When they launched the Collin
Kaepernick campaign, the company
received a lot of backlash but didn’t pull the
ad down. Instead they got other big names
in sport to carry the campaign forward.
They included more African-American
athletes: Serena Williams, LeBron James
and Shaquen Alphonso Griffin. These are
some of the biggest names in the world.
If Serena can Just Do It, as a customer,
I should also have the courage to follow
suit. While customers took the heat off
social media, they also took their money
in-store to purchase or replace the Nike’s
they had thrown or burnt.
VW also begun to show a more emotional
and human side after the emissions scandal,
prompting more people to purchase
their vehicles. They also went into other
untapped markets including Nairobi,
Kenya and opened assembly points that
allowed customers to have easier and
cheaper access to vehicle parts. They are
constantly updating their human side of
the company, soon to introduce a female
voice to sell cars to their male customers.
Brilliant idea and it shows on the bottom
line. Cadbury increased its sales in India
amid backlash from its customers on the
Unity Bar. While they were tweeting
negative things, they were also not going
to pass on a rare opportunity for a treat!
The problem with smaller companies that
have not built brand saliency or large
companies that have not seen the need
to build this kind of brand love is that
they suffer when faced with a crisis. Large
organizations know that problems need to
be fixed and they need to be fixed quickly
and correctly.
You cannot ignore the power of the
name Cadbury. You use or interact with
it every morning, even if you don’t eat
their chocolate bars. You probably still
own a pair of Nike shoes or a Nike top
or something that has that strong athletic
tag on it. You also wear it quite proudly;
if not because of how much money it set
you back, because of what that logo says to
others when they see you in it.
VW owns some of the most aspirational
vehicle brands. Anybody would quickly
shove the emissions scandal to the back
of their brains when given an opportunity
to own a Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini,
Porsche or top-class range VW or Audi.
I can bet just reading that line up of cars
makes you wonder how the emission
scandal really affects you.
The take out for any marketing professional
is to ensure that brand speak, and brand
acts is creating a cushion for a rainy day. It
will surely rain one day, and the hailstones
will come from your customers. While
in marketing you need to say everything,
and say it in the most economical way,
sometimes it pays to say nothing and let
the customer interpret it for themselves.
They may understand it and empathize
like Cadbury’s Donate your words or they
may also completely trash your seemingly
brilliant ideas and refuse to understand
things from your point of view like in
the Kaepernick situation. It is only the
strength of your brand at this point that
will determine how quickly you bounce
back and the leeway you have to put things
into perspective.
It is how quickly you fix the situation
and regain trust with your brand that
will make the difference between being
drenched in the rain and being offered a
shade by the same customers. Life can be
hard, and so can be marketing. We can be
beaten, bashed but we should aim to build
brands that will remain standing.
Diana Obath is a seasoned Public
Relations
and
Communications
Specialist. You can commune with her
on this or related issues via mail on:
[email protected].