Why Puffin got it wrong on Dahl
If there's one core rule to keep an established brand successful, it's "know your audience". Coca Cola learned this the hard way in 1985 when they released New Coke, which was so reviled that it took just 79 days for them to return to the original recipe. Messing around with a beloved product is a sure-fire way to annoy people, a lesson that has now been learned by Puffin publishing after it quietly made hundreds of changes to Roald Dahl's iconic children's books and ended up looking like a Twit.?
While it is not unusual to make minor amendments to classic children’s books for contemporary audiences, such as updating old slang or changing grossly outdated words, the extensive edits to Dahl's work went far beyond normal textual tweaking. The changes included introducing gender neutral language, purging any mention of anyone being overweight, and removing the words "black" and "white" when describing inanimate objects. In the revised edition of Matilda, references to colonial era authors Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad are removed. These edits were not simply made to ensure children could still understand and enjoy the books, they were made to ensure that nobody could ever be offended by anything in them, no matter how trivial. ??
The backlash was instantaneous. Reactions ranged from ridicule to accusations of Stalinesque revisionism. Even the Prime Minister and the Queen Consort weighed in to criticise the decision. Puffin quickly announced the release of the Roald Dahl Classic Collection "to keep the author's classic texts in print", though many critics said the revised editions should be withdrawn entirely. Explaining their reversal, Puffin said they had "listened to the debate", but there wasn't much debate going on. Nobody seemed to be on their side.
Some people accused Puffin of being ideologically motivated, but that is unlikely given that their managing director wrote this just a few years ago:
One of the greatest pleasures of being a parent has been reading with my two boys and sharing stories together. Sadly (for me), they are now too grown up for bedtime stories but my favourite reading memories are courtesy of Roald Dahl. His writing is a dream to read aloud. He is a little bit terrifying in places but laugh-aloud funny. His characters are classics: take the Fantastic Mr. Fox, or the wonderful BFG who gets his words muddled but has a heart of gold. And brave Matilda, my all-time hero. So it is with enormous pride that I can say we publish Roald Dahl.
Reading this, it becomes clear Puffin is not run by an ideologue with a vendetta to rewrite Dahl. This was a business-led decision, which makes it all the more perplexing. In this age of market focus groups and data research, it is bizarre that any company could be so out of step with their core audience. How did Puffin become so disconnected? Why didn't they consult anyone before making this decision that may have seriously damaged their reputation??
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The answer is that they actually did consult people - just not the right people.?
For some time now, a trend has been gaining ground in publishing: the so-called "sensitivity readers". These are people who read books before they are published and highlight anything that may be deemed offensive, and the publisher may choose to edit these passages. This has become especially prevalent in children's and YA literature, because these genres are a particular target for online attacks. Consider the saga of The Black Witch, a YA fantasy novel set in a world where different mythical beings are segregated into a racial hierarchy. Despite carrying a message about overcoming bias, it faced an online onslaught of criticism for depicting racism. Before it was even released, it was review bombed on Goodreads and the publisher and author were harassed.?
This is the kind of reaction that publishers are worried about. They don't want to accidentally kick that wasps' nest, so they employ people to anticipate blowback and pivot before it happens. They worry that classics like Roald Dahl are ticking time bombs, waiting to blow up in their faces when attitudes change and people start to get offended. This is why they decided to edit Dahl's work more than 30 years after his death and after hundreds of millions of worldwide sales. The idea is to future-proof the brand, to keep it palatable (and purchasable) for the next generation. That, on the face of it, is not an irresponsible business decision.??
The problem that arises here is that sensitivity readers are often influenced by (if not directly involved with) online communities whose radical views do not necessarily reflect wider consumer bases. In the case of children's and YA books, they are also usually young people, who are typically easily influenced by their peers and likely to echo the opinions of others. They are basically focus groups composed of extreme outliers, and it shows. Despite initially being pilloried online, The Black Witch reached the top spot in Amazon's Teen & Young Adult Wizards Fantasy a few days after its release, and eventually attained a 4.1/5 star rating on Goodreads. The outrage and controversies occurring on Twitter don't necessarily interest consumers, or mirror their views. The mistake Puffin (and so many others) made is to value the opinion of a vocal minority rather than the people who will actually be buying their books.?
Puffin intended to avoid controversy, and created one in the process. They took a major decision based on a handful of fringe opinions and caused a backlash across the rest of society. They were hoping to pre-empt any future criticism, but they took advice from the wrong people. The irony is that this wasn't an issue until they made it into one. This is a cautionary tale that you should use a good market research company, one that doesn't just go on Twitter to get a feel for which way the wind is blowing. You need to do proper qualitative research on your demographics, not base policy on a handful of tweets. Puffin knew that the customer is always right - they just didn't understand what their customers really think.