Your brand is your baby. You take special care of her, give her all kinds of attention, and wouldn’t dare let anyone corrupt her. That’s why we are so careful and anxious when connecting our brand to an external figure – like an athlete, or a TV show. When we do this, we feel that they become a living representation of our brand, and sometimes this can cause problems. Let’s examine a recent example. Jersey Shore is a reality(ish) series on MTV that follows several New Jersey natives with Italian backgrounds as they live together in a home for the summer. The group represents every negative stereotype associated with Italian-Americans. Most episodes are wont to contain copious amounts of drinking, clubbing, sex, fighting, and casual references to one another as “guidos” and “guidettes” – slang terms that most Italians find offensive. As a complete side note, I find it unbelievable that the general public and especially the media doesn’t understand that – like a large chunk of MTV’s reality programming – this show is being ironic; it’s an open parody of the ridiculous and laughable social behaviorisms that exist in North America. It’s a human case study in absurdity.
Right, back on track… Needless to say, many sponsors who didn’t fully understand what they were getting into fled from their advertising blocks upon seeing the controversial first episodes – including one that originally documented a female cast members getting punched in the face by a man at a club. The likes of Dell, Burger King, Nivea, Unico, and many more decided they had had enough and removed their ads from the Jersey Shore timeslot. But is this the right decision? This is where we must question our mindset as marketers. Our knee-jerk reaction is very simple: write-off Jersey Shore because it represents bad values that we don’t want consumers to attach our brand to.
Make sense right? Or does it? Maybe we are over-analyzing. After all, we’re not talking about branded content here. We weren’t directly a part of the show – we simply advertised during its timeslot. The show’s characters weren’t actually endorsing our brand and there was no product-placement. So why are we presuming that viewers are making a connection?
Let’s take this theory one step further. If company x advertises during a program like FOX’s 24, in which renegade secret agent Jack Bauer ruthlessly slaughters countless enemies in every episode. Does this mean company x now endorses murder? What if they advertised during Desperate Housewives – does this mean their brand represents and supports promiscuous sex and infidelity? Absolutely not. That would be a ridiculous assumption to make. …sort of like saying that anyone who advertises during Jersey Shore endorses the abuse of women?
What I’m about to say goes against a lot of traditional marketing theory, but the truth is this: consumers don’t judge your brand on every little thing you do. We’re not talking about a company whose main representative and the face of a franchise went off the deep end (a la the Tiger Woods debacle). We’re talking about timeslots. You should be selecting programs to advertise with based on ratings, demographics, and cost. In many cases, you can’t waste time worrying about content – because let’s be honest, consumers usually don’t care enough to make that connection.
As the inaugural season of Jersey Shore came to a close, their ratings reached close to 5 million viewers per episode, mostly comprised of young adults and teens. How could you possibly ignore this opportunity just because you’re scared that over-analytical consumers will make an obscure and stretched connection between your brand and the show’s content?
Never be too careful. Step back from your pie charts and focus groups, and get real. Your analysis of a consumer’s perception is likely far beyond what is reality. Read too much into issues like this, and you may miss out on a huge opportunity.
Brook Johnston
