Duty Matters

One of the things I lovedwhen I was an accountplanner* was gettingout of the office to meetpeople face-to-face. I enjoyedgoing into peoples’ homes, rootingaround in their cupboards, seeingwhat they pin to their walls andwhere they shop. I liked to do‘assisted shopping’ – there isno better way to understand thetrade-off parents have to makeon a limited budget than goingshopping with them and chattingabout their choices.

Data too is a rich source ofinsight for planners, and there ismuch more of it available now,and it is also more accessible. AtGoogle Trends you can conductyour own ‘sentiment analysis’for free. The growing popularityof search terms such as ‘cost ofliving crisis’ and ‘energy costs’indicates what people areworried about. Survival,getting by, affording thechildren’s clothes as wellas food and energy bills.

As a former Googler, I love data too, but ithas a big weakness.It cannot tell you howpeople really feel.If you just rely onwhat people type(or bark) into theirsmartphones,you will miss agamut of humanemotions andfeelings that youcan only intuitby seeingfaces andplaces. Whatpeople donot say is asimportant aswhat they do– and it is not captured bysearch analysis.

My personal view is that adagencies lost confidence in theface of powerful big data platformslike Google, Facebook andAmazon. Qualitative research,once a vital tool in developing greatcreative became unfashionableand click-through rates (data)became the all-important measure.So, it’s good to see some agenciesrecovering their mojo. I recentlyattended an excellent debrief bySaatchi and Saatchi (hosted by theUK APG), with the clickbaity title of‘What the **** is going on?’(I havetaken out the f word as I knowAurora is a family publication).

The debrief covered howpeople really felt about the costof living crisis based on in-depth‘ethnographic’ research. Theysummed up the big themes thus: weare in a living nightmare; no one isin control; we are going backwards;we live in a dog-eat-dog country;society is increasingly divided;pride is slipping away; the systemis rigged against us and there havebeen too many false hopes.

Granted, this is an in-depthUK study, but I suspect thatsimilar themes will be uncoveredin many countries. Is this howmany Pakistanis feel? It may beinteresting to replicate Saatchiand Saatchi’s methodology.

A failure to understandhow people really feel canbe dangerous for brands. Itcan lead to tone-deaf, clotheared communication. It liesbehind the backlash againstwoke advertising, or what Icall ‘Higher Purpose Branding’(see How Lofty is your Brand,Aurora May-June 2015; https://aurora.dawn.com/news/1140893). For over adecade brands have championeda range of causes – a trend thatkicked off with Dove’s campaignfor Real Beauty and whichbecame a norm.

Brands championed transrights, women’s rights, gay rights,prevention of violence againstwomen, the disabled, diversity, theenvironment (increasingly) and somuch more.

At their best, these well-intentioned campaigns deliverpractical action and more socialjustice. My favourite is Ariel’s2016 campaign in India (Dads#ShareTheLoad) to release busymums from the drudgery of havingto do all of the laundry themselves– and getting their men to domore. The campaign was practical– Ariel packs carried ‘his and hers’calendars and relevant, comingfrom a product that cleans clothes.I have no doubt that the teamsbehind these higher-purposecampaigns believe sincerely theyare doing the right thing. Most of uslike to think we are good and cando good in the world.

But at its worst, Higher PurposeBranding can be perceived asnarcissism; ‘Love my brand, lovemy values’ seemed to be theeffective idea behind it. The brandtells people what it cares aboutand by implicationwhat they should care about too.You will have all experienced this.It’s like being at a party where youget stuck with someone who canonly talk about himself and howhe does loads of charity work.The danger is that people whoare feeling really pissed off anddesperate can be very intolerantof self-regarding narcissists(take a bow, Boris Johnson).

Try Googling “backlash againstwoke advertising” to see whatI mean. In the US, Bud Litebacked American Pride and wasquickly seen to have indulged invirtual signalling – as in wishingto be admired as modern andprogressive. Brand teams can bemisled by the thumbs-up emojisthey win from progressive activistsin social media. They can alsoget caught in the crosshairs ofculture wars. Bud Lite is a blue-collar mass-market brand, and itseems to have lost sight of thatmost basic of marketing principles– always find out what yourcustomers think and feel.

It’s not difficult to avoid BudLite’s mistake. Spend less timetalking to well-meaning folk whoagree with you. Or just ask youraccount planner to do somequal’ among your customers.To be clear, I am not saying youshould pander to people’s leastnoble instincts. I am saying thatnobody likes to be talked downto by comfortably off-university-educated types who are just a little too pleased with themselves(in my experience, the mostgenerous and community-minded people tend to have theleast wealth).

There is a shift in consumersentiment that brandsignore at their peril. In thefuture, it will be wiser tothink about your brand’sduties rather than itshigher purpose. Aduty is somethingyou perform forothers. It is lessegotistical, moreoutward-looking,and more likelyto win customerapproval because itwill be rooted in whatthey care about.Duty is an old-fashioned word andmarketers hate beinglabelled as that. AtCannes this year,everyone was(predictably) superexcited about thisyear’s hot issue –AI – but the best marketers neverlose sight of the fundamentals.Duty was the watchword of thelate Queen Elizabeth II and sheproved to be a highly successfulreputation manager for the House ofWindsor. She navigated turbulent,unpredictable, fast-changing timesand technologies by cleaving to thisimmutable value.

What are your brand’s duties?They will vary by category andproduct, but there are commonthemes. And it is my duty asan account planner to have astab at answering this questionforAurora readers – in the nextissue. Watch this space.

*Account Planners often callthemselves strategists nowadayswhich can cause them to losesight of what their job really is.

Julian Saunders has led accountplanning departments in agenciesbig and small, been CEO of aWPP creative agency, worked in aGoogle innovation team and onbehaviour change campaigns forthe UK government.julians@joinedupcompany.com.