Why making your brands controversial isn't so bad idea.

Why making your brands controversial isn't so bad idea.

In my view, there are two types of brands. First, the brands that stand on the shoulders of masses. Tesla, for example, is very close to people, it is into them; it makes and markets people’s cars—or the planet’s cars as you may call them. Second, the brands that do not mind stepping on people’s toes. As an example of this, I would love to talk about General Motors’ Hummer Pick-up truck which was
notorious throughout 2000s and died when the brand’s parent company GM went bankrupt during the famous 2007-08 financial crisis.  However, both of these brands can be successful regardless of category they belong to. This article focuses on this latter category and maintains that a brand with a divided attitude towards it among people is not actually as unprofitably devilish as most people think.

If you try to recall, you might come up with dozen brands in your surrounding markets which tried to go against the opinions of masses—intentionally or otherwise—and got severely punished for such ‘rebellious’ acts. Most of them would revert their actions fearing loss of reputation and brand equity, teaching marketers the lesson that rebellion is not everybody’s cup of tea. This implicitly reinforces the notion that going against the opinions of masses is always harmful and can never pay off. I challenge this latter mindset with real time examples and references to the works of known scholars.

The muscular and militaristic Hummer

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger has been in the headlines in Pakistan lately for inviting Prime Minister Imran Khan to AustrianWorld Summit 2020. He is said to be the man behind the civilian version of the US military’s High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (hence the nick-name Humvee). The trucks caught headlines when they were seen foraying like lions in the deserts of Iraq during the first Gulf war. They were carrying US military troops and artillery.

Schwarzenegger was reportedly shooting a movie when he saw the convoy of the trucks in a garage; that was when he decided to drive one. He later lobbied AM General (Humvee was initially developed by this company) to build him the vehicle. But the design was not street legal in the US at that time. So the company had to build a modified version of the vehicle named Hummer in 1992. In a short period of time, the truck outperformed almost all brands in the passenger vehicle segment and became very popular around the US during 2000’s. According to CNBC, Americans bought 715,524 Hummers in 2006 alone. Every celebrity owned a version of Hummer. The General Motors bought the brand in 1999 and launched smaller extensions H2 and H3. But how was the truck controversial if it was so successful? And why did it vanish despite such popularity?

The first and foremost reason for the brand’s polarizing nature was its militaristic origin and the fact that it derived its bold and aggressive look from being a ‘war-truck’. Because many Americans were against the war, they hated the idea of a vehicle being liked for its militaristic origins. The second reason was more of a practical concern than a sentimental one; the Hummer was aptly named as ‘gas guzzler’ by many outraged Americans who believed that the Gulf war had caused fuel prices to go up, so Hummer H1’s 10mpg was seen as a terrible monster. This issue coupled with the uprising from environmentalists heated so much that activists and protesters set number of Hummers on fire and vandalized them with writings such as ‘Gross polluters’ and ‘lazy fat Americans’. But that was not all. The real reason of Hummer’s disappearance, I, besides many analysts believe, were the rising gasoline prices ($4.18 per gallon in 2008), the recession, and the vehicle’s fuel inefficiency. GM discontinued the brand as part of ‘brand-firing’ process in which it divested several other brands (Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Saab to name a few) because it did not have the resources needed to support these brands. GM filed bankruptcy in 2009 to later get the controversial GM bailout. So to conclude, Hummer’s controversial personality won it name, fame and profits; it simply made it successful. And, it was the other economic factors such as the recession and the war that hit it so badly as to throw it out of the business. This bet will become cleared up in a few years because GM’s subsidiary General Motor Company has announced that it is bringing Hummer back as a fully electric vehicle with ‘no sound’ as they showed in their Super Bowl 2020 commercial for the upcoming model expected in 2022.

Apple’s Macintosh 1984

Now, who doesn’t know about Macintosh and its so-called ‘controversial launch’ commercial “1984?” Apple openly challenged Microsoft’s ‘big brother’ (PC) in its Super Bowl commercial which announced the company was bringing Mac to tables. The spot was based on a political satire, 1984 by the 20^th century’s well-known author, George Orwell. The novel’s theme was the mind-controlled world of 1984. In the commercial, an audience of brainwashed and mind-controlled, gray-skinned skinheads (members of exploited working class from the streets of London) watched a big screen image of “Big Brother” sounding off an ideological harangue. Meanwhile, an athletic young woman threw an axe at the screen. With the destruction of the big brother came in light and fresh air. At the end, a bold man’s voice-over said aloud the words on screen which read: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984’.” What was the message? It was “Mac will destroy the traditional big brother (PC) and it will change the world.” Moreover, the rebellious athletic women was a portrayal of the ‘rule-breaker’ and ‘think different’ Apple user. Lee Clow, the creative director of the agency that crafted this commercial said in an interview with Bloomberg: “What makes something memorable? I think the challenge has always been to break the rules, find something new; find something unexpected, as a way of engaging people and telling story.”

Douglas Holt of Harvard Business School in Boston, dedicated a whole article “What Becomes an IconMost?” to this argument. He argued that brands that speak the rebel’s voice and create, rather than follow, ideologies and culture are the ones that become the Icons. He said “Icons don’t seek to mirror the thoughts and emotions of their customers. They speak as rebels. To assemble a populist challenge to the national ideology, iconic brands draw on people who actually live according to alternative ideals.” Now what he meant was that the iconic brands will always stay on the side of those who challenge the common narratives. He further said “And icons don’t simply borrow the trappings of rebel lifestyle, mimicking their clothing or language. Rather, they understand the rebel’s point of view so well that they can speak with the rebel’s voice.” It becomes evident then that distancing away from the culture will become disastrous since you won’t be able to understand the culture and what its alternative ideals would look like.

Coca-Cola’s refusal to ban plastic use

It is almost useless to mention here how powerful the schools of environmentalism, green marketing, responsible business, and planet friendliness are nowadays. But, would it surprise you if I told you that Coca-Cola rudely refused to ban the use of plastic because it believes its customers want it to be around? Bea Perez, Coca-Cola's senior vice president and communications and sustainability officer, told BBC "Business won't be in business if we don't accommodate consumers. So as we change our bottling infrastructure, move into recycling and innovate, we also have to show the consumer what the opportunities are. They will change with us.” According to Forbes, the company has plans to switch to 50% plastic though, and that only by 2030. Now which choice do you think could force Coca-Cola out of the business, believing the popular ideology of greenism and displeasing its rebel consumers who don’t buy into the popular narrative or staying with the rebels and antagonizing the giants including the one that reported in 2019 that Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé were among the top plastic polluters in the world for second year in a row?

By the way, what about the “Any publicity is good publicity” type arguments. Although this might appear to be something shallow and unscientific, there is evidence from our local markets that suggests that even negative publicity helps brands generate online word-of-mouth, reach broader audiences and create brand awareness. These tactics actually work because such a company approaches the masses and spouts to their ears: “there is a company called Careem which has gone against the society’s marriage norms.”

Final thought

Now we have seen some of the most vivid examples of how brands glisten by standing on the shoulders of rebels not masses. Having the divided opinion about your brand, and sometimes brightly so, is not always harmful. In fact it can be beneficial as has been in the case of most rooted brands like Apple, Hummer, Coca-Cola, Mountain Dew, Nike and others. The only thing marketers need to take care of is to be really close to the culture, learn it, identify the ideas that are annoying some rebels and then carefully craft some myths that provide these people an escape from popular narratives.