No place to hide

Brands can no longer use transparency as an empty slogan, they need to walk the talk

Can a brand employ dodgy business practices, say child labour, and talk about empowerment? Can a brand equate fair skin with beauty and profess to champion womanhood? As the impact of technology is felt across media and consumers get easier access to more information and are served up more platforms to voice their causes, it is clear that brand transparency is a reality that every brand owner has to live up to. 

The reality of the times we live in is that the entire value chain — not just the physical product or the communication – is today the brand. No longer can a business get away by projecting a brand truth that is at odds with the core product truth. Every shopper with a mobile phone, every blogger with an opinion is a watchdog and these voices can at times be a far more powerful check on brands than the rules imposed by regulators. Brands have to live under the relentless gaze of scrutiny and criticism.

If the product truth is rooted in making the dark skin fairer and hence lovelier, then the brand owner has to accept that there are limits to the brand’s ability to transcend this and become a symbol of empowered femininity. No amount of format innovations, ingredient stories or premium extensions can change this product-brand truth.

Conversely, if a brand is pinning its promise on the hook of social responsibility, then it better make sure that every link in the chain that gets the product from the lab to the factory through to the shopper is adhering to the prevailing norms of responsible behaviour – be it with respect to the environment or internal business practices. 

The demand for transparency on one hand and the lack of trust from consumers when they suspect a schism between the product truth and brand truth is becoming a game changer in some categories. The processed food industry is a case in point – in the world of packaged food and beverage (F&B) sector at least, shoppers are rediscovering the adage ‘small is beautiful’. So whether it is a Paper Boat in India taking on much bigger players in beverages or KIND snack bars in the US or an Ella’s Kitchen (started by a parent in mid-England who wanted more natural foods for his daughter) becoming so successful that it gets acquired by the giant firm Hain Celestial, the march of the small entrepreneurial brands continues unabated.

And while the technology of e-commerce and social media are huge enablers of these “small” brands’ success, the real trigger for their continued proliferation is the consumer desire for genuine transparency and more authenticity.

It used to be that a brand logo was enough to generate trust but no more. With the click of a button, consumers can peep into every aspect of a brand’s value chain and if they don’t like what they see, they can, with some more clicks, disseminate that information in quite a damaging way, very fast.

This new hyper-informed and hyper-critical consumer is forcing brands to become more disciplined – its not that every brand needs to have a lofty social ideal or an altruistic mission at its core. But aligning the product truth to the brand truth in an honest and logical way has certainly become a hygiene imperative in brand management. 

This does not spell an end to storytelling- we will still connect to and choose those brands that tell the stories we want to hear in the most engaging way. It’s just that we are hungry for honest stories that elevate our product experiences while respecting our right to know the core truths.  

The author is brand strategist and consultant with Healthy Marketing