At the moment it’s a lot on social media about the SAS commercial that they decided to remove because of massive criticism. I will not go into what I think about the work itself, since that is irrelevant for the point I want to make here. Neither is this text about SAS, this can be about so many different companies. It‘s just that this situation made me reflect once again about how companies seems to get so flabbergasted when they get criticism for their ads that they obviously have created to spark emotions of some kind. Everyone working with marketing want people to feel something when they see their work, but if the feelings are negative so many doesn’t know how to handle it.
We often hear that marketing today isn’t about selling a product, but to sell an emotion and a joint vision for the future. That I think is both true and false. Of course it is about selling a product or service, but to do that you need the customers to love what your brand is and stands for. If they do that you can easier adjust to market demands without losing your loyal customers when your products and offers changes. If you sell a vision that the consumers wants to be part of, then they are more likely to buy your product or service even if your product actually has the same, or poorer, quality than your competitor. That is a huge market advantage.
But selling a lifestyle and taking a stand for something requires that you stay with that stand point through it all. If you have opinions - as straight forward and common as those opinions may look to you and your marketing team - you can be sure that not all people will agree. Some might even be very upset with you for saying the things that you are saying. If you then look indecisive or easy to bend you quickly loose the trust from both sides.
My thoughts on how you can work with emotional marketing but avoid being all surprised and not knowing how to handle criticism (or attacks, if that is how you prefer to look at it) can be summed up in one sentence: “When you work with marketing it is never about you, it is always about them.”
And with them I mean your target customer. Marketing is not about you as a brand manager, campaign manager, creative manager etcetera to fulfill your creative vision and your own needs. It is not about your career and your personal brand. It is about the people you are talking to and the vision forward for your company (and those two are always connected).
You need to listen carefully to your customers before, during and after a campaign launch. You need to know their feelings, concerns, triggers and enjoyments by heart. You need to believe so much in what you want to say, and that it is the absolute best for your company, that you can discuss that openly in any forum with anyone. You need to be so sure that this is in line with your brand and your customers values that getting criticism from those outside of that target group is not something that will make you even sweat a drop.
Advertising and marketing is not the same thing. Marketing is about a two-way communication and you need to be prepared for that. That is why great, well-educated, community managers are one of the best investments a marketing department can do (but more on that in another post 😉). No one wants to talk to a brand that sounds like a politician. People want to talk to people. You need to be real and authentic and you need to genuinely care about the feedback you are getting. Peoples opinions counts, no matter if you agree with them or not, and you need to respect them.
Now I’m off to buy myself something with my SAS Mastercard 😊. Wish you all a nice day!
/Ida