Edition 5

Last week I got all the team together to plan the next stage of our journey as the Scale Up Collective. And, as often happens when you get a group of marketers together, once we had talked about our new brand and how we’re going to launch it, the conversation turned to what I can only describe as brand gossip.?

The conversation started with a discussion about the dating app Thursday’s call out on LinkedIn for users to create ads to fill their empty billboards. This popped up on all the team’s Linkedin feeds and I am sure you all saw it too. Some users fully embraced the challenge and submitted their campaign ideas. Some called out Thursday for using the campaign as a source of free copywriting.?

Whatever you think of the campaign and its ethics, it got people talking and built brand awareness. And it got us talking about other brand controversies and, crucially, what we can learn from them.?

Brewdog are another brand who have made use of guerilla marketing tactics and have been under the spotlight for how they use agency ideas. Last year, a group of ex-employees wrote an open letter about the brand’s internal culture of “lies, hypocrisy and deceit”. Ouch.?

The brand is no stranger to controversy, but having this as a brand value when you are small is very different to when you are available in every major supermarket.?

?? A controversy can quickly become a PR nightmare which takes a lot of resources to handle. Even though this wasn't one of Brewdog’s planned controversial tactics (think their "Not for Gays" beer), the view from our team is that being controversial for the sake of it just isn't scalable. However, sharing a sense of humour with your target (KFC on Twitter does this brilliantly) or demonstrating actionable empathy that speaks directly to your audience is vital to retain emotional connections. Lush has done this really well through their activist roots.?

Oatly caused a stir a couple of years ago when they sold a stake in their business to Blackrock, a private equity firm linked to Donald Trump and deforestation in the Amazon. This was not good news for Oatly consumers, who associated the non-dairy milk brand with being vegan, independent and sustainable.?

?? The lesson here?? This is all about maintaining your brand values and being able to connect with your audience as you scale. Growth can cause your brand values to shift, which can work for and against you. In Oatly’s case, they have since listed on the stock exchange, but can no longer be considered an “indy” brand. Innocent is a good example of a multi-national-owned brand that still emotionally connects with their audience at scale.

P&O and the disconnect between Cruises and Ferries was covered in Mark Ritson’s Marketing Week article last week. This one really got us talking!

The TL:DR version is that 20 years ago, the two brands split, but kept the same name. Which was fine in principle, until P&O Ferries terminated 800 team members without notice, over video, replacing them with inexperienced agency staff. Consumers quickly moved to boycott P&O Cruises….except that they are now a completely separate company. P&O Ferries were back in news this week with a ship stranded in the Irish sea.??

?? We’ll be watching this one to see how P&O Cruises manage their brand reputation, but the big lesson here is to be really careful about your brand equity. What would you do in this situation?

It also serves as a reminder to protect your brand. Have you registered your brand trademark? Are there any brands which could be confused with yours? Do you keep an eye out for copycat brands??

And finally, Elon Musk very kindly timed his acquisition of Twitter perfectly for this edition of Power Up In Brief. We have really enjoyed all the witty takes on this acquisition over the past couple of days and we’ll be watching to see what happens with Twitter - their brand mentions must be through the roof this week!

I will leave you with one of my favourite tweets from Ricky Gervais about Twitter. Let’s not forget that behind every brand controversy is a team - sometimes just a person - and I know from experience how tough a PR crisis is.?

What are your views on these brand controversies? What do you think will happen with Twitter? Let me know in the comments.?