Branding in the Age of Moral Static

What to do when conversion becomes a moral dilemma.

Author

Jasmine Bina
September 11, 2024

Article also published in Adweek.

When Ozempic was first becoming a household name last year, the public discourse around semaglutides took on a predictable pattern.

First there was concern about its safety, then skepticism of its effectiveness, and finally the conversation landed on the question of its morality. Was it immoral for obese people to “cheat” and use semaglutides to shed extra weight?

When every other practical concern was rebuffed, and even after offshoot brands like Zepbound were developed and released specifically for weight loss management instead of diabetes, the argument of morality only grew louder.

This is not an uncommon pattern for brands like Ozempic and their counterparts.

If you were paying attention you would have seen a similar pattern playing out in the public discourse around OpenAI, OnlyFans, Oatly, and smaller brands in emerging categories like female hormone replacement therapy, polyamory, end-of-life care, and baby formula.

One of the most interesting brand frontiers I see is companies tackling what I call "moral static", and I recently wrote about it for Adweek.

We see moral static in categories where new technologies, inventions or ideas are forcing us to face our deeply held, sometimes deeply false, biases. When those biases are laid bare, we resort to an argument of morality.

Moral static isn’t genuine, nuanced moral discourse.

It’s the chaotic buzz of blunt moral objection with no real path to discussion or progress. When new ideas and innovations threaten peoples’ identities, they cling to one-size-fits-all moral arguments even when there is no logical argument left.

Instead of producing a clear conversation about how we can update our models of what is right and wrong, these categories produce static.

Food brands, which operate in a highly identity-driven category, see their fair share of moral static. Oatly faced initial pushback in its native Sweden with critics discounting their oat milk as nutritionally inferior to cow’s milk, and asserting the company’s sustainability promises were inflated.

Oatly easily dismissed or disproved those claims, but it wasn’t until dairy farmers and consumers pointed at Oatly’s slogan “Flush the milk” as attacking a Swedish way of life for both dairy farmers and consumers that Oatly’s narrative was finally complicated with moral static.

America’s own relationship with food is especially plagued by moral static.

Ten years ago, buzzy brands like Soylent and Huel were initially praised for their convenience and nutritional value, but eventually saw themselves in debates about the degradation of meal culture and America’s toxic relationship with food.

Today is no different. When the FDA opened public comments on how to officially define “natural foods”, consumers often invoked moral references to God, what God intended, or Mother Nature instead of more practical definitions that precluded additives or chemicals.

While discussions of morality and ethics are vitally important when culture is faced with any new technological frontier, moral static is different.

Kranzberg's first law of technology says that ‘Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.’ People will always have biased reactions to new ideas, but today moral static is our lazy default. It’s the outrage in TikTok comments and Instagram clapback videos that only scares and confuses people, with no real intention of finding a new moral commons.

Morality is extremely difficult terrain for brands to navigate. Rather than doubling down on the moral question, it’s almost always better to deal with it through humor, irreverence or irony.

However for some brands, moral static is on the critical path to growth and the only way to go through it is to just go through it.

In cases like that, it’s important to remember that moral static places both the brand and the user at the center of a very difficult question: What is the right way to live?

That question can only be answered from the horizon of a new world, not the horizon of our old one, and the one thing brands do really well is build new worlds.

But there are rules to building a new world.

Brands have to be smart about how they support new moral beliefs, how they position themselves against common enemies, and the communities they nurture for their users.


The Future of Love and Carnage

A new generation of readers is redefining love, relationships, and intimacy by redrawing the lines of power. And with so many brands dealing in love and intimacy, this is a vitally important part of culture to be paying attention to.

I think of all the cultural movements right now, this is one of the MOST important to watch.

We had the incredible genre expert Sarah Wendell come and school us at Exposure Therapy about last month's topic on Matters of the Heart where we asked, "What kind of love does our culture feel it deserves today?"

It was like getting a sneak peak behind the curtain of the global psyche (because this is a global phenomenon btw).

The booming genre of romance and the sub-category romantasy has 2 wings:

1) A liberation wing where the protagonists will bend the world to find their joy

2) A compliance wing where the people bend themselves to find their joy

And both wings are interestingly having a renaissance.

P.S. We also had our Emotional Alchemy for the Bravehearted dinner in NYC. If you’re looking for provocations, new ideas and people to get your strategic mind going, you should come join us.


The End Is Just The Beginning

Here's what we've been consuming.

The fringes of online gutter culture (Garbage Day): "The conclusion I’ve come to this summer — one I’m still not totally sure I fully believe yet — is that what’s really happening here is that virality is decoupling from popularity. And I think you could even argue that the very idea that mass appeal had to be accurately reflected back at us online and vice versa was an entirely millennial idea. A neurotic need to know, and quantify, exactly what everyone else was seeing and doing."

Hawk Tuah and the Zynternet (Read Max): “These groups may never have really been organized into a subculture absent two other important developments: The first is Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, which has been extremely beneficial to all kinds of demonstratively macho subcultures for reasons that have been discussed ad nauseaum. The second is the legalization of sports gambling in many states, which has flooded media properties that cater to Zynternet demographics with cash, either as advertisers or often as owners.”

The evolution of vigilante girl code on TikTok (#CursedContent): "Women are banding together in creative, cunning, and what some would consider batshit crazy ways to protect themselves and others from heartbreak caused by cheaters [...] These social media quests for truth are a new form of female solidarity, transforming isolated experiences of betrayal into a never before seen act of collective justice and empowerment."

Is the End of Marriage the Beginning of Self-Knowledge? (The New Yorker): “Babies, it turns out, have been falsely accused; babies, these writers suggest, were never really to blame. It was the husbands all along—husbands who were useless with the children and domestic duties, who themselves needed constant care, whose envy of their wives’ professional success could drip a slow stream of poison into the marriage. In “Splinters,” Jamison recounts preparing for a nineteen-city book tour. Her husband at the time, also a writer, once told her, “I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand there holding your purse.””

They’re Putting Some Fun in Funerals (New York Times): “Exit Here is among a small group of funeral homes around the world — like Sparrow in New York, Poppy’s in London and Altima in Spain — with a modern feel. Exit Here’s new Crouch End space, with its velvet upholstery and curved archways, resembles a fancy members-only club… For funeral homes, they’re surprisingly hip. Looks aren’t everything, of course. These businesses also tend to offer nontraditional services like support groups for the bereaved and memorials personalized down to every detail.”

Fast Food Forever: How McHaters Lost the Culture War (New York Times): “It turns out that years of saturating American childhood with fast food has paid real dividends. The 6-to-9-year-olds in that 2000 statistic are now younger millennials, among the group with the highest rate of fast-food consumption today. They have a lifetime of memories that connect them to fast-food brands, and to McDonald’s in particular. All that needed to be done was to connect the power of that comfort and nostalgia to the power of celebrity. Fast food isn’t just cheap, accessible calories; it’s a universal experience. You’re eating the same fries as your idols."

[BONUS 1] I recently sat down with the Practical History Podcast to talk about strategy’s intimate relationship with time - something strategists often forget to factor into their scenarios. We talked about time as something to be played rather than lost, pre- and post-purchase branding, access to the past as a status symbol, and how the past and the future have collapsed into the “eternal now”.

[BONUS 2] I also was on a panel for the Conference Board on cultural brand strategy where we discussed how brands become socially and culturally relevant, how to properly measure the impact of brand, leveraging social and influencers in foreign markets, and how to find a common message for multiple audiences.

Open-Heart Artistry

Creative inspirations for the other side of your brain.

There are three big mental shifts that can turn you into an incredible brand strategist:

#1) There are no brand strategy tools. YOU are the tool.

You have to sharpen your own mind, work hard to eliminate your biases as much as possible, control your reactions in the face of uncertainty, remove your ego and experience the world from a place of true empathy, and resist lazy pattern-making.

Stop looking for the model or framework that will do the work for you.

The answer is already there. But you can only see it once your mind is clear.

#2) Don't see people's choices as good or bad, right or wrong. Everything is just a tradeoff.

I learned this one from Jean Twenge. Gen Z isn't soft. BookTok girlies aren't delusional. Margaritaville isn't full of cringey retirees.

Every psychographic of people is making the tradeoffs they feel will give them the best life.

Gen Z growing up slowly is a smart tradeoff between resources and aspirations. BookTok girlhood is a smart tradeoff between power structures and bodily autonomy. Living in a senior community like Margaritaville is a smart tradeoff between independence and human connection.

The tradeoff tells you the real desires and motivations of a person.

#3) Let the work change you.

The reason why strategists love what they do is because it allows them to constantly evolve past their own limited beliefs.

Working with a beauty brand made me excited about getting older. Branding a construction tech company made me proud of the American work ethic. Spending time with the fans of a plus size clothing brand made me grateful for parts of myself I once tried to erase.

In fact, “Let the work change you” is our company’s first value. It’s that important.

It requires a vulnerability and humility not many people are open to, but when the work changes you, you get closer to a real strategy. You get closer to a new perspective that can unlock massive value.

If you’re not changing, you’re not really doing the work.

And if there was a fourth, I would say don't just learn. Take what you learn and digest it with a community. I would have never had these insights if I didn't have my community.

Your community is the most important strategic advantage you've got.

Yours,

Jasmine Bina
Founder & CEO