The battle cries in the marketing battlefield are getting louder. But hold on a moment. Are those really battle cries or the cacophony of chaos that emerges from the copycat wars?

It’s hard to ignore the imitation games that brands play these days. Everyone wants to crush the competition. Everyone wants to ride the ‘moments’ wave. How does it matter if the moment is not relevant to your brand? Everyone is doing it and so must we.

Look at this from a distance and you’ll see the amusing resemblance to the tale ‘The Pied Piper of Hamlin’. The piper plays his flute and all the mice in the city follow him to their death.

Unfortunately, that is what entropy does too. It will bring about the death of a brand because, in today’s hyper-competitive market, it is only the authentic, the original, the genuine who will last.

But is this information new? No. So then, why do we continue to succumb to entropy?

When you can’t innovate, copy

Look closer, and you’ll find this to be the marketing weapon-of-choice of many. In a market that grows in hyper-competitiveness in seconds, innovation seems like too lofty a goal. The urge to capitalize on every trend and every moment guide the marketing rulebooks. Who cares if these trends are aligned with your brand purpose?

The copycat mindset seems to be at play here. Since everyone is jumping on the moments and trends wagon, most brands feel like they will lose out their “moment” in the sun. This fear becomes even more real when we look at the digital playing field – one where likes, shares, retweets become a barometer of success. It’s undeniable that brands are getting popularity in these fields. That original tweet about the price of bananas got some many RT’s, didn’t it. But is that what your brand will be known for in the future, well, even, tomorrow?

But coming up with original ideas is easy, said no one ever. And in the face of these forces at play, brands find it easy to piggyback on other’s ideas rather than focusing on their inherent values.

The herd mentality

Hasn’t a teacher or a parent ever asked you “if your friends jump into a well, will you do it too”? Most answers to this have been of vehement denial. Why would you in your right mind jump into a well just because your friends are?

But what if your friends are all buying the latest iPhone? As you see them using the cool features and the even cooler photographs and hear the conversation about how ‘cool’ the phone is, chances are you’ll end up buying one as well.

People are influenced by people. Period. Take a look at the growth of influencer marketing and you’ll know what we mean. Marketers and brands leverage this herd mentality (meaning “ the obedience of the individual to the mass, blindly and without reflection…”) to influence their customers. At the same time, they are influenced by the herd mentality too – everyone is doing it and so must I.

You reason that since everyone is leveraging striking an emotional cord as a marketing campaign, you feel you must too. But does this work for you?

Axe, for example, took the idea of the emotional cord and worked their campaign “Find Your Magic” to deconstruct a culture of “toxic masculinity”. Axe made a complete pivot from its old ‘bro-centric’ ideas of man and womanhood. They used no influencers nor celebrity ambassadors to create an emotionally charged campaign. And they won.

McDonald’s, on the other hand, used grief to build an emotional connect with a TV ad about a boy asking about his dead father. The ad was widely criticized for exploiting child bereavement to push a brand (especially since it was in queasy proximity to father’s Day) and also drew many unflattering comparisons to Nationwide Insurance’s “dead boy” Super Bowl TV Spot.

Yes, the audience today demands emotional resonance – but not at the cost of authenticity. They will call you out.

Authentic is just too hard

Had it been easy, everything in this world would have been original and authentic.

It is far easier to co-opt and exploit an issue or a trend, even in a cynical, emotional or humorous way, than to build something authentic. Take a look at the ‘rainbow washing’ that happens every June when Pride fever grips all. Or for that matter, look at how brands jumped on the ‘issue-driven’ wagon.

Where Pepsi’s tone-deaf ad featuring Kendel Jenner became the most mocked campaign in 2017 as they tried to address diversity. At the same time, Heineken got plenty of claps for its “Worlds Apart” campaign that not only addressed the diversity issue but also other hot button topics such as climate change, feminism. Heineken steered away from the corn syrup unity formula and brought together real people with opposing views and started a dialogue. When it came to ‘authenticity’ the Heineken campaign won as they did not focus on presenting vague representations of conflicting points of view.

We cannot emphasize enough – entropy will eventually lead your brand to a fall. Because when you succumb to the forces of chaos you are drifting away from your inherent positive valence. You are shifting towards something that is not your own. How can you position yourself in a differentiated manner when you become a clone? How can your voice be heard if you swim in a sea of noise?

So while the temptation to do what others are doing might be high, and the rewards might seem immediate, know that it is only the original and the authentic that survive the test of time. The copycats fade into oblivion.

 

Write to us on info@lokusdesign.com.