How Cancel Culture Can Crush Your Business? - 3 Tips To Avoid Being Cancelled
Cancel culture, like a Goliath, has crushed an army of businesses, influencers, personal brands, and so much more. During the past weeks, we have seen businesses, celebrities, and personal brands get canceled at a high rate due to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Let me not get ahead of myself, let’s begin by defining the term ‘canceled’. When a person or entity is referred to as ‘canceled’, it means that the person or entity is “Done for with no redemption.” and usually follows with a group of people boycotting or shunning the referred person or entity.
As a marketer, you are the voice of the company you work with and one mishap can cost the organization. If people decide to boycott your company, that is thousands, if not millions, of dollars lost in sales.
However, you can navigate today’s vocal and hypersensitive world by knowing the following:
What causes a call for cancelation and boycotting?
How to avoid the causes within your organization?
What Causes a Call for Cancellation?
Cancel Culture became popular at the peak of the #MeTooMovement in 2018-2019. Influential and famous public figures who were exposed for being sexual predators were proclaimed “canceled”. That phrase stuck and became a call to action for any public figure that was exposed for holding or practicing perceived harmful and problematic values, beliefs, and actions.
Recently, cancel culture started to be directed at companies. In the middle of the pandemic, a video of a man called George Floyd being suffocated and killed by a cop went viral and resulted in a global outrage against police brutality and racism referred to as the Black Lives Matter Movement. May 2020, supporters of the movement began to expose companies who have shown problematic, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, and especially racist behavior.
To clarify, the cause for cancellation can be, but is not limited to:
Problematic behavior
Offensive statements
Racist behavior, values, and discrimination
Transphobic or homophobic discrimination
Sexist behavior and values
Problematic Ads
Environmental damages
Unfair Trade
Poor Ethics
You may think “it will blow over, they’ll forget about it once something else comes along.” Although that may be true, being boycotted or canceled can be damaging. Let me explain why getting boycotted, even for a week, can cost you.
Why ‘Cancel Culture’ Is a Serious Threat
In 2017, H&M released a hoodie that was viewed as racist and resulted in their biggest drop in profit within a six-year time frame. Cancel culture is not a myth and should be taken seriously within the marketing department.
The public, your consumers, have come to understand the power they have. With the option to purchase between you or your competitors, a consumer’s buying decision is based on experience, not necessarily the product. It has become about how consumers feel when they are an owner of your product, and how others will perceive them.
Here’s an example.
Suzy buys a new purse from Burberry, she’s excited to show off her new expensive bag from this luxury brand. As she’s strutting down the street, she overhears a girl whisper a comment on her Burberry purse to her friend.
“Is she wearing Burberry? That brand I was telling you about, they released a hoodie with a noose around the neck.” whispers the girl to her friend.
“Omg, why would anyone buy or support that brand?”
Now Suzy doesn’t feel so good about owning her expensive Burberry purse because it's no longer perceived as cool. No one cares that it is luxurious and costly, nobody cares that it places Suzy as an elite member of society. All they see is a girl wearing a brand that released a problematic hoodie in their 2019 Runway Collection. That experience increases the unlikelihood that Suzy will purchase from Burberry the next time she needs a luxury purse.
In February 2019, Burberry received backlash for its noose hoodie design. March 2019, the company reported a decrease in sales.
Problematic behavior that leads to being ‘canceled’, alters the emotional connection consumers have with your brand. In marketing, it is often referred to as positioning. Problematic behavior alters your brand’s position and perception in the minds of consumers.
Let’s Talk Numbers
We know businesses run on capital. The goal is always to make more, not less. So let’s talk about how problematic behavior can cause a decrease in revenue.
Say a small business makes an average of approximately $1000 a day. If 35% of its customers decide to boycott the company and not purchase for a month, how much money will the company lose?
(Daily Rev*Days in Month) - (35% of Daily Rev in a Month) = loss of income for the month
($1000*30) - (($1000 x 0.35)*30) = loss of income for the month
This is how much the business is supposed to make every month, 30 days, on average:
$1000*30 = $30,000
Assuming that all consumers pay an equal amount for the products or services (like a subscription) and 35% of those consumers decide to boycott and not purchase for one month, this is how much revenue it will lose:
$30,000*0.35 = $10,500
So instead of making $30,000 for the month, the company only made $19,500. Of course the numbers can vary, they could be less or more. Regardless, you end up losing money and that is bad for business.
Realistically, some customers never come back. One of my marketing professors once told us that the oldest and most effective marketing method was ‘Word of Mouth’. This takes place when customers become your unpaid sales agent and spokesperson, recruiting new customers simply because they have an emotional attachment and positive relationship with the brand.
Inversely, ‘Word of Mouth’ can be used to keep customers away from your company. So if some of the 35% don’t ever come back, chances are that they are sharing their negative perception of your brand to their family, friends, coworkers, and social media followers.
This is why taking active measures to avoid appearing problematic is important.
Measures to Take to Avoid Being Problematic
We have all said and done things that can be considered problematic in our past that do not reflect who we are today, and companies are not any different. Social climates change and what is considered “acceptable” or “tolerable” is ever-changing. We all grow and become more aware.
Although “mistakes happen”, these mistakes can be very expensive. Therefore, it is more profitable to take measures now to avoid future disasters.
Here are three key initiatives companies can implement to decrease the chances of problematic communications;
Diverse staff on all levels
Social background checks
Social behavior training and education
Evolve with the times
Diverse Staff on All Levels
It is unfortunate that diversity in the workplace, especially in the age of globalization, is still an issue. A lot of companies who have displayed problematic behavior that seemed obviously offensive could have easily avoided taking the heat had they had a more diverse team.
Diversity does not refer to having a token person from the female gender, or POC, or the LGBTQ community. Diversity refers to an equal balance of people from the listed community on all levels such as management and executive positions.
This is especially an important step for companies who service a mass market.
Not every person belonging to a community thinks alike. I might not pick up on certain offensive content as a black woman, but someone belonging to my community might. Or they might not find certain things that can potentially be problematic, but I would. We may be from the same community but have different experiences as people of color.
This applies to all groups of people. Having an equally diverse team enables your company to identify problematic content internally before the external impact potentially harms your business.
Social Background Checks
I do not believe in holding someone’s past against them. Simply because we have all, at some point, said or believed in something ignorant and problematic that does not reflect who we are today. It is important to understand that people grow and change.
However, observing a potential employee’s recent social activities and behavior is crucial. Why? The people you choose to hire, are an indirect reflection of your company. It does not matter if your values, as a company, does not align with your employees, your customers will align your company with your employees’ problematic behaviors and beliefs.
They might be the right fit on paper, but do they fit with your company’s values and culture? Is their social behavior harmful to those around them and will it be a problem for your current employees?
Social Behavior Training and Education
Invest in training and educating your staff on harmful social behaviors and actions.
Please do not ask your POC staff to educate other staff on social issues that directly affect them. Understand that your POC staffs who have dealt with discrimination or hate have those experiences weighing heavy on their heart.
Instead, hire professional agencies that are trained and knowledgeable on such training.
Evolve with the times
Understand that there is a new generation of buyers and consumers. A generation that has the tendency to be more socially conscious, sensitive, well-traveled, educated, and united. As we have seen, they display more empathy and support for the struggles of their peers.
If your company slips, they will hold you responsible. Unfortunately, one slip-up can cost you. Consumer behaviors are changing. Consumers are more conscious about who they buy from and who they support.
With that being said, evolve with the times and do not fall behind. The next generation of buyers expects more from a company.
Thrive to be a good citizen, socially and environmentally responsible.
