Change is truly the only constant, more so in the world of marketing, customer retention, and business growth. Over the years, customers’ trust in brands has declined due to many reasons, including perceived dishonesty and misalignment between company actions and advertised values. Whatever the reason may be, the result is that companies that appear insincere lead to customer disengagement and skepticism.
So, what do customers truly want from businesses? How can brands create a transformational image that delivers sustainable growth?
Gone are the days when quality, price, and convenience were enough to drive and ensure loyalty. The currency of today is Trust, and it is not enough to “do no harm,” achieve perfection or demonstrate progress and integrity. For customers, doing the “right thing” means more than the usual philanthropic initiatives of big business. It involves brands actively participating in social change and backing it up with genuine efforts and actions. In short, customers today want brands to start doing vs. keep talking. Customers expect Activism from the brands they follow, buy and advocate.
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What is Brand Activism?
Businesses over the last decade or more have enhanced their corporate responsibilities to include CSR initiatives that focus on charity, philanthropy, and compliance. Brand Activism is the next level of Social Responsibility, as it requires brands to have deeper commitments and use their influence to advocate change and lead conversations on social issues, injustices, or reform.
It must be stated that brand activism should never be used to make a statement (capitalizing on social movements without actually making meaningful contributions) as it can and does have a deep impact across the business, its customers, its investors, its employees, and an external impact on culture, society, and sometimes even politics. Responding impulsively to social pressure often has long-term implications for the business. Employee beliefs and actions that are contradictory to the company's stance can attract unnecessary attention.
Brand activism is about making an impact by creating and building deeper connections with customers who share similar values. It enhances customer loyalty, differentiates the brand in an overcrowded and loud market, and therefore requires strategy at the brand's end as well as the marketing end.
The 2 Sides of Brand Activism
Brand activism comes with two sides - a progressive side, which pushes the envelope for others to follow, and the regressive side, where a brand's good intentions fail or where they take a stance that appears reactionary or contradictory to their values or actions that are out of touch with their customers. In the first case, customers see the brands as champions, while in the other, customers see them as out of touch or lacking intellectual insight or suffering from “moral myopia”.
The Trigger Way - 7 Steps towards creating a Brand Activism Campaign
To truly drive impact, your plan must be as bold as the cause. Without it, neither will you create deep engagement with your customers nor will your campaign ignite any real change.
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Use your purpose to ignite the spark - Identify the cause and assess natural brand alignment.
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Research and Validate to fuel the fire - understand stakeholders' expectations to ensure the cause matters. Evaluate competitors and market analysis including social sentiments to ascertain relevance, stickiness, and backlash.
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Craft your brand’s power narrative to shape the flames - Ensure the message is clear, authentic, and compelling while staying true to your brand's ethos. Leverage facts, emotions, and urgency in your storytelling while amplifying across mediums and platforms. Partnerships with other brands, influencers, activists, and organizations add strength to your story.
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Set Objectives to measure successes - define clear goals, milestones, KPIs, etc. to ensure that progress is maintained and tactic effectiveness is managed.
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Flawlessly execute your campaign - Leverage multichannel mediums to drive awareness and engagement. Ensure that your employees can participate and fuel the campaign by giving them talking points etc. and becoming campaign ambassadors.
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Amplify with partnerships to spread the blaze - Enroll all relevant media outlets both offline and online. Find ways for customers to become a part of the movement.
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Measure and evaluate the heat impact - Capture data to evaluate campaign effectiveness, and collect insights from customers, employees, and partners to course-correct. Document all lessons that are learned and adjust strategies for future activism initiatives.
The Trigger Contingency Plan - 6 Steps towards Managing Backlash
Bold actions sometimes is an invitation for criticism. Preparing for difficulty and potential issues showcases a brands commitment to the cause. When backlashes are handled correctly and with resilience they can be turned into highly rewarding opportunities
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Stay ahead by anticipating criticism - Identify potential and possible scenarios and have a crisis response team in place.
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Take away some heat by having a well-planned response strategy - Acknowledge any issues quickly without becoming defensive. Clarify facts calmly with data sources to support any claims and commit to address and fix any issues.
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Adapt to show you're serious about feedback - Listen to understand and be transparent with any changes. Partner with community leaders, government bodies, social institutions etc. to co-create solutions. Always focus on outcomes that have a real-world impact.
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Build back stronger and better - Regularly track social sentiments after any backlash. Tweak the recovery strategy to show that the brand has learned its lesson and is making necessary restitution.
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Adopt scenario-specific responses - Build bridges with organizations. Seek ways and means to resolve and create dialogue. Explore legal experts to navigate tough situations and rebuild public trust.
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Evaluate and update the contingency plan's effectiveness - Constantly test and evaluate plans, and incorporate new learnings to future strategies and potential crises.
Conclusion
Brand activism has evolved into a business imperative with genuine commitment. As trust in brands declines with customers, businesses must evolve too and stand for more than just profits as today's customers, employees, and investors require real action on various issues, including social, environmental, and ethical. Furthermore, as the competitive environment stiffens up with more players, both domestic and international, all of whom fight for a share of mind and wallet, brands must strive to build deeper, more meaningful connections and differentiate themselves in the market. However, businesses must exercise caution and carefully plan their activism approach – align their activism with their overall company vision, mission, and values. They must avoid the pitfalls of tokenism, inconsistency, and lack of action, amongst other things.
As the boundaries between culture and business continue to blur, brand activism is emerging as a powerful marketing strategy that, when done right, offers brands a way to influence the social, political, and cultural landscape in a positive manner.
Additional Reading: Navigating Local Customs and diverse Cultures, Leveraging Activism for Loyalty, Creating Communities to drive purpose and growth, Marketing Truths in a World of Cynicism, Performance Marketing for Effectiveness, Packaging Designs that Sell, The Power of Music in Campaigns, Negotiation Strategies for any situation, Augmented Reality Marketing, How to Sell with Emotions, Crafting Your Customer Journey Map Masterpiece, Public Relations that Works, Immersive Customer Experiences with Experiential Marketing,