In this week’s readings, Ioana Grancea argues that advertising copywriters should actively build brand ethos, which she defines as “the implicit personality that shines thorough the brand messages” (149). While I agree that the distinctive, credible voice of a particular brand is often a key feature of many advertising campaigns, I would like to interrogate two of Grancea’s subclaims. In what follows, I use these subclaims as entry points for a discussion about copywriters and brand ethos. In doing so, I hope to more clearly illuminate the benefits and the risks of building brand ethos in the digital age.
The first of Grancea’s subclaims is her suggestion that “people [online] are in search of a quality conversation with like-minded peers, they feel good when their opinions are echoed, they feel they solve major problems of humanity by posting a comment on the topic” (151). Accordingly, Grancea reasons that copywriters should deliver advertisements that cater to these elements of their audiences. I hope that I am not alone in detecting a contemptuous tone in this statement. It seems to me that much of the public is sophisticated enough to understand when they are merely being flattered by the puffery of advertising copy. If copywriters begin, as Grancea suggests they do, by imagining their audience as easily flattered and fatuous—believing that they can solve climate change with a tweet or a like—then I would seriously question the “quality of the conversation” that would then unfold.
A better approach might be to build substantive prosocial behaviors into the brand. For instance, rather than merely echoing opinions or catering to the less creditable traits of an imagined audience, brands might build an advertising campaign around a bona fide charitable act. This is the approach taken by the optical company Eyebuydirect, which donates a pair of glasses to a country of the customer’s choosing after most purchases. Under this model, the customer is given a degree of agency that will likely make them feel involved in the brand; and the associated act of charity has the potential to genuinely affect positive change. However, this strategy is certainly more costly than a piece of ad copy that only pays lip service to customers’ beliefs. I would therefore agree with Grancea that building quality brand ethos is important, but I believe true ethos is unlikely to be achieved as easily or as cheaply as she seems to suggest.
Grancea’s second subclaim is her statement that copywriters should “invite feedback in an explicit manner and make it part of the brand-content” (156). Interestingly, she claims that this is so even when that feedback is unpleasant or damaging to the brand, because it can “point to a fruitful direction for future development” (159). To be sure, there are real benefits to be had in such a strategy. For instance, in a Youtube video uploaded in February of 2020, a user called “the Lockpickinglawyer” demonstrates how to open a gun safe with a fork. The video was viewed nearly a million times in its first three weeks on Youtube, a seeming disaster for Vaultek, the company that makes Lifepod, the gun safe featured in the video. In response, however, Vaultek made the following statement, which appeared in the comments of the video less than a week after the video went live:
Vaultek stands behind our customers and products 100%. We are aware of the exploit and have taken quick action to develop effective solutions to address Lifepod’s programming function. All Lifepods produced and shipping from now on are upgraded with new firmware to disable the program button when locked, and we are also providing a solution for our current Lifepod customers. We’re listening and will make every effort to continually improve our products. (qtd. in “Opened With FORK: Vaultek LifePod Gun Safe”).
This swift response on the part of Vaultek makes the best of a poor situation in a way that Grancea would likely approve of. Specifically, Vaultek positions their brand as responsive and flexible. And although Vaultek is clearly not infallible, it is willing to learn from mistakes and engage in a meaningful dialogue with Lockpickinglawyer, who becomes a “co-producer” of the brand by offering his critique (Grancea 151).
And yet, other instances of customer feedback and dialogue are of less benefit for copywriters. A particularly colorful example is a 2012 contest put on by Pepsico, the makers of Mountain Dew. In the contest, users were invited to participate in the naming of a new flavor of Mountain Dew, a popular soft drink. Unfortunately for the copywriters and marketers involved, the contest was quickly overwhelmed by internet pranksters, who suggested numerous offensive names for the new soda. It is difficult to imagine how anyone might, as Grancea suggests, turn this into “an opportunity for authentic dialogue” (153). Although I agree with Grancea that inviting feedback can yield positive results, I would encourage future scholars to be more attentive to just how spectacularly internet-driven dialogue can backfire if it is not carefully sandboxed.
While I agree with Grancea that companies should actively use digital media to build brand ethos, I believe—as my interrogation of subclaims illustrates—that it is important to be clear that such a process often entails additional risk and requires additional cost.
Joe Harris RWS Journal 