewers but they need to be able to have a solid position and to be able to explain the why. Your company’s open door policy will allow this feedback to better-place it to build new values into its Brand Belief or solidify existing ones.
What will define how your brand looks, feels, engages, enrages, settles and what it really believes in will always be based upon offering the freedom of each individual inside the company to openly voice their positions. Give absolutely everyone a voice; a safe space to challenge the status quo to avoid toxicity and stagnation. Get to know your team better and don’t just ask the what, but the why and the how. With a culture they feel they’re contributing to, they’ll stand by everything your brand says and will become your biggest and best advocates.
And hopefully, eventually, the SMOC will fizzle and fade and just realise there are alternative options to pursue. And perhaps, just perhaps, instead of complaining and pointing fingers, they’ll channel that energy into solutions that solve problems that they’re screaming exist.
Don’t build a culture that loosely believes in your company’s values. Build an ever-evolving and improving culture that is at the very core of your Brand Belief.
Ben Walker