Imagine if you had special glasses that automatically blanked out the news from your life. How different would your mood be? How often would you actually notice anything that’s bombarded at us 24/7?
Now imagine that in business. If an organisation was completely ignorant of the news, how differently would it behave?
Probably less hedging, less uncertainty. It would act with conviction and plough on with its strategy.
So much of what we take in is conjecture and mood-driven, not based in reality. Markets move on feeling as much as fact. As much as I value and understand the importance of a free press, I often question how free we are from it. It constantly knocks us sideways and creates self-fulfilling prophecies. It tells us we’re all uncertain and have lots to worry about, then marvels at the consequences of such unnecessary information.
The headlines say recession, so businesses cut back, and marketing usually goes first. The brand goes quiet, sales dip, and the headline proves itself right.
I always get frustrated that here in the UK in particular, we feed our own negativity into a downward cycle of uncertainty and fear. We need some of that brazen optimism, and the media is hindering it.
Kellogg’s had it nearly a century ago. When the Depression hit, Post pulled back its advertising. Kellogg’s, so the story goes, doubled theirs and took a lead in the category it held for decades. It wasn’t blind to what was happening. It just refused to let the mood write its strategy.
Hyundai had it in 2009. With the car market in freefall and people terrified of losing their jobs, it ran a Super Bowl ad promising to take your car back if you did. While the rest of the industry braced, Hyundai went on the front foot, and within a year its US market share jumped from 3.1% to 4.3%. It heard the news, it just didn’t let the mood derail it too.
Weirdly, ignorance can be bliss. It can’t be total ignorance, though. Blockbuster ignored what streaming was telling it and we know how that ended. The trick is telling the difference. Some news changes how your customers behave. Most of it only changes how you feel.
That’s where brand comes in. A clear brand strategy is the glasses. It tells you what’s worth paying attention to and what you can let wash past. Without one, every headline knocks you sideways.
How much more confident can a business be by doggedly ignoring the noise and committing wholeheartedly to its strategy, with discipline?
The best ones already wear the glasses. They just call it strategy.
