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CMOs are increasingly trying to stay abreast of our fast-changing socio-political times in order to better connect with the mood of the nation. When done successfully, it can significantly improve brand equity. When done poorly, it can risk losing strategic focus or wasting ever-squeezed resources, mindlessly chasing the latest trends.
The question, then, is how do marketers go about getting that complicated ambition right? Let’s explore in a little more depth.
As brand custodians wanting to successfully connect with the UK’s evolving mood, we are always confronted with two key decisions.
The first is whether we are trying to connect on a deep and enduring, strategic level or simply looking at a tactical opportunity. The second is whether we are attempting to speak to the masses or appeal to a less homogenous subset.
In both cases, there are pros and cons associated with each direction, but opportunity in all.
Let’s start with the first question.
The strategic vs tactical dilemma
This question suggests there are two types of brands: those which can adjust to and connect with the national mood as a well-considered, often foundational strategy, and those that have to do so as a more tactical opportunity.
The first is certainly more powerful. Let’s take, for example, Who Gives A Crap? It’s a toilet paper brand designed and invented specifically to appeal to people who feel bad about “wasting” virgin paper (and want their house guests to know this). 
Its marketers haven’t fabricated and appended a purpose to their brand. The brand is that purpose. It was created to strategically tap into the changing moods of the nation (or at least part of it).
Other examples include Ecover, Tony’s Chocolonely, and perhaps also the bigger brands like Patagonia and even Nike. They are brands that are able to put hand on heart and stick to what they believe in. The power of connecting to a mood like this is that it feels genuine, authentic. You can’t poke as many holes in it.
This is in contrast with brands which are trying to connect to the nation’s mood changes more tactically. Think, as a reference, of brands which created a slew of “we are all in this together” campaigns during the Covid 19 pandemic. Or perhaps those that fly the LGBTQi+ flag for a week or so in a year.
There is opportunity to quickly connect with something so contextual - especially if you bring a fresh, creative take or serve a purpose in education - but it is fraught with likely accusations of “X”-washing or being disingenuous merely for a short term business opportunity. No one wants to be a weathervane brand, moving as quickly as the winds of change can blow. As the old saying goes: “when we stand for nothing, we'll fall for anything”.
Arguably, there is a third type of brand which tries to connect with the nation’s moods: one for which the strategy is tactics. Paddy Power is a great example. It has made an entire brand by capitalising on rapid, often controversial, takes, designed to play back the mood of its audiences. But it has set up the content teams (and removed the necessary guard rails) to allow it to do this. Not everyone is so brave.
So, ask yourself: what type of brand are you? The truth is that not everyone has the creation story, the single-minded intent, nor the bravery to strategically focus on a particular emerging belief, mood, or trend. So they resist doing so for fear of seeming to bandwagon-jump.
What makes tactical opportunities possible is leaning in to them with integrity. Regardless of whether they are strategic mood-matchers or tactical moment-jackers, I encourage brands to understand the following: great brands don’t just have a positioning, they take a position. That means not being afraid to have some predefined brand beliefs. These are points of view which have the ability to divide opinion. Without beliefs that can genuinely divide opinion, brands are resigned to:
Brand beliefs that are nothing more than societal briefs (murder is bad, water is good etc.)
A future of perpetual fence-sitting (and therefore lost opportunities to meaningfully connect)
Having no idea what sorts of topics in which the brand can have a genuine and/or authoritative voice.
Set some brand beliefs that take a point of view, that don’t try to appeal to everyone and then stick to them. Personally, I like to practise having strong opinions that are loosely held. For brands, I’d suggest strong opinions, firmly held. These can help you find tactical opportunities that don’t reek of opportunism and inauthenticity.
It means you can keep your strategic focus as is, but flex to lean into tactical, mood-driven opportunities, safe in the knowledge your brand beliefs give you licence to do so. The catch is to make sure you regularly evidence your brand beliefs as you go. To quote Emilline Pankhurst: “deeds not words”. That can be hard to commit to, especially with smaller budgets. But it should run through the organisation.
Let’s move on to the 2nd question.
Mass vs niche
The mood of the nation these days is rarely, if ever, homogenous. That makes it difficult for nervous brands to truly connect with it without having brand beliefs, as outlined above, firmly in place. What’s more, battle lines are increasingly being drawn down the centre of society. Right vs Left. Traditional vs Liberal. Immigrant-friendly vs Anti-immigration. The list goes on.
There are fewer opportunities for genuine consensus. Rather, there is more societally driven, social-media-amplified polarisation. One person’s peaceful march for freedom can be another person’s politically motivated rioting. It is hard to know what side of “mass” to come down on. Increasingly, brands are being pushed into picking a side. Or, at least, adopting slightly more niche positions, shared by the most valuable segments of their customer base.
So what is better, going mass or niche?
Going mass is trying to be representative of the majority - taking a position that appeals to as many people as possible; a position few could disagree with. As we’ve discussed, the problem is that fence-sitting suggests a lack of integrity or purpose (with a small p). You may end up swaying with the winds of change, being driven by what people want, not what you believe. You risk not adding anything valuable to the discourse and having little real authority in it either.
Niche is about finding a subset or smaller groups within the population and aligning with their core values and their mood. In the world of [Dr.] Byron Sharp [professor of marketing science at the University of South Australia], many marketers resist this approach, questioning how it’s possible to “reach all non-rejectors” with opinions and narratives that have the ability to divide. But that can be missing an opportunity to connect meaningfully with your core customers.
Regardless of whether you think you are a mass brand or a niche brand, the task is still the same. We should be trying to connect on a societal level, on a social level, and (at risk of using an overly en vogue concept), on a cultural level.
And here’s the rub; this means that, increasingly, we are dealing in connecting with culture and in many cases, subcultures. This is vital.
We talk a lot about culture in our agency, and make sure that we understand what it means and how it works. The most important thing we can do when working with culture is not to leech off of it but to actively contribute to it. This can’t be stated enough.
And to become active contributors in culture means understanding the cultural cues, norms, behaviours and values of the cultural group you are trying to connect with.
Sadly, in a post-Byron Sharp world, this is somewhat of lost art. People skip garnering any depth of understanding by hiding behind the rationale of appealing to all people. This isn’t right. What's more, the aim should not be just to understand but to actively make things that contribute value or worth to the culture we are attempting to connect with. Not simply to endlessly draw the lifeblood out of it.
Real-world implications
So what does that mean in practice? Making things (e.g. communications, innovations, campaigns for change) that can actively add to the cultural or subcultural landscape. Not merely capturing how people are feeling and playing it back to them as disconnected, somewhat aloof observers, but doing things that can tangibly impact the nation’s culture and therefore its mood.
Our aim should be to make things people want and need to see in the world, not just mood-focussed advertising that is an opportunity to steal the attention (and let’s be honest, spending power) of an unsuspecting British public. When we start to do the former, our brands can take on real meaning.
But how do you change reasonably and credibly between different groups, cultures and moods as the societal context dictates? The best advice is to have predefined segments. Each of these segments will have different wants and needs. Sometimes there will be cultural discourse appropriate for one segment of customers for which your brand beliefs and actions gives you a right to join in. Other times it will be a completely different segment. The challenge lies in predetermining which segment is a strategic priority for the business in a year and focusing primarily on that. Crucially, you also need to reserve the ability to pivot to another segment should there be either a contextual need or a contextual opportunity.
By the way, you should only join discourse in cultures and subcultures when you:
Understand empathetically
Have a brand belief that fits with the beliefs of this audience
Have a credible history in them (or at very least, an intentional future)
This stops any resulting lack of integrity.
To sum up: if you can't be strategically aligned to big cultural movements, you will have to do so tactically. It’s far harder to be convincing without a solid and rarely changing collection of brand beliefs. Powerful brand beliefs not only allow you to demonstrate what you think and where you can show up but they also can help you identify groups or subgroups that you culturally align to.
Lastly, when aligning with these groups' unique culture, actively add to it, don't just try to leech off of it. This is never about playing back the mood of the nation, it is about trying to change (at least some of) it for the better.
Dom Roe, is head of planning at Recipe