Welcome to the age of outrage, when even the most innocuous ad risks becoming a culture war casus belli. Tonight’s presidential debate will draw attention to the national political campaigns for an additional highly divisive election — which is able to make brands’ already tough situation even worse. By now marketers may feel like they’re trying to ride a pogo stick across a minefield.
“This is a really sensitive time for brands because it could be very polarizing irrespective of what position you stand for,” Adam Ortman, founder and president of the Kinetic319 agency, told MarTech.
So what’s to be done? The answers from each veteran marketers and the latest polling may surprise you.
“We’re moving away from an era of creativity to an era of safety,” Jeff Levick, CEO of We Are Rosie, a talent marketplace for promoting and marketing, told MarTech. “I don’t consider that’s what consumers are in search of. I feel that’s what a distinct segment number of consumers are in search of, but unfortunately, their voice may be very loud and types have turn out to be very afraid.”
In the past two years, there’s been a major drop in Americans who want to hear from brands about current events. In 2022 48% of U.S. consumers said businesses should speak up, according to a Gallup poll. Last 12 months it was down to 41%.
Some things are more political than others
Not all current events are created equal though. Gallup found Americans were most supportive of firms discussing climate change (55%) and mental health (52%). They were overwhelmingly opposed to them taking public stands on religion (15%), political candidates (19%) and abortion (26%).
More than half (54%) of people in the U.S. buy, select or avoid brands because of politics, according to a the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, up from 52% last 12 months.
And an enormous number of things are considered political. Here’s Edelman’s list of the percent of U.S. consumers who found these brand actions to be political:
- Taking a stand on issues (43%).
- Using social media that hosts extremists (43%).
- Hiring influencers with pol. Opinions (35%).
- Encouraging voting (30%).
- Advertising near political news (29%).
- Working on regulations (27%).
- Recruiting diverse employees (22%).
- Reducing climate impacts (20%).
Say nothing?
Given all this, it is smart that some firms select to go silent.
“Brand safety is incredibly necessary,” said Ortman.”We have clients that feel that marketing during a certain unfavorable climate is simply too dangerous. So they could remove themselves from certain marketing channels, from certain marketing tactics, or they may just turn off marketing altogether for a certain period of time.”
This happened after 9/11, during the mortgage meltdown and recession around 2008, and most recently in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. However, those were all things that Americans mostly agreed on. Staying silent on very divisive issues could be costly too.
The Edelman survey of people in 15 nations found that 51% of the 15,000 respondents assume the worst if an organization says nothing on a serious topic. That increased to 56% in the key 18 to 44 demographic.
Of course, going silent or quieter isn’t any guarantee of safety. The smallest thing could also be seized on as a degree of outrage. Case in point: Bud Light.
In February 2023, the beer company asked a dozen notables to remix its latest commercial. One of them was Dylan Mulvaney, an actor and comedian who’s a transgender woman. Her remix was released together with the others and few people outside of her fanbase noticed. Six weeks later Mulvaney did an Instagram post that briefly showed a customized Bud Light can the company had given to her. This time rather a lot of people noticed.
Under attack
Right-wing commentators, politicians and celebrities — including Caitlyn Jenner, also a transgender woman — flocked to the issue like moths to a light-bulb. Mulvaney, the brand’s head of marketing and not less than one Bud Light brewery were the targets of violent threats. In addition to the threats, there was a really successful boycott.
Two weeks after Mulvaney’s post, Bud Light’s sales were down 17%. Within a month Bud Light was not the best-selling beer in America, a position it had held for 20 years. By the end of that quarter, Anheuser-Busch reported a ten.5% decline in US revenue. At the end of August of last 12 months, 4 months after the initial post, sales were down 27% 12 months on 12 months. While sales began improving in April, they continue to be well below pre-boycott levels.
How could they’ve avoided this?
In marketing, there’s no such thing as knowing your customer too well. An enormous query is what, if any, market research did Budweiser do on this topic?
Dig deeper: Pride Month is about authenticity, not ‘rainbow washing’
“For very mature brands, like Budweiser, I’d say do the overkill level of research ahead of time,” said Ortman. “I don’t know what research they did ahead of that point. Who knows? That may need just been a marketing decision of saying, it is a demographic that we would really like to reach into and let’s incorporate it into our marketing. “
The LGBTQ+ community is a focus for people across the political spectrum. Transgender people, who’re lower than 1% of the U.S. population, come in for an outsized portion of attention. Any brand — B2C or B2B — that doesn’t research customer attitudes on the issue is taking a considerable risk.
Stick to your guns
As the crisis unfolded, Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth released an announcement on the company’s website about the “importance of accountability” and taking responsibility “for ensuring every consumer feels proud.” This was the first of several tepid statements from the company which managed the neat trick of irritating each critics and supporters.
As former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower once said, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos.” The fact is consumers like firms that stick to their guns. The Edelman survey found 65% of U.S. consumers would lose trust in a brand that surrenders to politically motivated attacks.
In 2016, San Francisco 49ers QB and Nike promoting icon Colin Kaepernick decided to kneel during the national anthem to protest police violence against Black people. This caused a really partisan outrage and value Kaepernick his football profession. Two years later, when Kaepernick’s contract with Nike was about to expire, the company resigned him and made him a focus of its “Dream Crazy” campaign, which also featured other athletes energetic in social issues, corresponding to LeBron James, Serena Williams and the US women’s soccer team.
Being silent would have been a much larger risk for Nike. As Alex Ortman said, “If you’ve a loud voice and also you don’t speak on something as a brand, you higher be prepared for people to ask you what your opinion is.”
On the other hand, said Ortman, “If you would like to speak on a problem and are usually not known for taking a stance, my major query to that business leader could be why now? And you higher have a great reason. And that reason should materially impact the business in a positive manner.”
Nike’s stock price rose 5% following the campaign launch.
To thine own self be true
The sports apparel behemoth is one of many brands — including Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia, REI and TOMS — to succeed by loudly embracing values removed from the middle of the road.
Doing this requires speaking with authenticity.
“The secure position is authenticity,” said Levick. “You’re in a divisive environment. You’re never going to appeal to everyone. Brands that understand that know that while this person isn’t going to be joyful with us, it’s okay because these other communities shall be with us, and that’s how we are going to proceed to grow our brands. And at the end of the day, it’s about growing revenue.”
Authenticity requires a deep understanding of how your brand is perceived. Some executives make the mistake of pondering they already know that. Ortman attributes this to what’s often called The Projection Fallacy.
That is whenever you take the opinions of a small group and project them onto a much larger one. In other words, you assume everyone agrees with you.
“Just because a brand owner, CEO, founder, whatever, feels a technique about a selected topic, they needs to be careful about projecting that very same sentiment onto their customers or use it for his or her brand positioning,” said Ortman.
He recommends putting together a team of outside experts to take a look at the brand and the way it’s perceived. “They normally provide a great external perspective,” he said. “And most of the time, clients are pondering to themselves, ‘Uh-oh, I didn’t even take into consideration that.’”
Don’t try to split the difference
Budweiser’s attempt to appease either side was so ham-handed its failure was obvious to everyone. Other firms have managed to do that in a way that has put out the immediate fire but with a long-term cost.
Target is one of many retailers attacked for supporting Pride month and selling Pride-themed merchandise. It can also be one of many which have pulled the merchandise from its stores but continued to sell it online.
“Target was just such an excellent sponsor of Pride and has an enormous LGBTQ+ community behind them,” said one agency marketer who asked to remain anonymous. “And then all of a sudden, they’re like, ‘We’re not celebrating this in the store. But it’s okay if we do it online.’ What that’s saying is we’ll do it in a quiet space, but we’re not going to do it in a public space.”
Before the web brands could run marketing campaigns for particular audiences in channels like magazines that were seldom seen outside of the targeted community. Those days are long. Today, you’ve to assume that not only will everyone know all the groups you might be marketing to, but some are almost definitely not going to prefer it.
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