#12 Brand Partnerships, Carbon-positive initiatives & The Goop candle
This week I saw one of my campaigns out in the real world - I don’t know about you, but seeing people interact with it in the tube or in social media it’s one of the best things of this job. Advertising is a very cynical industry, but building brands is a great job - there are 5 articles in the Extra Links section that gave me new perspectives and I highly recommend. Let’s get into this week’s edition.
⚡️Fast culture (something popular/trendy this week)
Something a little bit different this week - “The Sussex vs The Royal Family” is actually a good excuse to talk about brand partnerships gone wrong.
We know that brand partnerships are key to deliver growth - they allow brands to reach new audiences, build long-term equity, unlock new creative opportunities (amongst other benefits) but for them to be successful, there needs to be shared values and vision.
Meghan Markle was already a brand (although small in comparison) way before marrying her husband. A low-profile celebrity, she was outspoken on social issues, a committed volunteer for UN Women, and editor of her lifestyle blog (on which she hoped ‘to integrate social consciousness and subjects of higher value into the beauty conversation’). Prince Harry is also a brand, well-liked after some issues during his teens/early 20s, but part of a collective (like a Zayn from One Direction). The really strong brand here is The Royal Family and the one who had the upper hand in terms of how the partnership was to unfold. So what can we learn from this brand partnership gone wrong? It might be down to these four reasons:
Misaligned values – the Royal Family is the establishment and is immutable, they don’t voice or share opinions on anything. 11-year-old Markle was already writing letters to companies demanding they change harmful gender stereotypes in their advertisements, so difficult to keep your views to yourself when you were encouraged not to do so since a very early age.
A loose contract – being part of the Royal Family is a job on its own, but what does it actually entail? There are other members of ‘the firm’ who have paid jobs, so there was a poorly defined agreement.
Lack of trust – there were probably issues from the family towards MM (an American woman of colour, and divorcee), but also a lack of trust from Harry towards the family for its inability to manage the racist treatment that Meghan has received from tabloids.
Poor execution – It’s clear that Harry & Meghan wanted to do so much more than what they were allowed to. Setting up their own website and filing a trademark of their brand show that they will do things their own way, whether the rest of the family likes it or not.
The key to a successful brand partnership? The right match of brands, common goals, shared rewards and honesty on both sides. More in Admap.
🌎Slow culture (change in behaviours or values in society)
The first Consumer Electronics Show -CES- was held 53 years ago, but it only became the thing that is today in the mid-2000s. At the start of the century, the optimism around tech was undeniable and CES started to be functional to the idea that January is the time to upgrade ourselves with crazy, wacky tech.
As Amanda Mull in The Atlantic puts it ‘no one on the Las Vegas Strip sells their services by pretending to save the world’. I’m really interested to see the role of tech in the narrative of self-improvement and the pursuit of “constant upgrade” being challenged. ‘At CES, the only solution for technology-induced stress is more technology’.
🖌Unusual pattern (two unrelated things coming together)
Gwyneth Paltrow released an already sold out candle last Friday named “This Smells Like My Vagina”. According to the website, its ‘funny, gorgeous, sexy and beautifully unexpected scent’ is a mix of ‘geranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with damask rose and ambrette seed’.
Even though I would like to dismiss this as absolutely ridiculous (I detest Goop’s fake science) and even harmful (it sends the wrong message to women about what their vaginas might/should smell like), there is a reason why this product is sold out. The sextech sector is growing a lot and launching very interesting new products worth monitoring. Even though this candle is not technology, it signals that we are ready to start thinking/talking about sex in a new way and loose some of the shame and embarrassment around it.
🎯Cultural insight (the insight from culture behind an advert)
Quorn will be including the carbon footprint of their most popular products on the packaging, calling out the carbon impact of the product from factory to shop. Flight-shaming is already growing, and carbon-shaming might join it.
How it could evolve? Carbon neutral initiatives turn into climate-positive plans, with brands announcing carbon-positive practices.
🕶 Bonus track
TikTok of the week: Memes that start on Reddit almost always end up on Twitter (but hardly ever on YouTube), Tweets are shared on Instagram as screenshots, TikToks are uploaded on YouTube as compilations (but you’ll never found them on Facebook). This video explores how content propagates online.
Extra links:
Building a brand across the scale of immediacy: Practical progress from a theory of online advertisements, by Gareth Price, which overlays Stephen King’s Scale of Immediacy framework with seven responses to advertising to explore how online advertising works.
A long read by M. Weigel on why the marketplace can’t replace the function of the estate or democracy. “The idea of the vigilant, hyper-engaged ‘ethical consumer’ assumes a level of mass-market engagement and activism that is simply not found. The only similarity between the marketplace and politics is the absence of total transparency’.
The Wide and Narrow of it, by Omar El Gammal, on how to build brands ‘wide’ (through the power of shared and collective cultural moments) and ‘narrow’ (the power of individual and personal customer experience). A theory I really subscribe to.
Cultural shifts to watch in 2020, by Victoria Gerstman, from the always brilliant people at Canopy Insight.
JWT Intelligence: The Future 100 2020 a report which I always find myself going back to during the year because it’s always so, so good.
Thanks so much for reading, and if you want to share any thoughts on this week’s edition, just hit reply to this email and I’ll get back to you, or connect with me on Twitter.
Cultural Patterns is a newsletter by Florencia Lujani about culture, creativity and strategy. If you’ve enjoyed it, consider subscribing :)