Want to Connect with Customers? Cut the Gobbledygook
The following is an edited excerpt from the new book, Fire Them Now: The 7 Lies Digital Marketers Sell… And the Truth about Political Strategies that Help Businesses Win by Phillip Stutts.
We are becoming a society of leaders that are afraid to show any personality. Every public figure, from elected officials to CEOs, is terrified of letting the mask slip for even a moment; they’re afraid of the backlash if they accidentally say what they really think.
The more robotic our leaders become, the more we crave a fresh voice and personality, someone who speaks without a filter. The most obvious example of this backlash against robotic messaging is Trump. As divisive a figure as he is, even his most vocal critics agree that he has zero filter. He doesn’t run his messaging through a PR company. What we’re seeing is the real him, and his unrelenting off-the-cuff style is a huge part of his appeal to those who voted for him in 2016.
Leaders these days are afraid to show any kind of vulnerability, but what they forget is that vulnerability is exactly what people want to see — because it proves you’re human, and it resonates. People want to buy into a personality or a company with a purpose, someone or something, they can relate to.
Take, for instance, the epic rise of TOMS Shoes. On paper, TOMS are pretty aesthetically uninspiring, if comfortable, slip-on shoes. However, the company’s “One for One” ethos — each pair of shoes sold triggers a pair of shoes given to a child in need — had customers flocking to hand over their money when the company first launched. Customers want to spend not just on a product, but on an idea. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves.
This core instinct of voters and customers has been so forgotten by most politicians and companies that we just roll our eyes at most of the canned, rehearsed, gobbledygook messaging we see from our leaders. Whether it’s good news or bad news, whether it’s promoting a person or product, it comes across as having been strained through filters, conference rooms, and battling egos within the bureaucracy. Customers — voters — are smart. They see right through that. They don’t want to be told what some robot thinks they want to hear. They want to buy in to something or someone real.
One weekend in 2017, white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched through Charlottesville, Virginia with torches to protest the city’s plan to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Counter-protestors came out in force. Violence erupted, and the situation turned deadly when one of the protestors was killed by a white supremacist who drove his car into a crowd. Before the situation in Charlottesville unfolded, ESPN had already lined up several announcers to broadcast the first game of University of Virginia’s football season, versus William and Mary. One of their announcers was named Robert Lee. He wasn’t a descendent of Robert E. Lee; he was just an announcer for the network who happened to be of Asian descent. ESPN quietly pulled him from the UVA broadcast and sent him to announce Youngstown State versus the University of Pittsburgh.
The reaction from critics was swift and fierce. Just about everyone, no matter their political views, saw ESPN’s move as baffling and ridiculous, political correctness run amok. What was seen as a massive overreaction provided fiery commentary on social media, with the network called “pathetic” and worse.
The moment the criticism began, ESPN’s CEO could have humanized himself to the public by releasing a simple statement explaining the network’s error. Something like, “I messed up. Actually, it was more than a mess up, it was a boneheaded decision, and as the CEO, I acted like a bonehead. I got caught up in an emotional moment, and the decision lacked all common sense. It won’t happen again.”
How would you interpret an apology like this? Feels authentic, right? You probably would have accepted the apology, shrugged, and moved on to the next thing.
Unfortunately, ESPN didn’t do this. Instead, the network hid for a couple of days, hoping the backlash would die down. When it didn’t, they released a canned, processed, filtered statement that offered no explanation and doubled down on their decision: “In the moment, it felt right to all parties. It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls a play-by-play for a football game has become an issue.”
Really? They regret it becoming an issue? Then why did they make it one in the first place?
If ESPN had shown some humanity and admitted they’d made a rash decision out of fear, the amount of goodwill they could have built would have been enormous. Instead, they put out the same old gobbledygook, and people rolled their eyes.
Let me be clear: this isn’t an isolated ESPN problem. It’s a problem endemic to the vast majority of leaders operating in society right now, and you better believe it’s filtered down to small business owners, non-profit leaders, and even chief marketing officers.
Above everything, people crave authenticity. They crave a human connection. We’re a more forgiving culture than most people realize, but the fear of offending customers is so strong that most companies and leaders prefer to be robots.
For more advice from Phillip on how to apply the most important lessons from political marketing in the world of business, check out his book, Fire Them Now.
