Today\u2019s Master of Brands Award goes to Burger King UK, who chose to start a thread on International Women\u2019s Day with the statement \u201cwomen belong in the kitchen,\u201d a bizarre lead-in to how they\u2019re creating a scholarship program for their female employees to pursue \u201ctheir culinary dreams,\u201d a statement almost totally bereft of substance that was hooked onto an extremely old and sexist phrase.<\/p>\n
Naturally, when told to \u201cdelete this\u201d by another brand account (KFC gaming), Burger King UK decided to double down \u2013 which is a KFC dish! Ha! \u2013\u00a0by suggesting\u00a0that they should not delete a tweet that brought attention to a lack of female representation in cooking.<\/p>\n According to my good buddy Caylen, Burger King\u2019s agency is BBH (which stands for Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty, possibly the oldest and whitest series of names I\u2019ve ever heard), who you may remember for\u00a0turning homeless people into hotspots\u00a0at SXSW about 9 years ago (though that was their \u201clabs\u201d division). Their whole thing is being \u201ccontroversial\u201d and it works, in the sense that everybody gets pissed off and talks about how much the brand sucks for an entire day.<\/p>\n However, PR loves to conflate lots of impressions about something bad and\/or in poor taste as being \u201csuccessful.\u201d Everybody talking about something is not good, and does not mean that people now remember your brand fondly.<\/p>\n If you go into town wearing a clown outfit and yell \u201cI\u2019m The Big Pee Pee Man\u201d and ram your Dodge Charger into the front of a Piggly Wiggly store blasting Taproot\u2019s Poem, but your car also says \u201cWOMEN\u2019S RIGHTS\u201d, it may indeed be on the news multiple times, but that doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019ve helped promote Women\u2019s Rights. The news is going to remember you as the clown guy, and at best the clown guy who yelled he was the big pee pee man. People remember shocking and bad things, and tend to not remember context of any kind.<\/p>\n I like to draw the line between being shocking and being daring is when you\u2019re attacking a norm versus challenging a bias. The line can be thin as norms are in the process of adjusting, but basically, if you go out and say something that is sexist or racist, that is attacking a norm \u2013 it is saying something specifically built to offend or hurt with the intention of eliciting a reaction. This isn\u2019t the same as challenging people\u2019s assumptions about something \u2013 calling out biases, problems in society, and so on \u2013 it\u2019s the line between making people uncomfortable because they have to question themselves and uncomfortable because you said something shitty to get them to look at you.<\/p>\n That crucial difference is what people tend to miss \u2013 they see the increase in attention as a way to reach new people without remembering how first impressions only happen once. Even if the person likes you before, saying something dumb and offensive, even if you end up apologizing for it, proves that you care less about the customer and\/or whatever thing you\u2019ve chosen to be nasty about and more about the fact that people are mad.\u00a0Rob over at BoingBoing\u00a0mentioned a wonderful term \u2013 Schrodinger\u2019s Asshole \u2013 which refers to specifically says something rude and then gauges whether or not they were bad for saying it based on how upset everyone gets, which applies perfectly here.<\/p>\n The problem with doing this kind of shock jock form of PR\/marketing is its hubris. It acts as if it\u2019s a deft use of the media \u2013 controversy building impressions \u2013 by harnessing how the media (both social and otherwise) loves negative stories, without realizing that\u00a0the major story about you is how bad you are.<\/em><\/p>\n A new challenger in this space are the people taking advantage of the right wing victimhood narrative.\u00a0The Goya Beans\u00a0boycott came from their CEO\u2019s endorsement of President Trump, a guy who had literally\u00a0called hispanics murderers and rapists, and seeing the freaks rush to say \u201cSIR! I LOVE GOYA BEANS SIR! THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!\u201d has convinced certain brands (and people) that there is a movement \u201cagainst\u201d white people and conservative values, which they\u00a0actually<\/strong>\u00a0mean is a movement against people being bigots and marginalizing other people.<\/p>\n The temptation here by brands is that there is a \u201cwokeness\u201d that is policing people\u2019s ability to live, and thus it\u2019s good to challenge these things because people are \u201cbeing too sensitive.\u201d It\u2019s the age old idea that you can sell things by making them good, or sell things by making people think other things are bad, basically fueling their like of something based on their own hatred and anger versus their actual values.<\/p>\n This works\u00a0sometimes\u00a0<\/em>in politics because politicians are good at coming up with shit to make people mad about, but in the case of a brand selling something, hate burns out quickly. People who will buy something entirely out of spite for something else don\u2019t really\u00a0care<\/em>\u00a0about you or the actual quality of the thing you\u2019re selling, and as a result your value proposition is as flimsy as the reasoning behind a person\u2019s purchase.<\/p>\n Sure, you get people who buy and use things to appear a certain way and put out a certain image, but for the most part that only works when something is\u00a0positive.<\/em>\u00a0And that rarely comes from a place of controversy \u2013 when someone wears or uses something to say that they support a cause, that\u2019s one thing, but when someone says they\u2019re boldly being rebellious and standing up to a vicious oppressive force by\u00a0giving someone money<\/em>\u00a0the image of sacrifice and struggle is crushed.<\/p>\n While there is an audience of people who are super into people who are assholes (see\u00a0Trevor Bauer), building a brand entirely based off of outrage and victimhood isn\u2019t a longterm proposition. The size of the audience that is going to be allying with you based on the fact that everyone is mad at you is a lot smaller than you think, and their attraction to you is based on their own subset of directionless misery, and comes with a heaping helping of capriciousness. They will leave you at any time.<\/p>\n They aren\u2019t really your ally \u2013 they\u2019re aligned with a vague idea that someone is keeping them from beating the drum of their own biases.<\/p>\n Ultimately there\u2019s no reason to be controversial\u00a0in this way.<\/em>\u00a0Being controversial by saying something to stand out in your industry is fine \u2013 my own example being the numerous times\u00a0I\u2019ve said how bad PR people are, which I did specifically because I want to make it better \u2013 but being controversial only to get attention and upset people is\u00a0bad.<\/em>\u00a0It\u2019s useless to you. You don\u2019t need to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today\u2019s Master of Brands Award goes to Burger King UK, who chose to start a thread on International Women\u2019s Day … <\/p>\nBeing Shocking Is Not The Same As Being Daring<\/h2>\n