Aaahhhhh I didn’t want to do this but…
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JULY 2015. EDITED JANUARY 2017
Readers of this post not from Mississippi may or may not know of what I speak. Since the massacre at the African-American church in South Carolina, and SC Governor Nikki Haley’s calling for the Confederate Flag to be removed from the state capital grounds, there has been a snowball of removal of Confederate-oriented elements from retail stores and television (TV Land dropped Dukes of Hazzard reruns, if you haven’t heard). Mississippi is the only state that has the old Confederate “stars and bars” incorporated as part of it’s official state flag.
So there’s the background. And as I type this, I still can’t believe I’m writing a post on this topic. Why? Because I think it is mostly a distraction. I don’t say that to belittle the vocal opponents of the Mississippi flag, or to tee-off the vocal proponents of keeping it.
Usually when politicians talk of a particular issue being a “distraction,” it usually means that it is a highly relevant and important issue that they quite frankly don’t have an answer for. This, I don’t believe, is such a case.
So as I vowed over and over again to not get sucked into the debate, I realized that I had yet to hear an argument made over the flag from a branding standpoint. I am, after all, in advertising. “Brand development” is in my official title. So I began more and more to think of the case of the dixie flag from the “branding” standpoint. If the state of Mississippi were a client, how would I advise it? What rationale would I put forth — from a branding perspective — to support a recommended action?
Let’s start with one of the basic tenants of branding — the difference between “truth” and “credibility”:
Lesson 1: “Credibility” isn’t the same as “truth.”
Again please let me apologize — I’m sure I’m offending many who don’t care to view this debate in such shallow terms. Blame it on the ad-guy in me. Anyway, it makes sense to me to think of it this way. The dixie flag is a brand. The same way that the Red Cross or the Swastika or Rolex are brands (for the record, I am not drawing any attribution similarities among those examples). A brand is literally something that triggers a strong set of emotions and preconceived notions in people. Isn’t that exactly what the dixie flag does? And through it’s incorporation into the state of Mississippi’s official flag, the state is concurrently associating with and endorsing what that brand stands for.
Many argue that isn’t the case. That the dixie flag is a manifestation and connection to Mississippi’s history — the good and the bad.
Folks, from a branding standpoint, that simply isn’t true.
More accurately, that statement reflects what many people wished to be true, but it just doesn’t pass the credibility test. Allow me to offer a less controversial example: Colin Kaepernick has been the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers for the past few seasons. Until the wheels came off in 2014, Kaepernick was recognized as one of the best young QB talents in the league. The 49ers were back-to-back visitors to the NFC title game. Before the Splash Brothers brought an NBA title to the Bay Area, Kaepernick was the golden boy of the Golden Gate. Then he was photographed in the off season wearing a Miami Dolphins hat.
Now let me say this was the Dolphins. Not the Seahawks or the Giants or the Bears or other traditional 49er rivals. The Dolphins aren’t even in the same conference. No matter. The Dolphins are another football team. Kaepernick was skewered by fans. Destroyed. Called a traitor. Colin — who is quite the snazzy dresser off the field apparently — defended the hat as a “fashion” accessory. Said the green matched his outfit, or something like that. Needless to say, this didn’t help. It didn’t matter that he wanted the public to believe his reason for wearing the hat was simply for fashion. The fact was, the symbols on that hat stood for something, and that something was another football team. It didn’t matter how many insta-twixts Colin posted, it wasn’t going to change that fact.
The same is true with the dixie flag as part of Mississippi’s official state iconography. Just because you want it to mean something, doesn’t mean it really means something else.
And that something else is usually wrapped up in the original intent:
Lesson 2: Original Branding Intent
