What Morgan Spurlock Can Teach Us About Brave Business

I recently watched this Ted Talk by Morgan Spurlock that is an oldie but a goodie (released in 2013). For those of you that may not be familiar with Morgan he came to fame with his documentaries the most famous of which is Super Size Me. He parlayed that success into a series on A&E entitled 30 Days in which he walked in other people's shoes to provide a perspective on issues that were controversial at the moment.

What I like so much about his Ted Talk is how he exposed the fearful decision making in the Advertising industry. But this isn't a hit piece on that industry and the same decision making processes and cultures exist in any industry and in most organizations.

One of my favorite moments in the talk involves a clip at the 10 minute mark where he is meeting with the Ban deodorant marketing execs and asks them what the one word they would use to describe Ban and there is silence. Then the first answer is superior technology... for deodorant!

Some of the takeaways from the talk include:
1. The brands that were obviously brave and took a risk with Spurlock's movie were ones that cut out the middle man (advertising agency) because they understood that they may not have the brand's best interests at mind. This is a theme covered in my book Corporate Bravery.
2. Spurlock's summation of what he experienced with trying to make the movie was, "When you train your employees to be risk averse, then you train your whole company to be reward challenged."
3. It is remarkable that EMC won the rights for his Ted Talk with just over $7K. A small sum for the millions of views that this clip has experienced.

Fear and Advertising

I saw this commercial recently for Schick where the premise of the commercial is that of a man that shows up for an interview and while sitting in the lobby of the office awaiting the interview he notices that the pictures of the executives are all bald. To gain an advantage in the interview he runs out and shaves his head using a Schick razor and the commercial ends with the other men with obvious concern.

Perhaps this speaks to some men, but honestly it makes me never want to buy a Schick razor - EVER. The message is that it is OK to present yourself as someone you are not in order to get the job. But what happens when after a few days on the job he and his manager realizes that culturally he isn't a good fit or that he has to compromise more than just his hair in order to be successful at this company?

It is yet another sad attempt by marketers to tell us we need to act a certain way to get ahead in business and it is patently false. And unfortunately it is another in a long line of examples recently that show how advertisers continue to chase some idea about who we are as consumers that just doesn't line up with our real values.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article in January about this tweet from Denny's in September of 2014. According to the article,

"The message, which to teens translates to "these hash browns are on point," garnered almost 30,000 retweets and was seen in the advertising industry as something of a social media marketing masterstroke. Taco Bell & IHOP later sent out their own tweets using the phrase "on fleek" looking to get in on the action."

The article goes on to discuss that while these examples may generate some buzz it also has the opportunity to 'provoke eye rolling' for the obvious attempt at trying to act cool. The problem is that consumers see straight through weak attempts to be something that you aren't. This example is punctuated by the sad copy cat nature of Taco Bell and IHOP's attempt to use the same phrase later the same day. It is all akin to your dad using some slang term that is an obvious break from character and only serves to prove how out of touch he really is with your culture.