BRANDLOGIC
By LK Gupta
As news and views about Lance Armstrong’s doping confession came in a few weeks ago, I noted a different revelation unfolding on social media. Unlike many other athletes similarly caught out in the past, there was no all-round, unanimous castigation for Armstrong’s obviously wrong deeds. As the denouncements came, an equal number of people defended him, citing the large amounts of money raised by him in his fight against cancer. It was almost as if wrongdoing can be condoned in lieu of the greater good achieved. It was as if the youth on social media were weighing between a personal wrongdoing and a social goodness to mitigate the breaking of established rules.
What is happening here? Isn’t wrong wrong, and right right? It seems not. There is a growing pattern among youth worldwide that points towards a changing value system. They are viewing things from a new lens of legal and moral acceptability, and pronouncing their own judgement on ideas, people and values. There is no black and white anymore. And this is the milieu in which new heroes (and villains) are emerging – figures with shades of grey and fully acceptable feet of clay.
In this new world order, Aaron Swartz is a hero, a youth icon. Undoubtedly, what he did to MIT was technically against the law, but in his Robin Hoodesque way, he espoused freedom of information and egalitarianism in distribution of knowledge. Given his hacking activities were clearly against the law of the land, he had it coming. But millions of supporters aver that the establishment was wrong in the unnecessary harsh and extrajudicial operation brought against him. His unfortunate suicide only increased the strength of support he had from these masses.
The Aaron case is different from, yet similar to that of Julian Assange, the vigilante and exposeking who is seen as the Batman in a cyber Gotham. The new generation doesn’t view him as someone wrongfully leaking sensitive state secrets, but as a hero bringing the conniving and guilty to book; to make them answerable to the entire world for proven or yet unproven misdeeds.
Besides the social and political implications of this trend, there are pointers for marketers and businesses too. We are no longer dealing with a body of consumers for whom it suffices to participate in a transaction exchanging a product for a published right price. This is not like the previous generation that loved and adopted brands for their clever advertising and smart products. Increasingly this generation will want their symbols to be a lot more than before – responsible, social and most of all relatable to them in all their values, aspirations and avatars.
This won’t come about only with futuristic technology and youthful looking advertising. Nor will it come from short-lived CSR initiatives and event sponsorships. Companies and brands will now have to show hard actions through which they serve and nourish the community they operate in. However, this doesn’t mean that brands must become socio-political mouthpieces. Consumers can sense the “goodness” in a company from the products it creates and by how it forms relationships with consumers and other stakeholders. They also sense it from the way communication is done and the interpretation it makes of the environment around us. Especially communication. A seasonal campaign with the irreverence of a Pepsi or Fast Track is okay to tap one of the facets of this youth. There are other facets that make them spontaneously take to the streets en masse, and in the same breath chuckle at commentaries on our times via cartoons by Amul. Great brand managers must discover their own Jaago Re to connect with the simmering dissatisfaction, yet constructively feed the iconoclast amidst a generational shift of consumers.
This is one of the reasons Google strikes a chord with consumers. Without the company saying it, the consumer can understand the democratization of information and entertainment that they are experiencing, be it search or maps or YouTube. That is why despite not being as sleek and velvety as iOS, Google’s Android has now a far wider adoption and is on course to becoming a world dominating platform.
In these impatient times, when social outrage is a rule rather than exception, if a brand responds within minutes of a complaint, the consumer pulls the brand a little closer to his heart. And if it doesn’t manage its reputation well, there is hell to pay. None exemplifies this more than the loss of public image that Kingfisher Airlines has had – not because its product was poor (it wasn’t), but because of its financial setbacks in the hands of a flamboyant leader and the consequent treatment of its employees. The business may get rebuilt in due course, but it’ll be a long while before they regain a generation’s trust.
Brand-building, therefore, has to address not just the product and equity parameters, but the spirit of the generation that will be the consuming majority in the next decade. It may not be enough to craft our brand messages around product benefits and psychographic fit. We’d do well to show the true utility, or rather usefulness of the brand in helping people live better lives, perform better at what they do and to demonstrate that the brand belongs in the same ethos that this youth aspires to.
Feedback: lkgupta610@gmail.com
