The Chief Is Always Right
What does a small child do when they can’t make sense of all the different information? They go ask Dad or Mom. They turn to an authority figure. After all, authority is synonymous with boundless trust. And adults do the same thing in this age of information overload. But who, in today’s world, is the authority figure we trust?
Repeated studies by leading behavioral economists, led by Daniel Kahneman, have revealed a rather harsh truth about human behavior. While classical economists believed that people make rational and economically sound decisions, behavioral economists have repeatedly demonstrated that human decision-making—contrary to our individual interests—is driven primarily by emotions and beliefs. And this key finding has only recently come to light: People are more likely to believe information that supports their existing beliefs.
People believe information that supports their beliefs
I’ll try to say it one more time. People tend to believe information that supports their beliefs. It doesn’t matter how true or outdated that information is. This proves, then, that the cornerstone of marketing communication is a widely accepted stereotype or a shared truth.
Well, this is where things start to get more complicated. There are certainly a number of widely shared truths and stereotypes in the world—such as the idea that snakes are dangerous or that health is the most precious thing we have—but most of our beliefs divide us into a billion different groups. For simplicity’s sake, we can call them “opinion tribes.”
Just as we see overlaps in beliefs and culture among religions, we also see them among tribes—for example, Jesus is not only a Christian figure but also a minor prophet in Islam. Similarly, tribes may have elements in their beliefs that overlap. These overlaps can sometimes lead to surprising alliances, but generally speaking, if you do not share a belief, you do not understand the language of the other tribe because you are drawing on different information. In this age of information overload, we have an endless amount of information to choose from to support our beliefs. And where there is an excess of information, there is a shortage of attention. The attention economy forces us to reach for the first piece of information that resonates with us and reinforces our beliefs.
The attention economy puts pressure on us to decide to whom we’ll give our eyes and ears. It’s therefore crucial not only that the content aligns with our beliefs, but also that its producer, spokesperson, or author be authentic. In other words, they must wear the tribe’s clothing and speak its language so that we can trust them. Combining information that reinforces our beliefs with a persona that resonates with us creates a relevant brand.
Are brands and political leaders authentic? Can we trust them as authorities? With a few exceptions, no. That’s why both political leaders and commercial brands need to win over the chiefs of individual tribes. While in politics the situation is clear in a polarized society—we have the “coalition” and “opposition” tribes—for commercial brands, this can be a significantly more difficult task.
Speak my language
According to research, a brand’s authenticity is clearly enhanced by a clear articulation of its mission—especially when it comes to issues of differing beliefs, whether we’re talking about sustainability, human rights, or helping those in need or animals. However, your mission carries different levels of importance for each tribe and may even become the subject of a culture war. For example, if a tribe of older white men is fighting to preserve fond memories of their youth by defending their right to objectify women’s bodies and slap a female colleague on the butt whenever they want, supporting women in business and their empowerment will likely be a mission that contradicts their beliefs and the information they’ve chosen to support them. So how can Nike appeal to Bernard Brewery’s customers?
They need to hire their chief, because he’s the only one they trust. Not just to dress him in Nike clothing, but to find out from him what would help his tribe. We need to listen to the tribes and their chiefs. For most of its century-long history, Dickies has provided people in the U.S. with durable workwear. The brand was founded in 1922 by C.N. Williamson and E.E. Dickie in Fort Worth, Texas, and its heritage dates back to the overalls supplied to farms and ranches in the country’s Southwest during its early years. Since then, it has formed the foundation of uniforms for a wide range of often physically demanding jobs, from supplying the military during World War II to outfitting hospital staff with coveralls.
In recent years, the Dickies brand has entered a new chapter with a different customer base, as artists and creators, dancers, and skateboarders have begun wearing it. For over two decades now, Dickies has been a leading skate brand. This is a pattern that has emerged with many brands that were once known for their practicality and indifference to fleeting, short-lived trends. Carhartt is one of the most obvious comparisons, as are other functional brands owned by VF Corporation, which acquired Dickies in 2017. These include, for example, The North Face and Timberland. Both are experiencing a renaissance in the worlds of rap and celebrity culture.
Don't criticize; listen
So how can we communicate effectively with such a broad audience? For starters, we need to make sure the brand doesn’t come across as a preacher. “I think brands sometimes make the mistake of thinking they can buy their way in and simply impose the brand on an individual or a community, and I think that’s a mistake. That’s why I believe that being part of a community means giving back, and that’s what we really need to identify,” says Crockett, head of marketing at Dickies.
Dickies didn’t come up with their company mission from scratch. Since they’d already been on the market for some time, they looked at where their sales were growing and took a step toward engaging with those communities. Their advertising materials no longer featured only nurses and farmers, but also skateboarders, artists, and chefs from street food stalls. It’s an approach rooted in the values of openness and empathy for customers’ needs.
Another option is to simply forget about the brand name and use “chief” instead. In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up cosmetics brands, which were largely dependent on in-store sales. Despite shutdowns and supply chain disruptions, however, the industry continues to grow, with the global cosmetics market projected to reach $480.4 billion by 2030, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.1%. Nevertheless, industry giants such as L’Oréal and Estée Lauder, which reported double-digit growth in 2021, are not the only ones benefiting from consumers’ obsession with skincare routines and makeup tutorials on TikTok.
Celebrity-owned beauty brands are popping up everywhere we look—especially on social media. Megastars including Kim Kardashian and Hailey Bieber recently launched skincare lines aimed directly at consumers, while male celebrities like Harry Styles and Pharrell Williams are breaking into the men’s and unisex beauty markets with their own brands. The Fenty fashion brand has made its founder one of its clan leaders. Behind Rihanna stands a large community of young African American women who demand special attention for their skin, whose tone is typically overlooked by major cosmetics companies. They are young, and sustainability is certainly one of their core values—which is why Fenty recently introduced sustainable and recyclable packaging for its cosmetics.
However, the research agency Ipsos took a close look at the entire D2C (direct-to-consumer) celebrity brand sector. The total volume of online conversations about celebrity beauty brands on social media, blogs, and forums has increased by 22% over the past 12 months. Not everyone is enthusiastic about these new skincare and makeup options, however; negative sentiment has risen significantly because celebrities—and their brands—are tied to the online environment, where it’s easier to leave a negative review.
If you’re a company that’s just starting to build brand awareness, you can simply choose among the tribes and even work with their leaders to create custom brands and products for them. If you’re an established brand, then it’s all the more important to formulate your mission statement correctly. That’s because it will win you one tribe of allies but will often create another tribe of opponents. You simply have to choose a side, just as Nike did when it supported the protest against police brutality against African Americans. And as you can see, no, Nike isn’t going to target Bernard beer drinkers.
But your brand can’t just ride the current waves of public opinion. Always think ahead. It’s like shooting clay pigeons with a shotgun—you always have to aim a little higher and a little further ahead. Because a brand—whether political or private—is always an aspiration for the future.
Who will your target audience be in five years?
Consumers are more educated than ever before, and even large groups of shareholders now recognize the close connection between the social impact of business and business itself. It used to be said that “stocks have no conscience,” but it seems that this may no longer hold true in the future, and even publicly traded companies will be forced to find their purpose and radically change their philosophy regarding the value they bring to society. The rise and diversification of ideological communities that have essentially broken away from mass, global, and universal society in favor of more traditional, tribal ways of life among like-minded individuals. For example, early retirement, the anti-vaccine Burning Man, Central American crypto-cities and micro-nations. “The Great Resignation”—the wave of people quitting their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic—has resulted in large numbers of people leaving jobs where they feel like cogs in a machine and seeking work that is more personally meaningful. According to Google data, in 2021, eight of the ten most-searched “how to become” jobs were: therapist, electrician, real estate agent, personal trainer, psychiatrist, firefighter, and pilot. These are jobs rich in human skills and offer the reward of adding value to society. The growing normalization of polyamory signals a reimagining of relationships—one that prioritizes the individual over social norms such as marriage. Vogue reports that 22% of couples are already experimenting with various forms of consensual non-monogamy. The current explosion of interest in psychedelics and meditation (which has tripled in the U.S. since 2012) and Eastern spirituality loudly signals a desire to master our minds and “let in” things that were once taboo for Americans. The surprisingly rapid rise of cryptocurrencies suggests a desire for newfound collective control amid a collapse of trust in old institutions. The rise of homeschooling, along with ideological attacks on public schools, more broadly indicates a desire for closer-knit and more homogeneous communities. The rate of homeschooling rose by 63% in 2020, before falling by only 17% in 2021. Children who had to learn at home during the pandemic largely remained there. These people each belong to their own tribe, which shares a common worldview.
It was the romanticized image of the nuclear family—not mass-produced automobiles—that transformed the landscape of American suburbs. The world of work will be forever changed by evolving notions of career and success, not by the advent of laptops or remote work.
Future-oriented brands often tend to make technology the centerpiece of their strategies, rather than a broader concept. However, technology is never distributed evenly among people, and society’s perceptions of what technology can do have a greater impact than the inventions themselves.
The washing machine had the potential to liberate housewives, but instead it freed them from the work that maids used to do. Although technology has changed, the idea of a woman’s role has not.
Futurists in the 1960s predicted online shopping, but not financial independence for women. They predicted email, but not remote work. They predicted microwave ovens and other kitchen technologies, but they did not predict that fewer and fewer people would be eating together at the dinner table.
It is ideas, not technology or inventions, that shape the future the most, and that is what you should focus on. The future does not lie in new technologies. The future lies in people who have changed. Your brand should focus on who we will become. And no one understands people better than their leaders.