The Thin Line Between Branding and Bulls**t

Remember the line, “it’s a thin line between love and hate”? Well I have one about branding that a bit more crude. There’s a thin line between branding and bulls**t.

Ever find yourself in a position where you’re trying to make everyone happy? It’s an interesting thing to think about because making everyone happy is impossible and you inevitably and ironically wind up miserable attempting to do so. Or have you ever found yourself in a position where you may have taken something on where you’re in over your head? Maybe you’ve been on a job interview for a job that’s beyond your skills. Or maybe you were in a meeting with a bunch of higher level people and you felt out of your league. You may have become a little self conscious and as a result found yourself trying to become more impressive than you actually were. Again an ironic way to behave since people who try to over-impress usually wind up coming across as unimpressive (maybe even annoying). No one but NO ONE is perfect. And we sometimes get into trouble as a result. We become frightened and we try to “BS” our way through our imperfections. This goes for brands a well.

One of the themes I’ve heard branding folks talk about over and over again is authenticity. “Brands need to be authentic.” They need to “tell a story.” This is all absolutely true. Though I would also argue that they need to keep it simple and to try not to over complicate things by becoming too clever or worse, by trying to manipulate their market’s brand perceptions. And maybe sometimes it’s a good idea to remember that branding at the end of the day is also about selling and making money. It’s about selling businesses, products and services. And selling can be tricky for anyone.

Not too long ago The North Face got itself into a pickle for attempting to post “authentic” photos of people wearing their products in very exotic places on Wikipedia. This was a scheme to advertise online without having to pay for ad distribution. Wikipedia is run by volunteer editors so its essentially free for people to post on its platform. Once Wikipedia found out what was happening they came out publicly and denounced what was happening as “duplicitous”. The North Face apologized and took its photos down. There was a Forbes article that went into a more detail about this calling out The North Face’s brand authenticity. The North Face paid highly skilled photographers to visit exotic places around the globe and shoot photos of models wearing their products. They went to great lengths to artificially portray their products in this very authentic manner. Not very nice. And definitely not very authentic either. But good on Wikipedia for ‘calling BS’ on The North Face.

Now, because nobody’s perfect AND because we all lie (at least a little), a brand can be forgiven for its BS. Take Häagen Dazs as a popular example among branding folks. The Häagen Dazs name can convey psychological associations of delicious desserts from some European tradition somewhere. But the truth is that the Häagen Dazs business was launched out of the Bronx back in 1961. There’s nothing European about it. Don’t even try to figure out the misuse of the umlat. But in all honesty does anyone care that Häagen Dazs branding is riddled with falsehood? Not really.

So why does The North Face’s falsehood seem so much worse than Häagen Dazs’? On the surface both companies have mislead their customers to believe something false, right?

The answer lies in the backdrop of the branding. While Häagen Dazs has given its ice cream a manipulated Dutch name its communication to its customers is more about sensuality, pleasure, sophistication and high quality. There may be some associations with European culture there but it doesn’t go beyond the realm of conventional associations with Europe that an average American may run into at any given point. At the end of the day Häagen Dazs delivers a good product and it doesn’t get in the way of its customers enjoying it. Plus, as the story goes, the founder had a fondness for the Dutch. And what’s not to love about the Dutch? So I think we forgive Häagen Dazs because the mistruth remains in the name itself. And sometimes names are just names.

But what The North Face did with its advertising was a bit more underhanded. They not only manipulated their customers’ perceptions, they manipulated Wikipedia’s platform while they were at it. It was almost hostile. Maybe it was hostile. It’s the kind of untruth that occurs from desperation. Not cool. This kind of behavior is nothing short of branding blasphemy (if there is such a thing).

Imagination, narrative and creativity are all a part of branding. Fantasy is falsehood but we can really enjoy reveling in it and we can have amazing experiences. That is as long as we know that we are suspending our disbelief. These are all healthy psychological states and there’s nothing wrong with indulging in them. But sometimes we cling too hard to the fantasy and that’s when we can run into trouble. We want it so badly that we start actually believing it as truth. This is where branding can become more like manipulation. And sometimes we may intentionally mislead and lie to our customers to make a buck. And this is where the manipulation becomes despicable.

So remember. Be imaginative with your stories. Create amazing experiences for people. Build products that usher in ambitious new approaches for improvements on a global scale for all of humanity. Just never forget that you’re also trying to make a buck and it can be very tempting to cross over that thin line into BS-ing yourself and your customers.