However, with inequities becoming even more of a pressing topic, and the expectation from brands to be active participants in society – activism to action, is there an inevitable movement that we will see? And hence, this post on brands through the prism of activism and morality, from the perspectives of a consumer and a brand marketer, and the safety of an armchair.

“We are living in an era of woke capitalism in which companies pretend to care about social justice to sell products to people who pretend to hate capitalism.”

Clay Routledge

Communication: In the case of brands, one could argue that what good is morality without signalling? Who has the time to discover “goodness”? Once upon a time, in the days of one-way media, this was easy. But these days, any stance becomes automatically confrontational because… social media. But before we even get to the stance, consider plain communication.

I found the Bingo case hilarious because it was based on a perception that Ranveer’s character was making fun of Sushant! We have moved from people believing whatever they want to people insisting that brands also believe it! The Myntra logo change is another recent example. A more polarising one? Swiggy and the farmers protests tweet. It’s not just the communication. Zomato even had to explain why it was advertising on Republic TV. I did wonder how it was spotted though – if one hates the channel, would one be watching it?

Most consumer-facing brands would love to be part of popular culture. And maybe even shape it. Because that’s where money is made. Remember commissioned researches highlighting “trends” that favoured brands? But now, any contact with culture is a double edged sword. It also means that just signalling using communication is a recipe for disaster. This leads us to the business at large.

Business: Back in November, an India – Australia match was interrupted by a spectator holding up a placard with the SBI logo and “No $1 BN ADANI LOAN”. Thanks to social media, YONO (You Only Need One) to go viral! And SBI is not even famous for taking a stance.

But let’s step back. Tom Roach makes a compelling case for “Brand purpose. The biggest lie the ad industry ever told?“, and also draws some excellent distinctions on the three types of “purposeful brands” – Born Purposeful, Corporate Converts, and Pseudo-Purposeful.

But there are complexities. Take Ben & Jerry’s. Sugar aside, they are a B corp (“businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose”) – a poster child for purposeful brands, I’d say. But they are also part of Unilever, which on one hand has a policy to help staff facing abuse, but also have the controversial Dove, not to mention Axe, and Fair & Lovely! Similarly, while Bournvita wins brownies for exam ads, and Cadbury for hyper-personalisation, the parent company Mondelez continues to face several accusations of “fairwashing” and environmental damage.

Ikea, another favourite brand, has built some amazing experiences (in addition to iconic ads), but even as they promise to address sustainability, they face some pretty steep challenges. Nike is famous for inspiring ads, but I have written about its double standards earlier. And there is an excellent FT article on internal cultural issues.

Some cases are a bit more black & white. Big Tech is probably a good replacement for Big Tobacco. Not one in GAFA is without serious blemishes. Then there are edtech giants exploiting parents’ FOMO, and promising to help their kids crack the million $ salary code. Real money gaming does virtue signalling by showing ads that have folks using their gains for a good cause, never mind the addiction involved.

A small note on celebrity brands. It’s probably easier because on a relative scale, the public face is usually an individual. Though it is true that they get called out repeatedly for their errors. In 2020, Indian celebrities and #BlackLivesMatter turned out to be quite a #facepalm. When Virat Kohli, who famously declined a Pepsi endorsement and deservingly earned praise, promotes MPL, are we to believe he is oblivious of the harm caused? Meanwhile, call me cynical, but I thought Sonu Sood’s “investments” have given him handsome endorsement returns!

In summation, I think, most brands and businesses are somewhere on the spectrum. Between politics, racial injustice, gender discrimination, environmental concerns, religion, and so on, there are many eggshells, and I understand that the task is not easy. The only beef I have is with false intent signalling. Is that “fake it until you make it”? I don’t know. Capitalism is already trying to mould it with things like ESG funds, many of which have Big Tech stocks! The hope is that between B-corps and zebras (below), we will go from tokenism to “__washing” to actual change.

Consumer:

“We’re living in an era of ‘woke’ capitalism, right? I’m Nike, I pretend to care about black people. You pretend to hate capitalism and buy my trainers.”

“Industry” (BBC/HBO)

This pretension helps us retain our self image while consuming the things and experiences. There is narrative cohesion while avoiding uncomfortable truths. And sometimes, even some virtue signalling. This is not judgment by the way. We’re wired for short-term gratification, and our lifestyles ensure that choices are heavily influenced by convenience. I shop from Amazon while theoretically being against what it is doing to retail businesses and consumption in general.

In this context, I feel for Indian parents – between edtech companies telling them that coding should be part of pregnancy (well, almost there!) to Bournvita shaming them, it’s a tough choice! Products containing sugar doing virtue signalling is some irony, but I am not sure the Indian consumer is ready to recognise it yet.

I think there will be a few steps before we reach awareness and action at a consumer level. Sometime back, Dhathri Ayurveda was fined by the consumer disputes redressal commission for misleading ads. Significantly, so was the ad’s endorser. I am hoping to see influencers becoming accountable next. And then, maybe it will be easier for consumers to think about this. Though I do see an early majority of customers making these choices because now there are options.

I’d say that a lot of consumer activism and brands supporting activism in the last year have been a reaction to Covid. Not that the emotions didn’t exist, but tectonic changes in lifestyles “forced” us to take stock. ‘Woke from home”, as I said once. How much of this will continue in the years to come remains to be seen.

Marketer: My profession requires me to view ads through lenses different from a regular consumer. That’s probably why my angst tends to bubble up earlier too. And the dilemma ranges from simple daily operations to larger strategic decisions and even career progression. As a brand marketer, I use Facebook and Google extensively, conscious of the platforms’ malicious intent. Each time we brainstorm ideas/campaigns, we screen for whether it will offend anyone. Sometimes this comes at the cost of creativity. Because it needn’t even be offensive, it just needs to be perceived that way. Who cares about the intent? I have also realised this is a serious limitation on one’s choices of employment. But that’s a different story, of morality and self image. What it does make me realise is that when an individual finds it unclear, it is perhaps too much to expect an abstract like a “brand” to get it right! But then again,

‘All it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to say, “It’s a business.”

Alan Shore, Boston Legal

P.S. A wonderful story from a while back. On business and human dignity.

In essence, it reiterates the decline of one way communication, consumer participation, of brands being ‘deeper’ than the marketing that is done for them. But it was good to hear it from a leading FMCG corporate. The most interesting part of the article for me, however, was this, from the author of the post

Social media is not a strategy. You need to understand it, and you’ll need to deploy it as a tactic. But remember that the social graph just makes it even more important that you have a good product. Put another way: The volume and quality of your earned media will be directly proportional to the impact and quality of your product and ideas.

I think that nails it. All this while I was considering social media as strategy. Now I think its more than that – its something that will make the organisation really focus on what they’re delivering to their consumers, how they are doing it – not just from a delivery platform/operations pov, but also from how socially and environmentally conscious and responsible they have been. In Mr.Clift’s words “enlightened self interest”. The ways and means of communication – brand advertising, promotions, PR etc, will follow much later.

Meanwhile, the Marketing Pilgrim asks an interesting question – does social media really have the pulse of the people? It cites the Johnson & Johnson Motrin ads that had raised the hackles of mom bloggers a while ago, and caused them to remove the ad. Apparently a research was done later that threw up some interesting stats – 90% of women had never seen the ad, and when they did see it, 45% liked it. It also speaks of the Skittles – Twitter experiment, and a research in which only 6% of 300 people sampled had heard about it. Those on Twitter would’ve heard about both these, but the Pilgrim asks whether these voices resemble those outside at all, and how much of influence do they have outside.

I, for one, still think social media is a good microcosm of the real world. It does give varied perspectives, and the key is in evaluating the perspectives, digging further where required, and deciding on a course of action that fits larger objectives, and not knee jerk reactions. Wonder if there would have been different results if J&J and Skittles had attempted to carry the community along in their efforts.

But the bigger opportunity, I have always felt is that it allows brands to experiment with segmentation. On one hand, the net allows extremely targeted communication to a core segment, and on the other hand, cheaper distribution allows the brand to also communicate with different segments of the long tail of consumers. It means that brands can play different roles according to the consumer’s interests, and varying with the context, by tweaking its communication, even while sticking to its core objectives. There are new monitoring tools being developed that will aid of this.

Most importantly, it allows brands to find evangelists in each segment and work with them to improve and communicate. Consumers who find a product interesting and appealing will communicate it on their own, adding their perspective and giving a human touch of ‘interestingness’. I’m increasingly seeing posts about marketing ideas that have differed from the norm – Penguin India’s ‘Blog a Penguin India Classic’, which I wouldn’t know about if Karthik didn’t mention it on Twitter or his blog (though I do think they could’ve done it better by using social reading lists like Visual Bookshelf – on Facebook as an app too, Shelfari etc to reach Penguin readers – can easily find that through book titles), product placement ideas for Nestle evolving from the “Mad Men” on Twitter. Cisco’s comic book experiments via Chris Brogan’s post (Webex in Marvel Comics), and Kara Swisher on All Things Digital ( The Realm, an entire comic series). All appealed to me as a marketer, and one as a bibliophile too. Social media is not one thing – the channels vary in audience, kinds of interaction etc – Facebook, Twitter, You Tube all allow new ideas ( I thought Volvo’s Twitter stream inside a YouTube banner ad was very interesting) and fresh engagement rules, and ways to break advertising and brand communication stereotypes.

I wonder about the role of strategy in a social media landscape where many things are still unfamiliar. The standards, processes and even objectives are in most cases, hazy, and evolution is happening on a regular basis. In such a scenario, perhaps organisations should first take a long look at themselves and their customers – current and potential, and start by setting goals that go beyond social media.

until next time, lab time

Bonus Reads: Social Media tools popular among marketers (via Digital Inspiration)

I have come across quite a few interesting sites which link shopping to social media. There’s Tribe Smart, which allows you to make a profile and use crowd wisdom to know about the product. And its not just a product, it could be a website, a movie. In the process, you end up meeting people who share similar interests. Skimbit is a browser add on that allows you to make a project page you can configure, for your purchase, add products from different sites, and then allow others to rate these.  Another startup working on a plugin based model is Notches, which works on two fronts – allows product sites that tie up with it to add review buttons to its product pages, and users who have downloaded it can review any product from any website. (via Center Networks) Meanwhile, there’s a very interesting online music sale model at PopCuts, which rewards you for spotting trends early. You can buy a track, and when someone buys it from then on, you get a cut. A very cool idea, I thought, and would like to see how it pans out. Just like the earlier site, you start meeting people who rock to the same tune.

Mashable has written about a widget based service called TurnTo, which works on the concept of social shopping. Deviating from the path of the above two, this one lets you add people from your existing circle of friends. During TC 50, which I’d written about earlier, a couple of startups working in the social shopping/reccomendation space were showcased. One was GoodRec, which shows users reccomendations of restaurants, books, movies nightlife, and displays the location on a map. It allows you to make reccomendations, which can also be shared on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed etc. According to StartupMeme, GoodRec scores over the existing player – Yelp, in terms of usability. Another player, who is into ‘social’ based decision making is CityVoter, which ‘allows insiders who know a city best to share their insight with information, ratings, and reviews on everyday decisions’.The other startup is GoodGuide, which aims to provide users with information on social, environmental, and health related aspects of consumer products. With people becoming increasingly aware and conscious of the environment and the impact of their lifestyle on it, this is a good space to be, especially because of the clutter of ‘green’ goods that have been hitting the market. You can read more details on them here.

WOM is no longer a buzzword, it has become a fact of life, if not in ‘low involvement’ categories, at least in ‘high involvement’ ones. Amazon has recently been using passionate Kindle users as brand ambassadors.We are on our way to what this post (quoting from a report) very correctly describes as an ‘influence economy’. As more and more users enter the social realms of Facebook, Twitter etc, their purchase decisions are becoming increasingly influenced by their social peer group. I come across this regularly on twitter – social based decisions on everything from restaurants to laptops and mobile phones. The post also gives a simple path for brands to get invloved in this process. But the essence is that brands need to be truthful, transparent, listen to their customers, be accessible, and most importantly, have a great product, for the reality is that communities cannot be bought. It has to be earned, and this post has a few tips on that. RWW has shared some data on super influencers, from a McCann study done  among 17,000 active internet users in 29 countries.

Though brands are only beginning to take consumer voices seriously, it is great to see market leaders like Unilever and P&G understanding the limitations of current consumer research procedures, and making efforts to embrace online buzz. Meanwhile, HUL has introduced the concept of a customer ombudsman in india. The ombudsman works on behalf of the consumer and will tackle all cases that cannot be dealt with by Lever Care. A wonderfully radical move, which shows why they are market leaders. Read all about it here.  While on the subject, there’s a company called BazaarVoice, which helps brands create business value out of the positive consumer PR they generate. As fanboy cults emerge on Facebook and impromptu brand wars (among consumers) occur on twitter, I think this space has great potential. Speaking of Facebook, they’re also using users as brand ambassadors in Germany. (via Tech Crunch)

until next a sociaholic shopaholic?

Almost, because, I lean quite a bit towards extreme transparency, and am of the opinion that it’s not just the evangelists who should be online and doing their bit, it should be the whole damn system.  Why not only the evangelists? Evangelists, to me are slightly utopian styled creatures, who love transparency, and organisations, which are just giving this whole conversation idea a customary spin, might have a problem dealing with it. There are two options then – the evangelist gets ‘corrupted’,  (I’d hate compromised use of social media) or he refuses to conform. In the second scenario, the organisation will strive for ‘control’, and the evangelist will be sacked, but what if the whole system is doing it? Which is one of the reasons why I think organisations will fight this thought. But there might be hope yet, check out Unilever’s efforts in this direction.

There’s a great argument here on candour at the workplace, it also gives some interesting links. That last link looks at a ‘getting to know you’ level before complete transparency. The article calls this tact, and I have a problem with that too. It is precisely these kinds of convenient gray areas that led to white lies, which in turn spawned the complete opacity that we see around now.

Meanwhile, there’s something else that might be forcing organisations- Users/Customers. Because once the conversation about the organisations, which will happen with or without their assistance, reaches a deafening pitch, it might force them to listen. To quote from this neat post on Enterprise 2.0, “when the irresistible force of social media hits the immovable force of a traditional enterprise, it makes a loud noise”. The last part of this post also throws light on this.

And hey, its not any favor that the organisation is doing. In the long run, this will only help the organisation’s equity from an HR and Brand perspective. As talent sourcing becomes even more difficult, this might be the edge that an organisation can get.

The earlier generation of organisations did not  ban the water cooler though it was reputed to be the source of a lot of conversations. Lets hope today’s organisations can look at the internet in a similar way, recognise that their employees are simultaneously part of not just their workplace, but a larger world outside, in which reside the organisation’s stakeholders and think carefully on how it makes sense to let their employees talk to the world at large.

until next time, break the walls down