Back in the 90s Skoda asked “We’ve changed the car. Can you change your mind?” More recently Dove challenged conventional opinion of beauty by featuring women of various body types, ages and ethnicities in its campaigns.
Many brands have adopted strategies to challenge existing perceptions and so reshape consumer attitudes towards their products or services. And several others have embarked on campaigns aimed at fundamentally changing consumers’ minds about the company itself.
Similarly so, charities, health and social enterprises have employed various strategies to reshape public perceptions and encourage consumers to reconsider their opinions of heavier weight issues.
For all these and more it’s always been an uphill struggle to communicate the nuances that matter. Today, in an environment of such polarised opinions, not least within the oft-regarded echo chamber of social media, with detail pushed to the sidelines and where changing your mind is often ridiculed, it’s a Herculean task to bring about sustained shifts in the way people think, feel and act.
So, it’s a minefield of obstacles to challenge the status quo. It’s one thing for brands to set a socially responsible tone for their customers or even a purpose – albeit the latter arguably can be too inward looking and self-congratulatory – it’s quite another to challenge or change long held conventional opinion.
By contrast our personal purpose should perhaps be more inward looking. But how do we change our own status quo? How do we truthfully reflect our own purpose and persona?
How do we stop caring about what people think of us when so many circumstances, (from job applications, to promotions, to finding a partner), depend on a third party’s opinion?
How do we stop repeating patterns that don’t live up to our hopes and aspirations?
How much of ourselves do we put out on the table at any one time?
How, when we necessarily live and work with the same groups of people, who push the same emotional buttons, can we trigger different frames of reference to different sets of circumstances?
How can we change our opinion of people and/or their actions/behaviour?
To all these and more, do we just adopt a more open mind and/or become more laissez faire?
But how do we open our mind? How do we fire-up our brain to work in a different way?
If I had fully fledged answers to all of these, I’d likely be in a very different position to what I am in now! (Maybe you do have the answers?)
What I do have, now with the benefit of accumulated experience and being a little bit wiser, is clarity on what matters or what should matter. My belief is that brands and individuals alike, who come to market with honesty, humility and credibility, will have found their authentic self.
And when individuals and brands align to communicate with such common authenticity, the onus won’t need to be solely on you as an individual to be the conduit for change. Brand owners, stewards of charities, public services, local authorities and government included, also have a responsibility to be an engine for that change.
For example, when employers open-up their minds to understand the value of diverse perspectives, to the skillsets that might not tick all the boxes of an HR function, but to be more open to those with lived experiences, the wisdom that comes with these, oh and also recognise a genuine desire in the individual to do a great job, the return on engagement of such to the organisation and its brands can be invaluable.
While doing so, no-one should expect overnight transformations. As with marketing campaigns, when organisations and their brands embrace qualitative insights, balancing the rational with the emotive, in adopting incremental changes in mindset and behaviour, it’s more than likely so will their customers. Importantly, it engenders two-way conversations that might just build the momentum and motivation for bringing about a substantive and sustained shift in the way your people think about people and how those people, your customers, think about your brand and products/services.
If you want to develop the kind of marketing, to bring about a shift in the way people think about your brand/products/services and about how you think about those people – your customers, your employees – do get in touch with this agent of change!
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