Tough Love
Why Making Products People Love Isn’t Enough
I recently attended a VCU Brandcenter Friday Forum talk where Michael Fanuele, Chief Creative Officer at General Mills gave an impressive talk about how General Mills is evolving as a brand and company. In the talk, he shared information about General Mills’ purpose statement and how it guides and will continue to guide corporate decision-making.
The statement reads:
“We serve the world by making food people love.” https://www.generalmills.com/en/Company/purpose
It is a simple and elegant statement. It positions General Mills as service leaders (we serve), with a global mindset (the world), an own-able proposition (making food), for good (food people love).
So, what is not to love about this statement? On the surface, I like this statement and their purpose. And, I am encouraged by the actions of General Mills to make some fundamental changes to their corporate culture, products, services and communications. I see examples that speak to a new level of corporate responsibility and citizenship that seemingly are aligned with my personal value system.
But, I fear that this statement alone could be a convenient device that allows General Mills (and others with similar purpose statements) to dismiss a level of corporate accountability under the pretense of service leadership if what the people love is the ultimate measure of success. My concern is that which we love is not always in our best interest. And, often times, it takes other people to point that out to us.
I would like to see General Mills (and all brands) to not just make things people love, but to exercise TOUGH LOVE. That is, to take and hold a firm position on what people should love based on a position of enlightened and mutually aligned interests (what is good for all, is good for us, too). I believe that they are the most likely agent to act in our interest because they presumably have the most knowledge about the product benefits and risks. And they have the greatest opportunity to help promote a person’s welfare, by denying them access, enforcing certain constraints on them, or encouraging them to take responsibility for their own actions through better education on both the product benefits and risks.
Let me draw an analogy to being a parent. I am not saying that we as consumers are children. But, that we have a dependent relationship with the companies that serve us. We rely on them to be the experts or credible authorities on their products or services. We rely on them for access to products or services they sell. Because of that, we are beholden to them and what they are telling us. This makes us dependent, like a child. Naturally, this is a less useful analogy when there are other experts or credible authorities (e.g. consumer protection agency) and we have more options and choice in the category, which makes us less beholden to any one one provider.
As a parent, there are times when I have to NOT do what my child loves, but that which is in my child’s best interest. This is TOUGH LOVE. It is an opportunity for me to help promote a person’s welfare, by denying them access, enforcing certain constraints on them, or encouraging them to take responsibility for their own actions through education on both benefits and risks. As an example, my 7-year would love to eat an entire bag of candy, and he might ‘love’ me for giving it to him, but as a parent I need to enforce some constraint in this situation and give him just one piece of candy, despite his protests.
Similarly, a company like General Mills has an opportunity to help promote our collective welfare and individual well being by practicing tough love— denying us access to that which is bad for us, enforcing certain constraints, or by encouraging us to take responsibility for our own actions through education on both benefits and risks.
Their size, global position, scale, reach and resources uniquely position them in the marketplace to affect positive change throughout the industrial food system, if they can practice tough love. This means that they will have to take the unpopular positions that challenge the industrial food system and potentially ruffle the interest of their suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and, yes, end-consumers. They will have to do what is right, not what is expedient.
Tough love can happen in big ways (re-engineering the supply chain) and small ways (cutting 25% of the sugar out of Yoplait Yogurt). I like what General Mills has started, but as a society we have a long way to go to correct and improve our relationship with food. It will take some tough lovers.
Next blog: The Design of Tough Love: denying users access, enforcing certain design constraints, and encouraging them to take responsibility for their own actions, for good.
The REI Example
