Issue #1: Welcome to Brand Baby
Happy you’re here.
Welcome to the first edition of Brand Baby! I’m Caroline, a born-and-raised Californian now living in Brooklyn and working in brand marketing. I work on the brand team at Intuit Mailchimp, and I’m always on the lookout for brand marketing inspiration, case studies, and learnings. I wanted to start this newsletter to curate and analyze cool things happening in the marketing world – whether that’s a risky social stunt, an unlikely brand partnership, or a fun out-of-home activation. Thanks for joining me, and always feel free to reply or reach out to me with ideas and feedback. So with that, let’s dive right into the first issue, shall we?
Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a fascinating trend among brands on social media. All of a sudden, brands are capitalizing on customer and community problems, turning complaints and issues into marketing and PR opportunities. Typically, when someone publicly expresses an issue with a product on social media, brands are quick to apologize, both in the comments and then in a follow-up DM. They’ll maybe open a support ticket, issue a refund, and move on.
But lately, I’ve witnessed brands actually amplifying problems that people express on social media. Companies are using them as opportunities to market their products and build brand awareness. Take these examples from the past few weeks:
The North Face – Last week, a woman posted this video while hiking in New Zealand and wearing a North Face jacket. It’s pouring rain, and it’s clear that the jacket isn’t doing much to protect her, despite it supposedly being waterproof. She says, “I don’t want a refund. I want you to redesign the raincoat to make it waterproof and express deliver it to the top of Hooker Valley in New Zealand where I will be waiting.” So what does The North Face do? They make their own TikTok showing an employee hand-delivering a new jacket to the woman on the mountain VIA HELICOPTER. It shows that The North Face cares about their customers so much that they would hand-deliver a new jacket to this woman – even in the middle of nowhere. And since Patagonia is so well-known for their amazing replacement policies (I once went into a Patagonia store with a disintegrating raincoat that I had owned for a decade and they gave me a new one for free), this was a chance for The North Face to show off their customer service capabilities. Pretty genius.
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Liquid Death – Liquid Death is an expert in turning their customer complaints into content. Just check out their whole series of videos where they turn internet hate comments into music videos. Recently, they became embroiled in some legal trouble when they named their new Arnold Palmer drink the ‘Armless Palmer’ and the original Arnold Palmer corporation tried to sue them for using ‘Palmer’ in the name. So Liquid Death changed the name of the drink to ‘Dead Billionaire,’ a legendary move that demonstrates the youthful coolness of the Liquid Death brand, particularly when up against old-school institutions and huge corporations with a ton of money to throw at legal issues. Liquid Death wants to position themselves as the young, hip underdog – and this whole situation did just that. They made this post about it, even teasing that the remaining ‘Armless Palmer’ cans in stores might turn into collectors’ items, driving sales by encouraging people to go look for the rare cans in their corner bodega. God, I love you Liquid Death.
Chipotle – While not exactly a customer problem, someone posted a video where they steal a bunch of napkins from Chipotle to keep in their car (and let me tell you I vividly remember my parents also having a car napkin stash in the center console). Instead of staying quiet or asking the customer not to steal a whole dispenser’s worth of napkins, Chipotle actually encouraged the behavior by sharing this video where they created a Chipotle-branded napkin holder for your car. They even dropped the limited-edition napkin holder on their online shop, which evidently sold out in one day. An amazing example of a brand recognizing their secondary (or tertiary) purpose in their customers’ lives and leaning into it, building brand affinity. Plus, now tons of people who scored the napkin holder have a little reminder of Chipotle every time they get in their car.
Stanley / Kia – We have all probably heard of this one by now, but a few weeks ago, a woman posted a video showing her still-intact Stanley cup inside of her demolished Kia, which had caught fire. The cup even had ice in it!! It went viral, and Stanley used this problem as a perfect opportunity to respond, offering to buy her a brand new car. The only thing that would have been better? If another car company offered to partner with Stanley to split the cost of the replacement vehicle.
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So what’s happening here? When a company responds to consumer problems as an opportunity to market their products, it’s an example of what I’m coining ‘reactive marketing.’ The timeliness of content and the social-first approach to reactive marketing is somewhat similar to real-time social efforts, but reactive marketing is specifically in response to a consumer problem (whether it be stemming from their own consumer or another). Most brands market their products without prompting from their audience, but in this case, the marketing is in direct response to a clear problem or complaint.
When brands engage in reactive marketing, we’re also seeing them represent relatable, empathetic traits, akin to human characteristics. They turn into the good guys. And when social media can feel like such a dark place 99.99% of the time, who do we love? The good guy. With the rise of social media and brand personalities who star in brand social accounts these days, it’s clear that audiences want to see and feel that there’s a real person behind every brand. When done right, reactive marketing is a great way to build that personal connection with audiences, that feeling of ‘this person/company/product really gets me’ that we’re all constantly striving to find online.
Welcome Caroline - it's great to have you here. Can' wait to see what this becomes.
love this!!