Blurred vision
Written for ‘Dossier’; the Hello studio journal, 2018.
Lately, brands are falling over themselves to tell you what they stand for, but when it comes to putting ideas into action, many fall flat on their faces.
Examples of brands and organisations behaving badly are making the news with increasing regularity. When the Financial Times’ undercover journalists exposed the behaviour of the Presidents Club diners, the resulting race to see who could do outrage the most ranged from the venue that held it (‘utterly against our values’) to the men who were there (‘deplorable’). Even the organisers themselves were ‘deeply concerned’ by their own event, before swiftly disbanding. RIP the dead presidents.
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The only ones not surprised were the girls themselves. ‘I can’t believe I’m back here again’ said one, rolling her eyes with a resigned sigh.
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The founder of the agency who contracted the hostesses for the night stated that if there was truth in the allegations surrounding the event, she would be ‘astonished’ due to the ‘calibre of guest’. That the big hitters of the media, finance and corporate world could behave like this was somehow surprising. The only ones not surprised were the girls themselves. ‘I can’t believe I’m back here again’ said one, rolling her eyes with a resigned sigh. For them, this was business as usual.
Let´s be honest, no-one assumes that just because you are at the head of a successful company, you must by association be a stalwart example of noble behaviour. That the road to success has been all about doing the right thing, as well as having a good head for business. The problem is that many of those present at the Dorchester are at the head of corporations that dedicate a significant amount of time and effort convincing the public that at the core of everything they do are values such as integrity, respect and inclusiveness.
The implication of acting in the opposite way is that these are just words, and - when push comes to grope - they mean, literally, nothing. Brand values as token gestures are one thing, but they can also be taken to another, more evangelical extreme. When ‘google glass’ was launched, a young computer programmer objected to the idea of a constant invasion of privacy. So, he created a ‘glass free zone’ poster in protest, making it available for download. Which it was, on a large scale. He was surprised then to get a call from Google themselves. They arranged a meeting with him to discuss the issue. Would there be a legal challenge? some kind of offer? as it turned out, there was neither. The guys he met ‘loved his poster’, and wanted to find out how they could ‘get on board’.
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Airbnb is coming under increasing criticism for the effect that they’re having on the city centers of their top destinations.
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The implication here was that there couldn´t possible be any objection to the glasses, because this was Google right? this was the future, so what’s not to like?. It´s the brand ´red haze’; the familiar sight of a company CEO bounding onto a keynote stage, whooping and air punching himself to the edge of a dad-dancing coronary, while weeping ‘I love this company’ into the mic.
Brand vision can be blinding. Increasingly, ex employees of Facebook are speaking out about their regret at having devoted their efforts to developing tools that are, in their view, ‘destroying the social fabric of how society works’. Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice-president of user growth at facebook won´t let her kids ‘anywhere near’ social media. Ethan Zuckerman, a Director and professor at MIT, explained this phenomena as being caught up in the intense process of building, then suddenly looking from the outside and being less than thrilled about the reality of what they’ve actually built. Zuckerman himself invented the pop-up advert, with the original idea being that it would avoid association between a brand and a page’s content. ‘I wrote the code to launch the window and run an ad in it. I’m sorry. Our intentions were good’.
Airbnb is coming under increasing criticism for the effect that they’re having on the city centers of their top destinations. The positive message of ‘Don’t go there, live there’ is being met with a robust ‘tourist, go home’ from the locals, who can’t get to work for congested streets, and have to deal with the stag party who have airdropped into their residential barrio and pissed all over their doormat. Airbnb is a brilliantly realised and effective brand, but such is their success that it’s working to the detriment of the neighbourhoods that they celebrate as being ‘authentic and real’. Last summer anti tourist ‘direct action’ sprang up across Spain, with a sight-seeing bus held up by protesters on las ramblas, and anti tourist graffiti springing up from San Sebastian to Sitges.
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The days when brands could treat values as token ‘fluff’ are over. Now we seem to be in a new era of dealing with the skewed realisations of well intentioned visions.
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Is this a problem for individual city authorities, or do brands such as Airbnb have a ‘duty of care’ to the environments that they impact? The days when brands could treat values as token ‘fluff’ are over. Now we seem to be in a new era of dealing with the skewed realisations of well intentioned visions. From Smartphone addiction to fake news and online abuse, it seems we’re getting afflicted as quickly as we’re getting connected, and a pushback is in the air. Companies like Uber and Deliveroo are being forced to recognise that, yes, they do actually have employees, and social media platforms are being held accountable for the content that they publish.
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It’s good to have a clear idea of what your brand stands for, but also important to be aware of its wider responsibilities.
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Coffee franchises are coming under increasing pressure to sell their products in recyclable cups, and supermarkets are being rightly ridiculed for inventing fake heritage brand packaging to hide the real origins of their contents. Iceland (which prides itself on being a family run business) has committed to plastic free packaging, and Lloyds recently became the first FTSE 100 firm to set an ethnic diversity target.
It’s good to have a clear idea of what your brand stands for, but also important to be aware of its wider responsibilities. It may be worth getting a ‘sight check’ now and again, and its in your own best interests to be honest.
