Marketing Among the Culture Wars
It's a modern marketer's rite of passage--just know what you're getting into
For a long time, I have been a proponent of Marketing with Meaning—an idea I introduced in my book, The Next Evolution of Marketing, in 2008. My thesis is that brands must shift away from annoying interruptions and toward advertising that adds value to customers’ lives. Cause-related marketing and positive social movements can be an essential part of a brand’s marketing strategy, and I devote several pages of my book to the topic.
So the recent controversies around brand support of social causes hit home. But beyond the book, I experienced my own taste of controversial blowback as a marketer on the Tide brand back in 2001.
The issue I faced was small by today’s standards. The world has changed in many ways since then. But the lesson is timeless: Marketers hold much power in their beloved brands and massive advertising budgets. And with great power comes great responsibility to be judicious in whether and how to be a part of a broader public conversation.
Forging Family Ties
Let’s turn the clock back to Spring 2001. I’m an assistant brand manager who has just moved from a spot on one of the worst-performing brands at Procter & Gamble to a second assignment on Tide, arguably the best brand in the company. Tide consistently delivers billions in revenue each year, about half the households in the country have it in their homes, and several company CEOs spent early career time on the brand. That’s why there’s an unofficial onboarding rule for new people like me: “Don’t screw it up.”
I’m excited to be on Tide for my second assignment because this is the stage in your P&G career when you get to do bigger projects. In my case, I’m taking over leadership for our Liquid detergent business and a second wave of marketing of our newest stain-fighting formula improvement. That means I’m driving decisions on tens of millions of dollars in marketing spend. Even better—I’ll lead the development of two TV commercials in the months ahead.
It might sound silly, but TV commercials represent about 80% of the budget, so they are critical to “not screwing it up.” There is an art and science to maximizing every second of the sight, sound, and motion on the screen, so I’m both excited and nervous.
Fortunately, I’m in good hands. We’re working with one of the top advertising agencies in the world, a partner of the brand since the 1960s. And the agency staffs our team with some of the best account managers and creatives in their shop. And I’m “inheriting” a campaign that has performed well for years.
For non-marketers, a TV campaign is a way of describing a recurring theme in your ads, such as the Geico gecko or Etrade baby. A campaign helps present a consistent message that consumers recognize and remember and makes the creative process easier since you’re building on success rather than re-creating the wheel. It’s not much different than the movie business, where sequels dominate. And since more money is spent on TV commercials than blockbuster movies on a per-second basis, campaigns are key.
In the case of Tide, our campaign is called Family Ties. Its formula is as follows:
A family change happens
There is a crisis around this change
Clothing or fabric is involved in the crisis
Tide solves the fabric issue
The family crisis is solved, and everyone lives happily ever after—thanks to Tide!
This might sound like a “mini-movie”—because it’s meant to be. We desperately need to stand out in commercial breaks, and stories can be great ways to hook people’s attention. Once you have their attention, you can sometimes convince them that your product and brand are great. Then a small percentage of consumers will remember to buy your product instead of another when pushing their cart through a store. When you multiply this small fraction by 100 million households that buy detergent every few months, the result is a monster success like Tide.
My brand manager and I fly to New York City to be pitched ideas by our agency. The first commercial they share is called “Preschool.” In this ad, a Mom is taking her young son to school for the first time, and they are both a bit nervous. Thankfully, her son has a favorite shirt that makes him feel better—and Mom+Tide make sure it’s clean for his wear.
Every. Single. Day.
It’s a perfect example of what’s magic about our Family Ties campaign. The ad is based on the true story of one of the lead creatives in the agency—which makes it even cooler to say “Yes!” when they ask for our feedback. You can see a version of the final ad here:
The second ad they pitch is called Tablecloth. It’s also based on the personal experience of the creative team. Here, the story revolves around a young couple that is getting married. But one partner is Catholic, and the other is Jewish, which leads to some challenges. Thankfully there is bonding over a cherished family tablecloth, which Tide helps protect. You can see the original Tablecloth ad here:
We like the story of this ad, too, and believe both will gain positive attention and drive sales of our product. We thank the agency team for their work and pull the trigger on the timeline to get the ads produced, tested, and live on air.
After a few months of work, a few million dollars of production and testing costs, and lots of back-and-forths to perfect our investment, the Preschool and Tablecloth commercials start rotations in network and cable TV in July 2001. We sit back and wait for sales results to come in…
One day soon after, I’m at my desk when I get a call from a manager on the Consumer Relations team. This group receives emails and phone calls from buyers of our products. My only regular interaction with this group is a monthly report sharing a predictable list of praise (“I can’t believe Tide got this stain out!”) and complaints (“I don’t like the Mountain scent”). But Consumer Relations has never called me before…
I learn they have gotten a number of complaints about our new Tablecloth ad. Now, “a number,” in this case, is pretty small—just nine. But at P&G, we’re very sensitive to complaints—this is way before social media, but we know nine complaints might mean 900,000 pissed-off consumers. I ask them to email me the messages and find examples such as this:
“I am Jewish and offended by the commercial showing intermarriage between Jewish and Italian. This is undermining our family values.”
“In your view, Italian-Americans all have old, meddling mothers who drink red wine by the gallons.”
“Tide may take Manischewitz out of your Seder tablecloth, but it should not be used to smooth over thousands of years of rich history and wash away tradition and all that it stands for, including the growth and spirituality of the Jewish nation.”
To this day, I clearly remember the mixed thoughts and feelings that hit me. First, I feel bad that my work triggered negative feelings among people just trying to relax and watch a TV show. I understand their point; there is a feeling among some in the Jewish community that their very culture is in danger of extinction because of marriage outside of their faith. And I can now see shades of stereotypes coming through our commercial.
On the other hand, I disagree that “intermarriage” is bad. People are free to make choices about who they love and choose to spend their lives with. I feel vindicated that our creative leader told her personal story here. But I know we need to think about our business. And there is a bigger question of whether a company selling detergent should get involved in a cultural flashpoint. We take the ad off the air to consider the best response.
The next few weeks are a blur as we do more consumer research and talk with our agency about alternatives. We end up editing the ad to remove some more explicit references to religion. You can see that version here.
While we scramble, our Preschool ad takes up all our ad time. And it starts to bring us the sales lift we are looking for. Ultimately, we decide not to put Tablecloth back on the air. It’s just not worth the risk.
Looking back, I was surprised how a “little thing” to me could be a much bigger deal to the many people on the receiving end of our mass marketing. I never let myself be surprised like that again. But I also learned that in the drive to gain consumers’ attention, I should never let the advertising story overwhelm the product message.
Why Companies Get Into Trouble
Marketers had it easy back then!
Today is a much, much different marketing environment. We now have social media—where the phone calls and emails of yesteryear get turned into viral memes that multiply to people who never saw your ad. Compound this with the loss of mass media. Instead of depending on a few TV commercials, which can be thoroughly tested, today’s marketers must push creative out daily across dozens of channels. It takes just one social post to spark a national controversy. And politicians on both sides have their staffs searching nightly for ads they can turn into fund-raising fodder the next morning.
FOMO—the Fear of Missing Out—is another factor that has gotten marketers in trouble lately. When everyone else does something, you feel like your brand can, too. And if you’re not supporting prominent causes, you might get called out as unsupportive by your customers—or even your co-workers.
There’s also human nature here. Everyone who touches marketing is an individual with unconscious drives and conscious desires to do things they believe are good for society. People want to do positive work, and a giant brand and budget are powerful ways to make changes. And when your job is to interrupt people so that they buy a consumer product, many of us long for our marketing to stand for something more meaningful.
Finally, we all increasingly live in social and information bubbles. We tend to live and work in places and companies where individuals read, hear, and say the same stuff. Therefore we miss what groups outside our bubbles may think and feel.
A Process to Guide Your Decisions
This doesn’t mean all marketing should revert to some form of infomercial. Your customers tend to buy products that personally resonate with who they are, and they expect brands to stand for more than whiter whites or how many pepperoni slices are on the pizza.
However, we’ve got to be careful, purposeful, and strategic in brand building in today’s social age. Here are a few suggestions that I’ve shared with senior marketers over the years:
Leaders Must Set the Direction - The entire organization needs guidance on how to operate differently. Marketing leadership cannot see and approve every marketing execution, but they must provide strategic direction and guardrails. This is the core work of the CMO, in coordination with the rest of the C-level team.
Pop the Bubbles - We’ve got to admit that our personal perspectives can be much different from many of the people who buy our products. So stop going with your gut or making assumptions based solely on your own experience. Get off Zoom, get out of the conference room, and spend more face time with your consumers where they live and shop.
Choose a Brand Purpose - Many of the best brands have made a social impact without polarizing a broad swatch of the populace. I deeply believe that a strong brand should make a positive dent in the world through its products and marketing. But this should be more than jumping on the bandwagon from cause to cause. For example, Tide continues a long-running campaign called Loads of Hope that brings clean clothing and other supplies to people impacted by natural disasters. It’s totally about the brand's benefit while meaningfully improving lives. Loads of Hope is a unique, long-term commitment. And there’s no controversy here.
Create a Scorecard for Risk - This is one of the key process steps that a marketing leader must implement. The point here is to pre-plan what types of broader topics are appropriate to weigh in on—rather than letting a mistake get through or being forced into endless meetings every time out.
Pick a Few No-Go Topics - Most of us learned early in life that it’s bad manners to bring up politics or religion in a group setting. That’s a social rule that has saved us all lots of pain. Marketers—who speak to hundreds of millions of people—need similar rules for controversial topics. Our Tide team made the call to kill any idea that even lightly touched religion.
Prepare for the Worst Case - Even if you avoid the no-go list and your scorecard suggests the benefit will outweigh the risk, you should be ready for negative reactions. As seen in recent examples, companies get a double negative hit when they react poorly to the original complaints. Plan ahead: Who is going to make the decisions? What is an unacceptable number of complaints? Who is going to speak with reporters? Can we get some pre-approved talking points through PR and Legal? And please let Consumer Relations know that your risky ad is about to go live. This falls under my guidance to be Productively Paranoid.
Despite the intensity of social media to promote polarization, I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to be a marketer that wants to make a positive impact on the world. We’re moving past the era of annoying interruption, and consumers are expecting us to meet their higher-level needs.
Just remember: With the great power of our marketing budgets comes great responsibility to put ourselves in the shoes of all our customers.
Bob Gilbreath is a 2x-exit entrepreneur and co-founder of Hearty, a curated matchmaking service that combines top software developers with early-stage, venture-backed startups.