Act, don’t react, when it comes to marketing tactics
Why performative marketing tactics are damaging your brand and what to do about it.
Marketing tactics like real time marketing come and go all the time. So how do we know how to respond quickly and without damaging our brand? Bringing in an external agency or fresh talent to take over newer niches is a great way to stay on top of game. Thing is, there are a few foundations that need to be clearly laid out before starting.
In this blog we explore the faux-pas of one brand and how to thoroughly prepare your core brand values, and wider marketing team, for proactive real-time content marketing.
What is reactive marketing?
When done well, reactive marketing is in real time, matches the core brand values of an organisation, and can create great publicity for your proactive brand. However, when it is reactionary, and not properly considered, it can go very wrong. A couple of years ago L'Oréal was in the firing line after promoting content in support of the black lives matter movement. Their reactionary content ultimately was performative rather than part of a thoughtful, respectful and genuine content strategy. An ex-employee, Munroe Bergdorf, was let go from the organisation a few years prior because she’d been vocal on social media in support of justice for black people. L'Oréal said they had parted ways with Bergdorf because her ‘values were misaligned with the cosmetics brand’. In the end, they received a huge amount of media coverage because Bergdorf highlighted their hypocrisy and display of ‘white saviourism’.
Ractive marketing tactics sometimes come across as jumping on the bandwagon with populist trends and not fully considering how this may come across.
Many of us care about ‘populist’ issues personally, so how can we communicate our solidarity without it being performative?
As we explored above, many organisations desire to be agile enough to roll out real time content, however without core brand values driving the decision to act and a strategy on how to communicate in real-time, it's a performative reaction. Whilst as individuals, we have an emotional pull to support injustices; your brand is not a person - core brand values are the sense-check that must always come first.
Your brand evolves over time with its audience and brand guardians, but the lines of communication must be clarified in advance, even if the message itself is more fluid.
How can my brand make sure we’re proactively marketing in real time?
You'll be caught out if your core brand values are not aligning with your content. Make sure your team knows exactly what values, issues, themes and topics your brand supports. This could result in a decision making framework that asks simple yes/no questions to aid your marketing team in quickly responding.
Realise that your brand cannot be all things to all people. Collaborate with other organisations and communities who can talk about the cause, issue or topic you want to support. They could become an ambassador on behalf of your brand, create the content or, at the very least, sense-check your message.
Keep and ear to the ground. It takes time to develop and roll out a content marketing strategy that touches all areas of your business. Listen internally and externally to what stakeholders care about.
Appoint a brand guardian who has final sign-off for real time content. This person has permission to say ‘no’.
Frequently revisit your core brand values with your marketing team - when forward-planning content ideas, during monthly meet-ups or during one-to-ones.
Do your research. What is the motivation of the subject? Why now? Who is responsible for it? Where is the conversation happening?
There are many examples of how brands responded to the black lives matter campaign in solidarity
The brands who got it right aligned their responses with their brand values, understood the history of the subject matter, held their hands up as part of the problem, vowed to ally themselves with the campaigns’ aims and work toward eradicating white supremacy with firm actions and pledges they will be taking part in.
Time to refresh your brand values to meet the current climate? Message us at cath@ipsaconsulting.co.uk for more info.