The day after the assassination attempt on former president and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Vermont Democratic senator Bernie Sanders said on NBC’s Meet the Press, “Politics should be kind of boring, you know?” Which is to say, all about boring wonky stuff, not “radical rhetoric.” Certainly not violence. Politics should be boring.
Sound familiar?
Boring is my current take on the marketplace.
Volatility is the defining experience of this century, and at long last, people are worn out with it. People want a break from all the drama, uncertainty, instability and chaos. People want relief, respite, even sanctuary. Which is why boring is now the best vocabulary for engaging with consumers.
Like PNC Bank, which brags it is Brilliantly Boring-not unstable or risky like the other banks that went belly-up not too long ago. Or Heineken, with a recent promotion in which it gave away the Boring Phone – a dumb flip phone, not a smartphone with the attendant risks and controversy about mental health and misinformation. SeatGeek ran an ad in which a cheeky interviewer promises to “bore” you with interviews about a ticketing app that “just does what it’s supposed to do” and for which consumers can “expect the expected”- thus none of the controversy and disruption that occurred with Ticketmaster and the Taylor Swift tour.
Boring: A Global Phenomena
Boring resonates worldwide. As in the new ad for Visit Oslo that sells the city as a destination by emphasizing how boring it is. Or the Brother printers ad campaign in New Zealand that highlights all the things its printers will not do-save lives, save the environment, change the world, fix climate change, inspire a better tomorrow, set trends or get you in first class. Instead, its tag line reads, “It just works.”
Boring doesn’t mean dull. People want excitement, but big fun rooted in ordinary, boring stuff. Not in extremes. Like Scottie Scheffler, the number one golfer in the world, whose “boring, unexciting and ho-hum” style, as one profile put it, attracts a Tiger Woods-like following.
Boring is finding its way into politics. The New York Times The Wall Street Journal and CNN all described the landslide Labour Party victory of new U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer as a triumph of boring-that’s the very adjective used. It’s why he’s known as No-Drama Starmer.
Similarly, Ohio Republican Senator J.D. Vance delivered an acceptance speech for his nomination as the Republican candidate for Vice President with a tone and a message that was more measured than political rhetoric of late, including a call for a “big tent” of ideologies and demographics.
Trump himself gave an acceptance speech that was noteworthy for including less of his typical barrage of bombast and choler and for balancing that at the outset with a well-spoken, emotionally tinged call for “discord and division” to be “healed” because “[a]s Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together-or we fall apart.”
Of course, it goes without saying that it is unclear whether such a ‘boring style’ can be sustained in today’s fraught climate. Yet, for both Trump and Vance it was a notable nod toward boring as the way forward.
Yes To Boring, No To Politics
Weighing the evidence, my recommendation is for brands to take a step back from activist political and social positions. Not to abandon important values and principles. Rather, to embrace them as a way of operating but not as a way of positioning or communicating. The recent turn of events adds more weight to this counsel.
If fiery rhetoric and pointed provocations continue to poison the atmosphere for politics, there is no place for brands in politics. The millstone of so much divisiveness for so long has left people exhausted and fatigued. Boring is what people want.
As I have written numerous times, brands are not built for politics. Brands win by selling to as many people as possible. That’s how brands grow. Controversy works against this. Politicians win with one more vote, so divide-and-conquer makes sense. This is not the proper strategy for brands, which must be in the business of delivering a meaningful difference to more people. To grow, brands must embrace not ostracize.
On the other hand, if politicians are now softening their politics by rethinking combativeness and confrontation as their modus operandi, then it is certainly not the moment for brands to lean in harder. In short, there is no scenario of politics conducive for brands. Even before the events of this month, but especially in light of them, brands and politics are a poor fit.
Consumers want brands to be better at just being brands, for everyone.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By Walker Smith, Chief Knowledge Officer, Brand & Marketing at Kantar
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