How political should your brand be?
The surprising disconnect between what consumers say & what consumers do
👋, I’m Kimberly. I’ve been creating obsession-worthy brands for the past fifteen years. And now, I’m giving away my secrets every week in this newsletter.
A few weeks ago, a company released a controversial memo that made 1/3 of its employees resign.
The company was Basecamp. If you haven’t heard of Basecamp before, it’s a very popular project management and communication tool. I started using it ad-agency side ten years ago to manage creative projects, and we also used it in-house at Sephora. The vibe of the brand is friendly, straightforward, and a little bit fun.
I had not thought much about Basecamp beyond this before a few weeks ago—when the company was thrust into the media spotlight because of a memo outlining changes to Basecamp’s philosophy.
The change that came most under fire was a ban on “societal and political discussion.”
No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account… These are difficult enough waters to navigate in life, but significantly more so at work. It’s become too much. It’s a major distraction. It saps our energy, and redirects our dialog towards dark places. It’s not healthy, it hasn’t served us well. And we’re done with it on our company Basecamp account where the work happens.
Basecamp was not the first (and certainly won’t be the last) to call itself an “apolitical” company. In the past year especially, other notable brands have taken a similar stand of non-involvement.
Last October, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced a new policy of “political neutrality” in which the company won’t stand for “politics and the championing of social issues at the office.”
Just this week, the CEO of Shopify—the platform empowering so many small businesses—told his company that Shopify is “not a family” and it cannot "solve every societal problems,” having also banned societal and political discussions on its company accounts.
That’s Certainly One Way to Niche Down Your Audience…
When I’m working with brands, I always encourage them to niche down when they think about who their customer is.
And the first thing I thought when I read the Basecamp memo was wow, well—that’s one way to niche down your audience.
Both Basecamp and Coinbase offered their employees severance packages if they would like to leave following their announcements. And many took them up on it. Roughly 1/3 of Basecamp’s employees accepted buyouts—including the head of marketing, the head of design, and the head of customer support.
Whether you’re leaning into democratic, conservative, or “anti-political” values—taking a firm stance as a brand puts you in a position where you are potentially alienating both employees and customers.
When dealing with a politically controversial issue, the big question for every brand becomes is it worth it?
Over the next two weeks, I’ll tackle this big question:
By looking at the landscape
By diving into the research
By developing a framework any brand can use to think about whether or not to take a stand on controversial issues
The Landscape: Demand for Brand Involvement
The role that corporations play in public life when it comes to political subjects is an evolving one that has only become more complex in 2020.
It used to be the case that most companies would not take a stance and hedge their bets—non-advocacy was the norm. And no one expected that her brand of household cleaners or lipstick should have a political opinion.
But oh my, times have changed.
The importance of value-based branding has been growing for awhile now, with consumers consistently demanding more meaningful interactions from their brands. According to the 2018 Edelman Earned Brand study, 64% of consumers reported they make purchasing decisions based on a brand’s social or political position.
In 2020, the focus on societal issues exploded. At the same time, trust in the government eroded—and people began to look to brands to fill in the gaps.
Thus, began an unprecedented year in terms of corporations taking stands on political issues. And a company’s lack of response or delay in response to an issue has often been viewed in the negative.
A recent Axios/Harris 100 reputation rankings poll showed Americans leaning into brands with strong political positions more than ever—with brands like Patagonia, Chick-fil-A, and REI rising much higher on the list of most popular brands.
In addition to these three brand that made it to top, two brands at the center of much political discussion this year—Hobby Lobby and Goya Foods—made the list for the first time. It seems that the more divided America became, the better they responded to brands with strong public viewpoints that took action on their beliefs.
And according to the Edelman Trust Barometer report “A World In Trauma,” businesses are now the most trusted institution worldwide.
There is an expectation that companies will continue to focus on big social and political issues in the same ways they have this year.
But does this mean taking a political stance is the right move for all brands?
The Research: Potential for Negativity
Two great recent studies shed significant light on the potential risks and rewards for brands taking controversial political stances.
Study #1
Directly addressing the question “How Do Consumers Feel When Brands Get Political,” James R. Bailey and Hillary Phillips published their findings in the Harvard Business Review. Here were the highlights (you can read the full methodology of the study here):
Conservative Values v. Liberal Values:
If a company expressed conservative values, it cast the company in a worse light overall. If a company expressed liberal values, it cast the company as neither good nor bad.Republican v. Democratic Consumers:
Republican consumer’s views of a company were not affected by whether it expressed conservative or liberal values. Democratic consumer’s views were affected—the previous drop in support for a company expressing conservative values all came from them.Age:
The consumer’s age made no difference.Gender:
Consumers identifying as women saw the company as less committed and were less likely to purchase from them.Presence of Absence of Political Activity:
In general, consumer’s opinions of a company decreased when participants were told about political activity.Genuine Beliefs or Marketing Techniques:
The political political beliefs of companies were seen to be both genuinely held and designed to build loyalty by the majority of participants. Consumers thought that using advocacy to advertise was ok.
Overall, this study’s findings conclude that consumers are less swayed than they say they are by brands that take a stand—and that being political may not matter as much as surveys (and more vocal customers) would have us believe.
This leads into the next study, which breaks down types of consumers.
Study #2
In their April 2021 research study “When Brands (Don’t) Take My Stance: The Ambiguous Effectiveness of Political Brand Communication,” Marc Jungblut and Marius Johnen look at two distinct types of consumers:
Buycotters
People who will actively start purchasing from a brand following an eventBoycotters
People who will actively stop purchasing from a brand following an event
Their findings show significant differences in the types of consumers who are inclined towards these behaviors—and in how they react to situations involving brands.
Buycotters tend to be more conservative, and more buycotters identify as women. Buycotters are more trusting and altruistic. They also tend to be involved in voluntary association and express higher political interest.
Boycotters tend to be highly educated, and boycotters are equally split between genders. Boycotters’ decision to participate in boycotts might be largely independent from political interest.
Boycotting relies on denser networks and interconnected groups of people, whereas buycotting is individualistic and less driven by organized collective action.
Buycotting is a rewarding and cooperative behavior, whereas boycotting is conflict-oriented behavior meant as a collective punishment. As such, boycotting is more salient and more likely to draw media attention. And the effectiveness of boycotting can be estimated to be higher than the effects of buycotting. This fits in with the concept of negativity bias: people show a stronger tendency toward negative stimuli as compared to positive ones.
The study also found that consumers’ negative reaction to the stand taken by a brand had a much larger effect on both (1) what the consumer thought about a brand and (2) whether the consumer would buy the brand—compared to a consumer’s positive reaction.
Overall, the results suggest that the potential negative effects of boycotting outweigh the positive effects of buycotting—meaning that political brand communication is a very risky strategy, especially when it comes to controversial issues.
Here’s Where We Are
There’s a landscape where customers are demanding that brands take a stand and saying that brands’ political positions influence their decisions in a big way.
And then there’s research demonstrating that people are not as influenced as they say they are—and that the negative effects of a political stand can potentially far outweigh the rewards, especially on controversial issues.
This leaves you as brand owners stuck at the classic intersection.
The political questions aren’t going away anytime soon.
Next week, I’ll be giving you the 5 Point Framework I’ve developed that you can use to evaluate all of your controversial brand decisions moving forward.
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About Me
I help early stage founders create the kind of brands that get customers so obsessed, they’ll do your advertising for you.
Based on my experience founding my own consumer brand, I developed The Branding Sprint—a uniquely collaborative, streamlined, and agile approach to brand creation.
Click here to learn more about The Branding Sprint, or schedule a call with me.