In marketing circles we often debate how a celebrity’s association with a brand can affect it. But what about your customers’ ethics and how they can impact negatively on your brand, as is the case with Blackberry Messenger being used by UK rioters last week? [1]
A whistle-stop tour of the brand sees Blackberry in the early/mid Noughties enjoying an enviable position as a ‘destination’ mobile phone for business users… By the late Noughties it’s challenged by a plethora of alternatives… but then come 2010, it fortuitously finds itself as the phone of choice for a previously untargeted but nonetheless attractively large youth audience…. Now it’s reeling again as the brand is tainted by some of its audience’s use regarding the riots.
Of course the situation is exacerbated by the fact that it’s a technology / media brand and popular wisdom in some quarters dictates these guys are responsible for all modern day ills! So what can Blackberry do? Or in terms of learning, what could it have done, or can other brands do, to mitigate the issue?
Having a visible Code of Ethics is a good starter. Not some lip service within the Annual Report, or as an obscure link on the website that’s as hard to find as the RyanAir helpline number. Many brands have stated principles and values but these won’t be of real practical use if they’re merely static and stated ideals. Brands need to be upfront about their values and ethics, making it clear what the brand stands for, and by default, what it does not. This then is a tangible and acceptable hook on which a defence can be built when it’s required. Critically, having this before a crisis strikes means it is viewed as sincere rather than smacking of knee-jerk ethics and platitudes created to negate criticism.
Secondly, media and other brands could do well to state within their terms and conditions that the brand will assist the authorities if requested to do so. This flags the brand’s intention to act and pre-empts customer objections to revealing data, as happened with Blackberry and other brands in the past –Vodafone, Facebook, Twitter.
And thirdly, it is inevitable that the problem can be part of the solution. In this case BM is being used to facilitate the clean up in the same way as it was used to communicate the riots. Brands cannot disassociate themselves with the negatives easily or quickly, but they can, and they should pro-actively communicate the positives. And should do so constantly and not just reactively.
Good crisis management is about pre-empting and mitigating the risks. To be fair I’m sure no one at Blackberry would have predicted riots of the scale of last week. But then risk management is about preparing for the unexpected. I remember drafting a crisis plan for a UK company and including terrorist attack as a highly unlikely risk; that was in February 2001…
SH
[1]http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sectors/retail/retailers-targeted-by-rioters-suffer-fall-in-brand-perception/3029330.article
Andrew Hill “Riots must not kill Blackberry Messenger” Financial Times, August 15th 2011