Flawsome is The New Awesome

That’s the conclusion drawn by the latest trend brief from Trendwatching.com, one of the world’s leading trend spotting firms. Human (or humane) brands and increasing transparency in marketing and business practices are the two key drivers of the Flawsome trend.

Here is how they define Flawsome

“Consumers don’t expect brands to be flawless. In fact, consumers will embrace brands that are Flawsome: brands that are still brilliant despite having flaws; even being flawed (and being open about it) can be awesome. Brands that show some empathy, generosity, humility, flexibility, maturity, humor, and (dare we say it) some character and humanity.”

Being a firm believer of more transparency in marketing practices, I find this trend to be quite a welcome relief from the high handedness and secrecy that we are all used to from big brands.

Let us understand the two key drivers in more detail.

Human Brands

1. Consumers (including me) are disillusioned with corporate behavior. Outright lies and false promises have become the order of the day. In such a bleak scenario, any brand that shows honesty and has the characters to own its flaws, will be given a standing ovation.

“Nearly 85% of consumers worldwide expect companies to become actively involved in promoting individual and collective wellbeing; an increase of 15% from 2010 (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).”

“Yet only 28% of people think that companies are working hard to solve the big social and environmental challenges (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).”

The above discrepancy in what the consumers expect from brand and what they think companies are actually doing, creates a huge potential for brands to be more open and honest and enhance their reputation amongst their consumers.

2. Consumers (especially in today’s social media age) don’t want brands to be impersonal and keep themselves aloof. They want brands to be more personal and care for them, and, in the process, accept their fault if they make any.

Most people would not care if 70% of brands ceased to exist (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).

3. Branding trends may change with times but as the great Bill Bernbach once said, human behavior will always remain the same. And Human beings connect with and love other humans who don’t pretend to be perfect and accept that they have flaws, but they try to do their best inspite of their flaws.

Transparency Factor

1. Brands are more and more coming out in the open, some out of their own accord, some forced to. They can’t hide behind the corporate curtain anymore, i.e. if they want to be relevant amongst their consumers.

The key insight here is, if your consumers are anyway going to find out about your true face one way or the other, why not you do it yourself and take credit for being transparent and having the best interest of the consumer in mind?

“68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both good and bad scores, while 30% suspect censorship or faked reviews if there aren’t any negative comments or reviews (Source: Reevoo.com, January 2012).”

“Shoppers who go out of their way to read bad reviews convert 67% more than the average consumer (Source: Reevoo.com, January 2012).”

2. You can’t always be right. Things are bound to go wrong. So when they do, accept it gracefully and become flawesome!

“76% of people who complained on Twitter received no response from the brand. But among those who were contacted, 83% liked or loved that the brand responded, and 85% were satisfied with the response (Source: Maritz Research, September 2011).”

What is Flawsome behavior?

  • Kraft food launched a campaign for its Miracle Whip brand titled “We are not for everyone” and then went on to make videos featuring celebrities who expressed their love or hate for their product.
  • In Austin Texas, The Alamo Drafthouse Theater evicted a customer from the theater who broke their strict policy of “no texting” inside the theater. One such customer sent a voice mail abusing the theater. Instead of hiding this, the company made a video out of it and posted it on Youtube, getting almost 2.5 million views and generating scores of fans.
  • In Brazil customers of Fritto-Lay’s Ruffles were complaining about the fact that the packs contain too much air and too little chips. This is perhaps a common complaint everywhere. The company responded by creating an infographic explaining why extra air protects the chips inside and keeps them intact.
  • In 2009, after some of their employees posted a negative video on Youtube, Dominos Pizza, instead of covering it up, created a campaign out of it, and also ran a month long promotion campaign in Times Square in New York streaming both positive and negative feedbacks from consumers.
  • In December, 2011, a video showing a Fedex deliveryman throwing a customer’s monitor over their fence became viral and got 3,00,000 views within 48 hours. Again, instead of covering up the scandal, Fedex not only responded in kind but also apologized in a blog post titled “Absolutely, Positively, Unacceptable” (after their slogan).
  • When a Red Cross employee accidentally tweeted about his next drinking session through the official account instead of his personal, the Red Cross Tweeted “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys.” Later on they also said on their blog that, “While we’re a 130-year-old humanitarian organization, we’re also made up of human beings.” This honest acceptance, resulting in a wave of positive feedback and donations.

How to Become Flawsome?

  • Embrace consumer feedback wholesomely and truly (good, bad, ugly – the whole lot). People know when you are faking it, and when you really want to help. Create smart systems that help generate genuine feedback. Incorporate reviews from third party platforms in your official site because they are more credible and people know it.
  • Learn to accept mistakes. Part of the process of being an enchanting brand (to borrow Kawasaki’s term), is to do new and amazing things never tried before. And when you do new things, you fail once in a while. So when you do fail, have a heart to heart conversation with your consumer’s explaining why you failed and why you will keep doing amazing things in spite of the occasional failure.
  • Build a culture of openness in your organization. Honesty is not a matter of policy that can be implemented by circulating internal memos. It takes time and effort to create a culture of openness. But the rewards are well worth the effort.

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