Did My Brand Betray Me? Did It Act Self Centered? Brand in Times of Crisis

The concepts of ‘I’, ‘Me’ and ‘Mine’ are central to consumption. From these emanates foundational assumption of consumer rationality of choice. This means consumers are guided by self interest and pursue it in their choice of products and brands. Brands are judged against these objectives and values and choice is guided by maximization principle. Consumers are assumed to be utility/ want/pleasure maximizers. So which detergent gives better whiteness Tide or Rin, better fairness Fair & Lovely or Fairever, better personality fit Harley or Ducati?

The question arises – does Covid 19 pandemic and resultant confined existence have had any perspective altering effect on people? Did pictures of hunger, migration, and suffering not shake self obsessed, self centered evaluation of things around? Did it foster reflection on Thomas Scanlon’s idea of ‘what do we owe to each other’? Did it create mindfulness towards the plight of others? Did it make us unreasonableness in the exclusive pursuit of self interest?

Probably yes. It is human to be empathetic. It’s good to be sensitive to others. The exclusive dedication to self interest and promotion is reductionist. It is animal like. The humanitarian and existentialist crises created by the pandemic could re-orient people to be sensitive to ‘others’ from an extended perspective of humanity. The insular thinking and dominance of self interest has perhaps been visited by consciousness and conscience. Not everybody is prone to be impacted equally. Tragedies and trying times are also times of reflection. They are disruptive. The ideas and ideals and their validity is reassessed from an extended perspective. Here was an opportunity to look at things from narrow confines of ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘mine’.

What, in this situation would be expected of brands? Brands are anthropomorphized (given human like character, Marlboro man) and animism  (attribution of soul to an inanimate thing) is used to extend their perception beyond ‘thingness’ to ‘humanness’. Relationship is a human thing, and brands forge  relationships with their consumers to expand their mutuality beyond pure rationalistic-utility centric dimension (usefulness and its corresponding price)  into subjective psychological, social and spiritual axis (care giver- J&J, protector-– Good Kinght, trustworthy- Tata, playful partner-Manforce). The relationship implies connection and flow. What would consumers expect to flow from brand in the times of existentialist and humanitarian crisis: indifference or action?

Here was an opportunity for product and corporate brands to expand their territory into higher realm of goodness. How many corporate and product brands were at the forefront in alleviating suffering from migration, hunger, displacement and illness? Why is it that doing good (which essentially means other-centeredness, benevolence, compassion, empathy) is not perceived to make good business sense?  Does it deliver poorly on return on investment? Is basing brand building on fundamental human values not a good strategy?

Who wins respect, trust, loyalty and love in human relationships? History shows people have always rallied behind essential goodness or just cause. They gathered, suffered and even scarified their lives for people who stood for good cause (Martin Luther King, Mahatama Gandhi). Goodness has some invisible pull. It touches core particle of the material that humans are made of. If goodness is sought and valued in human relationships, would it not be sought from brands who try to be our partners in life?

A lot can be learnt from religions of the world. The religion-follower bonding (often fanatic like) does not emanate utilitarian discourse but from precise opposite of it- extracting surrender to the idea of goodness. It explains why people associated with different religious organizations were at the forefront of serving humanity even at the cost of risk of Covid 19 infection. Did acts of policemen helping the helpless touch deeper chords in heart? Did the acts of care by doctors and other staff not make eyes moist? Answer is yes.

How do you feel about the brands who remained bystanders to the crisis? Is it a sense of betrayal?

Tom Hanks, Cast Away, Confinement, Brands and Consumer Behavior

To many, my comparison of Covid 19 lock down confinement with Tom Hank’s being marooned on an uninhabited island may seem unfair but in many ways we all have had our Cast Away moments.

Locked within the boundaries of our homes a big part of what we call as ‘Me’ and ‘Mine’ seem to have either vanished or got pushed into background. Like Chuck Noland, the confinement has a stripping effect on different identities and identifications and identifiers on which marketing relies to make consumption going. Things portrayed as core or essential in consumer’s imagination were scrutinized and reassessed for their real role in the now hugely curtailed ‘area’ or ‘Kshetra’.

Like Chuck Noland’s solitary life on the island, days are now about searching for means of survival like food, water and shelter for the poor. But for some well endowed and rich people, confinement means struggle to find ways to survive without what may be called ‘imagined’ necessities.  However, for many it has been an opportunity to take a relook at consumerist urges and real relevance of things in life. The narrowing of physical, emotional, social and identity spaces (kshetras) and consequent insulation from measurements on scales of good life is an opportunity to assess things considered normal:

Physical: being physically confined and not being able to move through areas of hyper stimulation (roads, markets, office) may lead us inwards into inquiry about questions about our ‘essence’ ‘purpose’ and ‘journey’. The forced quiet may lead many of us to yearn for meaning alternate to what is constructed in the consumerist narrative and realization that we are not what we own or possess. Brands have to demonstrate that are not simply means of providing utility rather they have essence beyond the contents of package.

Emotional: use of emotions like fear, greed, envy and pride is as old as marketing communication is. But what happens when an invisible and invincible Corona virus lurks everywhere in air, on people, surfaces, vegetables, newspapers. Concerns relating to not looking good or not having a bigger car pale in comparison to a threatened existence. It is a return to the need for safe and secure existence at the most basic level. Covid 19 showed how brand based discrimination took back seat and was replaced by basic concerns to secure food and other  necessities notwithstanding the signifiers on them. Amidst insecurity people bought as much as they could to hoard for the days to come.

When the fight became about survival, we saw how concept of neighborhood or brotherhood became irrelevant. The fight here is no different from Chuck Noland’s hunt for fish and coconut for survival. Brands are supposed to have relationships like people have with each other. Did we see brands and their stewards missing from action in assuring and addressing their consumers’ fears and insecurities in their most vulnerable state? Did we see brands in empathetic role towards their consumers?

Social: Chuck Noland in Cast Away was all alone on an island; accordingly there was no other individual to measure his achievements against on yardsticks of success. How do people measure their life and whether these yardsticks are of our own choice or are these subtly planted in by consumption centric narrative of brands? Being social gives rise to relativity of positioning on scale of ownership/possession which in turn becomes the basis of our realization of need for belonging, pride and esteem. The material world is pushed into pivot around which we as consumers are trapped in unending cycle.  Life is reduced to outdoing each other on things defined as ours which in turn define our sense of identity.

What effect did the lockdown have on people? Suddenly all the deployments of scoring relative superiority and differentiation lost their potency. The reduction of social circle within narrow confines of home with intimately known members may have led to realization of irrelevance of the need for external validation. The social networks may not be able to lend themselves in play of games of pride and esteem. Does this period of lockdown make us realize the absoluteness of self/soul, and irrelevance of living life on basis of comparisons? The consumers could develop sense of seeing through the ploy brands use to fuel greed and envy to make money. It may endanger change and alignment in buying criteria in favor of basic or no-logo things.

Identity: The Gita gives the distinction between real and false identity. At the heart of identity are the questions ‘who am I’ and ‘what is its meaning’ and ‘what is its purpose’. In the consumerist discourse the notion of identity is constructed around ‘body’ and its belongings. The house, car, watch, clothes, farm belong to body around which our identity is constructed with dimensions such as gender, ethnicity, clan, language, nationality, education. The Gita on the other hand draws attention to the dweller of body which is real identity, the soul. It is absolute and eternal.

The confinement may have forced many consumers to think about themselves in different ways than we are conditioned to. With identifiers losing their significance and realization dawning about the finiteness of life, it is likely to orient people to engage in deep thinking, stripped of material concerns. The falsity of identity based on possession does not seem to help. The expanse of our ‘aham’ constructed on material things is suddenly rendered false. We are nothing more than a speck of dust. For many, confinement became an opportunity to expand understanding of what we call life and its meaning. The question arises as to how deeply would these thoughts alter consumers? If this realization is durable, consumers would connect better with brand with purpose.  Brands that thrive on envy appeal may lose connection with consumers who no do not want to compete on scale of relativity. A sense of detachment with ‘possession’ that we call ours may foster consumer identity that celebrates minimalism.

Covid 19 and consequent lockdown has twisted of the imagination of many. It may have triggered a journey inwards into search of answers to questions that require deep thinking. The lockdown probably has had effect on altering consumerist orientation which is thought to be a fundamental driving force. But existential crises unleashed by Covid 19 could force reassessment of value of things that are marketed as integral to modern life. The question remains how durable this impact is going to be.