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 wasnotorious 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 20th
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.
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