Why Dove And Pepsi Don’t Get This Generation
Last week was a great week for Proctor & Gamble. Unliver's Dove brand, famous for its open-minded sensitivity towards all body-types, pissed just about everybody off. But how did it happen?
How did Pepsi, ironically famous for representing new generations of young people since 1960, royally misrepresent Millennials everywhere earlier this year?
For those of you who haven’t logged into Twitter, checked Facebook, or turned on your TV in the past week, Dove got its ass handed to it by social media. Why? They launched an campaign meant to show how universal their product was by showing women of different ethnicities morphing into one another. This (below) could have been overlooked as a quaint color-blind strategy....
.... if this sort of thing (below) wasn't a part of our history.
Now take Pepsi. Last April they aired a commercial that was beautifully orchestrated but completely out of touch. The commercial featured a bunch of people from different ethnicities doing “ethnic things” and wrapped up with Kendall Jenner handing a bunch of cops a Pepsi.
The intent, I assume, was to demonstrate that Pepsi understands our more accepting and increasingly polycultural 2017 marketplace. That "they" get "us."
Their aim? To show that our marketplace is composed of a brilliant mosaic of people and that every one of them matters. The outcome? A hell storm from the major media, a massive blacklash on Black Twitter (yes it’s a thing), and Pepsi’s taking down the spot. Their attempts at inclusion excluded them from the game, why? Pepsi took the wrong approach.
Why this keeps happening...
Traditional boardroom-logic dictates that if we make any attempt to say “we get you,” then the world will repay us with their next few dollars.
Unfortunately for many, “getting someone” takes more work than observing your surroundings on a subway or binge-watching episodes of Blackish.
Pepsi, like Dove, actually excelled at all the hard parts of executing a spot: editing, timing, cinematography, location scouting, even casting but they failed at the thing should come before any execution starts… doing their homework.
When you don’t understand someone the solution isn’t to do your best to depict the individual or group as your reasonably-modern-mind sees it. It’s to get to know the people you’re aiming to connect with. Better yet, get to really know some individuals and tell their story instead.
Pepsi failed because it attempted to reach entire groups through representatives of those groups instead of making this a modern story of true individualism. A swing and a miss.
Sure have an attractive Asian guy play a cello. Now put it on a rooftop…of a skyscraper. How many of these guys can there be? That’s individual enough, right? Wrong. Study harder Pepsi. Show us someone you’ve gotten to know.
All of the above would have been a major face palm moment for Pepsi, or Dove, but just a face palm. What flattened the social media sphere was that in "not getting it" both brands contributed to an already ugly dynamic.
For instance, Pepsi wrapped the commercial with an All-Lives-Matter message. Kendall Jenner parts protest lines to hand a police officer a Pepsi. So what? The “so” is that this scene was “borrowed” from another campaign, the “what” is that this campaign was produced by Black Lives Matter.
Pepsi’s “borrowing” from this campaign was in the hopes of supporting a movement, but in doing so it actually trivialized that movement.
Dove hoped to layer onto its furthering positive body image momentum. But their confidence may have blinded them to the need for continued understanding vs variations on a theme. In doing so they not only potentially undid years of great work but ironically unearthed a rather raw and private insecurity.
One spot suggests that decades of pain and progress and more pain can be resolved with carbonated fructose. The other suggest "a good scrub" is a harmless and universally positive shared truth. Neither would seem malicious but both read tone-deaf. And result in brand issues like this:
Unilever and PepsiCo are major corporations with major money. They will receive many do-overs. If you're looking to wade into this arena but prefer to be greeted by calmer waters than Dove & Pepsi, here’s what I suggest.
- Consider your talent pool— does your team of employees represent people you want to reach? If no, grow that team or invest in methods and technologies that allow the,to sample (ahem listen) better. If your talent pool does represent your audience, listen to them. Try harder. Listen again.
- Stop generalizing — show individuals, not ethnic-ambassadors. A choir achieves harmony by incorporating a multitude of voices. An expectation that each ethnicity contribute to that choir, but sing in unison, is truly dated.
- Cut the "we're all in this together" crap -- All lives matter, all bodies matter, all all all is not the anthem of today's generation. Unapologetic freedom of individualism is. Get on board.
- Get perspective — invest in getting to know your target markets intimately. There are literally dozens of tools for this but a cup of coffee almost always gets the job done.
- Tell your own story — borrowing from others is not just unoriginal, it’s often offensive. It literally only works well when you borrow from your own past (see Coca Cola and Mean Joe Greene).
- Tell your own stories — not a typo. If if you're a global enterprise, it's likely your employees come from and cover every corner of the planet. They’re not just authentic, they’re real human beings. Know your people, and you’ll find your story.
Moral of this story? Dove & Pepsi sent it, and sent it hard. Commercial appropriation (cultural or otherwise) is always inappropriate. But, not knowing who you are and who you’re talking to can lead to a world of avoidable pain. Best of luck to both in their next attempt to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.
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Elisa Cool is a experienced content strategist with expertise in building highly capable sales and marketing teams. She is an accomplished speaker, LinkedIn Influencer, and CEO of The Narrative--a content shop dedicated to content education, communication strategy, and studio-grade content production. You can find - and sign up for- more informative posts from The Narrative here.