Are You Allowing Lunatics to Control Your Brand Message?

The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
Got to keep the loonies on the path
– Pink Floyd

On Facebook, a friend recently posted a picture of herself fishing and got into an email spat with somebody who took offence:

Just got into a full on email fight with some DOUCHE who decided that this FINE picture of myself Fishing in Catalina is a display of “cruelty to animals” and that I should take it down as it’s promoting killing etc., etc. WTF? Get off my page ASS!

This type of busy-body nosiness and self-projection is worse for brands. Somehow brand marketers are being held to an impossible standard in the rose coloured world of the online lunatic.

I’m getting questions from clients wondering how to handle negative comments on socnet sites. Worse, I’m finding a few clients fearing backlash for the good products they provide.

Social media allows anybody to post pretty much whatever they want. In this environment, the PC, condescending, morally superior fringe can be the loudest.

But however loud and obnoxious, they are far from the majority. And even further from reality.

There’s a good amount of cognitive dissonance at work that marketers have to deal with as well.

People may buy leather goods to look and feel good, but if you market products made of leather, don’t ever say the leather came from a cow. People may buy seafood to eat healthier, but if you market seafood products don’t ever say it came from fish.

It’s sheer madness. But it’s more mad to cater to absurd opinions.

Better to be congenial, while remaining unapologetic.

Explain to the toddlers that seafood actually comes from fish and let them deal with the epiphany. Let them know that people enjoy eating fish and that it’s healthy for them. And let them know that although you respect their opinion, they do not speak for everybody. So, would they please have the courtesy to allow others to live their own life, by their own values, as everybody else allows them to do.

Better yet, let somebody else do the work for you. It’s not often irrational opinions go without comment and a good public dressing down.

Forrester Research says there are 33.5 billion online brand conversations every day in the US alone.

With everybody chattering at once and so easily, a goal of marketers is to have more people speaking positively and fewer people speaking negatively about their brand. A study by the London School of Economics states that brands with the most recommendations in their category grow four times faster than the average. A 12% increase in recommendations doubles sales growth.

As the above study suggests, it’s important to know how to get people not only speaking positively, but recommending your brand.

By the same token, it’s important to know how to stem, if not avoid negative comments. However, there’s a caveat: Avoid watering down your message to appease a non-buying and irrational minority. Speak to your customer and don’t apologize to non-customers for the business you are in.

A famous quote from Bill Bernbach sums it up:

Stand for something and some people will stand with you and some against you. Stand for nothing and nobody will stand with you, or against you.