Case in point: How many brands (businesses, people or services) do you know that have caused disruptions to our normal lives? But it is very fascinating how we still follow or engage in that disruption. In reality, numbers are triggered, trends are set, publicity is given and fame is established. We may love it or hate it but it got us talking and spreading the word.
Content with my safe zone
If you’re running a business or a brand which is fierce and cunning, then by now you are not a stranger to controversy. Your brand lives and breathes around this everyday and provoking the market is the daily habit. The brand lives, eats, sleeps and breathes controversy everyday while also looking to escalate its next agenda. This for them (business/brand) acquires extreme publicity, generates high social media numbers and in the process lots of money is made.
Whether you like it or not, I’ll get you talking
I’m content on playing it safe. “The risk is too high and my reputation is at stake,” said no man who succeeded. Provocative marketing stunts are a huge gamble. But as the business saying: the higher the risk, the higher the reward. The secret is to find the sweet spot between being edgy and decisive. You need to back up your campaign with sense and substance, so that you’re not provoking people for no good reason.
I remember an ex-foreign diplomat to Tanzania once said, “While living in Tanzania, I saw that Tanzanians never took controversy serious but they often loved to turn controversy into jokes,” and he found that amusing, as he giggled slightly. Expressing a darker sense of humour during tense situations to get a positive reaction most often lightens the mood and taunts people’s attention.
Indeed we as Tanzanians live by humour even during intense times, this maybe a good stress reliever and an omen of a long life to be lived. Whether it’s marketing, politics, science, business etc., controversy mixed with humour sets the right ambiance for anything to trend, in short. Majority of those that have stepped out of their comfort zone and took the risk have embodied successful brands.
When sweet turns sour, dodging bullets
Well it did backfire and you did not take my advice. When is a risk too risky and playing safe not too risky? When you do not live on the edge and fear going above and beyond your creative talent or maximum brand exposure?
The late Dr Benjamin Mays who was a Baptist minister and an American civil rights leader once said, “The tragedy of life is not found in failure but in complacency, not in you doing too much but doing too little, not in you living above your means but below your capacity. It’s not failure but aiming too low is life’s greatest tragedy.”
Yes one needs to check-in now and again to see if your being true to yourself, work hard and don’t be complacent. The moment you put in less than your best that is when you fail. If you recall well the Euro 2020 football press conference, Christiano Ronaldo pushed aside two Coke bottles while urging people to drink water instead. Coke was one of the sponsors of that event. That move cost Coke about U$ 4 billion. But if you ask me about the PR versus the US$4 billion hit, “I would tell you that the brand visibility was worth more than that hit.” Despite their shares dropping, their publicity was of the charts. Even my grandmother and mother who never watch football saw that clip.
Sour is good at times when it is trending globally. Well they did want brand visibility in the end and good accidents do happen. “And they got it!” Shocking to say the least, but what a shocking publicity stunt? Beyond that, Coke is a big brand and in the long run the damage was little visa vie the publicity received.
The sour taste of a sweet watermelon
Controversial marketing is about being in beast mode strategizing on the possible outcome both short and long term but most important playing within the legal frame work. Playing safe is also good but will lose out to those taking the risk, this is a general connotation that applies to everything in life.
A lemon can taste just as sweet as a water melon. Many brands have understood this concept and hence it is nothing but their daily strategy to disrupt the market but they still trend and they are still loved. “Well, ironically in an ever evolving world, playing it safe is one of the riskiest things one can do.” I can’t believe I said that, but either way you will still take a risk. I’ll leave it here, it’s debatable but ask yourself: What is the riskiest strategy that you have ever played for your brand? The answer will define your style of play and level of risk. A shocking topic indeed.
NB: Alley Mtatya is marketing coordinator at Access Microfinance Bank Tanzania. He can be reached through: [emailprotected]
