Over last few years, so much has been written and spoken by brands on embracing inclusive culture that it appears as if biases and prejudices have ceased to exist in the present world. Being an educator and trainer in the branding space, I get disturbed by the commodification of certain days & occasions which rest on virtues which should be held high.
Virtues of respect, equality, appreciation, motivation remain fresh and relevant in every age & time. And confining them to a single day/month/occasion, and that too when the space gets highly cluttered, is like pushing these virtues into a state of claustrophobia.
In the field of marketing and advertising, there is a term ‘Big idea’, which is popularly used to symbolize the foundation of a brand by creating a strong message that pushes its boundaries and resonates with the consumers.
David Ogilvy, who is known as Father of Advertising, said, ‘No idea is big unless it will work for thirty years.’ And some of the brands whose positioning has sustained for long number of years has been on high virtues & values.
Nike’s signature slogan, ‘Just Do It’ has been the same for more than 30 years which indicates a sense of inspiration & motivation for the athletes & one which will never lose its relevance for this target audience. Nike has remained consistent in their branding and global marketing strategies throughout the duration of the company.
Then to cite another example, brand Dove has been running ‘Real beauty’ campaign since 2004, though with certain controversies flaring up in between. But no one can deny that to define real beauty by what lies within and not what appears externally, is a virtue. And it should not be confined to any age, time, class, country, sect or sex. Definition of beauty has evolved over a period and brands like Dove have contributed well in this evolution & awareness towards bigger good. I see all of these as inclusive steps.
But what we are doing to Pride month, Women’s Day and many others, is like falling into the trap of meaningless marketing. The basic premise of marketing is to add value to the lives of customers, in a way which stays in their hearts & minds for long. Instead, we see today that brands are in a race to participate in the clutter, which has no appeal or recall value. Last year, during Pride month, my opinion article on inclusive culture got published on WARC, where I urged brands to move beyond commoditised pride for real impact.
When a brand considers entering the clutter as imperative strategy to leave positive impact, that strategy lacks the required strength and actually impedes the brand. As was recently seen when Flipkart, created a promotional message which read 👇👇
This message evoked widespread criticism on social media, as people felt that the brand reinforced stereotypes equating women with kitchen and cooking. For this goof-up, Flipkart later sent an apology on twitter.
All this was an outcome of one desperate step, just to participate in the message clutter on Women’s Day.
What exactly are stereotypes?
Aren’t we being stereotypical by making women feel special on a single day or week at most every year?
What after 8th March?
Won’t it be an equitable inclusive world if capabilities and achievements are celebrated over just the gender?
According to the International Women's Day website, March 8 is a global day celebrating social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.
Then why, every year, as the month of March begins, there is a flood of messages describing women as epitome of grace, purest at heart, one who makes sacrifices, who nurtures and so on. Is all of this only women-specific?
Then there are messages with calls to action (CTAs), to appreciate, make her smile, feel special. Is all of this specific just to a single day in a year, while the real impactful actions are still missing?
This got very well captured & highlighted this year by a twitter account @PayGapApp which functioned like a Bot and exposed the pay disparities existing in companies, which tweeted to celebrate their women work-force this International Women’s Day. This App was created by a British couple last year to use government data on gender pay gaps existing in British companies and this year it held businesses accountable for this. “Employers, if you tweet about International Women’s Day, I’ll retweet your gender pay gap,” it warned.
By the end of the day on International Women’s Day, @PayGapApp had gone viral, with more than 1,20,000 followers. The effort was widely applauded and the account’s popularity to this scale, reflected consumers’ growing demand for transparency from companies who create big campaigns against inequities, without paying heed to those perpetuating within their own workplaces.
Celebration of women’s achievements, highlighting their pressing issues, laying down policy measures, action plans should be the agenda of the day & its execution to be carried out through-out the year.
Otherwise, it will just be a game of Pride & Prejudice. As we frequently keep coming across posts on different panel discussions organised by all different brands. If the panel contains all women, it’s a moment of pride. But if it has all men, its stark prejudice. Then what follows is awakening, activism & apologies.
As it happened recently in Dec 2021👇👇
We have to normalise the living.
On International Women’s Day this year, Economic Times covered a story titled ‘Encouraging participation of women in STEM’. It put forth a harsh reality of very few women being present in the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM. Data supporting this grim situation states that only 17 women have won a Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry, or medicine since Marie Curie in 1903, compared to 572 men till 2017. Also, only 28% of all of the world’s researchers are women.
These deep-rooted issues and causes behind them need to be worked upon. Binds of social stigma, unmindful social expectations cannot be loosened by nominal activism on society front or overload of media promotions on brand marketers’ front. Just push aside the suppressions, limitations, restrictions and we will see the punch-line ‘Break the Bias’ losing its relevance.
Injustice, inequity exists in so many areas & with so many sections of society. Then a day should be dedicated to attend to each one of those issues if that can give long term solution. In a land of diverse cultures like India, do brands play their role in diffusing this diversity in all of their acts & strategies? So many sports champions hail from north-east India but their visibility on media remains so short-lived, that memories of their wins get shorter in our mind.
Definitely we need dedicated days to celebrate achievements. to celebrate emotions & relations. But not just a single day/month/occasion to showcase virtues, which should be part of everyday life and everyday brand campaigns.
I see problem when virtues like inclusivity get commodified and the moral state of the planet becomes just another marketing tactic. Brands & marketers have a bigger role to play. Once they acknowledge and showcase that responsibility, it will lead to further enhancement of their own brand value.
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