GUEST POST from Pete Foley
Many of you may have noticed that we are in a period of unparalleled social and political polarization in the US. For better or for worse, the public is probably more engaged and more passionate about politics and related social issues than it’s ever been.
So how should we, and the organizations we are a part of respond to this? When we feel passionate about something, there is always motivation to take action. And for many of us, the place where we have the most influence, resources and leverage is via work.
Does Politics Belong at Work? So should we blur the boundary between our personal beliefs and our work? Should our marketing and communication reflect the social or political passions of ourselves, and our colleagues? It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot over the last few years, and even more over the last few months. And not surprisingly, it’s often fueled by a working group who share passionate common values.
Job Satisfaction: Acting on these shared passions certainly has potential to benefits job satisfaction, team building and even perception of work life balance. Despite this, I nearly always advise to avoid politicizing a brand, and to even be very cautious about social engagement. That’s often an unpopular opinion, especially if team members care deeply about a cause. But aligning a brand with politics opens a door that is extremely difficult to close.
Bud-Light: The news story below is a good example. Anheuser-Busch is currently facing negative social media for pulling it’s support for a Pride Festival.
It’s not the first time Bud-Light has found itself in the news for a politically related topic. I’m sure we all remember the Bud Light controversy over it’s association with Dylan Mulvaney. That resulted in massive backlash from the ‘right’ and loss of its position as the #1 beer in the US. Now it’s facing backlash from the ‘left’ over Pride. Basically they now cannot win, and that is the core issue. Once you’ve taken a position in a controversial space, even somewhat unintentionally as Bud Lite did, it becomes a part of your brand, and that lens is applied to virtually everything you do. It is then extremely difficult to recapture a neutral position.
No-Win Scenario? It really doesn’t matter which side of the political fence a brand chooses. Once that door is open, the repercussions’ can last for years, and any course correction almost inevitably upsets one side or the other. Budweiser, Chick-Fil-A, even Pepsi have all dipped their toes in to political and social arenas, and had to manage fall-out that is typically disproportional to the original content.
All of that said, a brand following a purpose can have positive impact on internal job satisfaction, at least in the short term. At of course, it can and often does resonate positively with a subset of its customers. But unless that purpose is unambiguously and universally supported by all existing and potential customers, and frankly very little is these days, the risks almost inevitably outweigh the benefits. Even apparently successful campaigns like Nike’s featuring Colin Kaepernick, which had strong appeal for their core, younger demographic, are high risk-high reward, and come with long-term risks which are hard to quantify. Negative emotions tend to drive strong, and more resilient behavioral changes than positive ones. So even if initially polarized markets sees offsets between positive and negative consumer response, the positive tends to fade faster. Humans have evolved to more heavily weight negative experiences for good survival based reasons.
Universal Appeal and Availability: At the heart of this challenge is that growing and maintaining a brand requires reaching and appealing to as many customers as possible. Whether we view markets through the eye of Ehrenberg-Bass models, or follow more traditional volume forecasting models, the single biggest variable that enables a brand to grow is reach. And that reach needs to operate on both a mental and physical vector. Physical availability is generally achieved via wide distribution or ubiquitous access. Quite simply, if potential customers cannot find you, then most will not buy you. But mental availability is equally important. If and when shoppers do find you, they need to both desire and understand you. This is a bit more complex, and achieved by great marketing, branding, media, packaging and messaging.
But if a brand aligns with a controversial cause, it risks losing positive mental availability, and being either consciously or implicitly rejected. The reality is that pretty much any political or social cause these days carries a real risk of upsetting half of your customers. Positive Brand loyalty is often at best fickle, but once someone has decided they dislike a brand for whatever reason, that de-selection can be quite resilient.
Treat Marketing like Thanksgiving: And it can become even harder when brands try to course correct. Reversals tend to look inauthentic and manipulative, while attempts to ‘read the room’, and go with current trends risks being distrusted by both sides!! In a vast majority of cases, by far the best strategy is to treat marketing like Thanksgiving dinner, and keep out of politics and religion
Keeping Purpose Alive: So should brands abandon any form of purpose or altruism. I’d hope not. Altruism is good for community, good for employee satisfaction, good for long-term equity and more. So what should we do?
I think there are at least three important guidelines.
- One is stay in your lane. Most people struggle with a drink, food or soap powder having a political or social opinion.
- The second is to find ways to contribute that are at least largely universally supported, and avoid the flavor of the month’. Even in today’s polarized society, helping cancer research, disaster victims, helping kids, animal shelters, and ma minimum controversy.
- The third is to ask ‘why am I doing this? Is this the best use of company money, and am doing this for the brand, the business, or is it more in support of my own values?” If it’s the latter, maybe find ways to achieve that without opening your brand to future risk
Bottom line, basically anything that politicians talk a lot about, and certainly argue about, is best avoided. And even be careful how you frame what you do to avoid affiliation with groups perceived as political. Channeling money through a non-profit can be very effective, both in endorsements and validating claims. But many non-profits have become increasingly politicized. I’m not here to make judgment on that, except that from a marketing perspective, we risk becoming aligned with that bias.
But if we are thoughtful, we can combine purpose and innovation and marketing. I think Tide’s ‘Loads of Hope’ is a great positive example. It’s about cleaning laundry, which is perfectly in lane for the brand, & it helps disaster victims, which at least for now is political neutral, and more importantly, largely future proofed.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons
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