Commentary

Punk In A Suit -- What Marketers Can Learn From Brexit 2.0

"Down With This Sort Of Thing - Careful Now." If you have never watched the comic genius that is Father Ted you may not have seen the scene where the Irish priests are outside a cinema protesting against a film deemed too blasphemous for good Catholic folk to view. Of course, neither has seen it. The top brass at the church hadn't seen it either. So nobody was quite sure what was so bad about the film, only that is shouldn't be watched. Hence the very vague placard which -- you guessed it -- was the best ad the film could ever have enjoyed.

It's a little like the feeling marketers need to tap into that has spread through the UK, is spreading through the EU, and now, the U.S. People are not so much voting for something as they are against something else. They're not entirely sure what it is they want -- they just kind of know it isn't the normal fare offered to them. As Trump walked offstage this morning, the chorus of "You can't always get what you want" by The Rolling Stones seemed apt, particularly the part where "you get what you need." Not that anybody is entirely sure what they wanted but Trump presumably has a hook on what they might need. A guy famous for putting his name on tall buildings and sacking young hopefuls in a reality TV show had just beaten the former First Lady and Secretary of State. 

It's not just the U.S. taking this leap into the unknown. Nobody had a clue what Brexit would look like. Nobody thought it would get voted for, right up until it did. Nobody would have given you good odds on further anti establishment votes passing a year or so ago but Angela Merkel just took a beating in local elections, is more unpopular than ever and will, I'm pretty certain, be voted out of office in a year's time. The right is on the rise in France, as well as Germany, anti-establishment votes are flooding in in Spain and Italy is about to vote to potentially change its constitution.

There was a touch of Groundhog Day about this morning's news for Britons. I can't speak for an entire nation, but I believe it's fair to say the majority of the country was praying Brexit madness wasn't contagious, even if that's what they'd voted for. We all thought Hillary would win, Americans are too smart to vote for a guy who has said some awful things about women and other cultures -- the kind of stuff that would see him debarred in the UK. And what's with the baseball cap and umpa lumpa spray tan? I don't want to claim to have called it because i was still hopeful last night, however, I pointed out to our kids that there's this anti-establishment movement taking over and generally news crews speak to "experts" in suits. They don't go to a closed down mill town to see how the rust belt is feeling about economic empowerment. Those experts have a single vote, just like everybody else.

So there are two lessons for marketers, from what I can see. The first is simple. Listen. Don't just go out there to get data that confirms what you believe. Get the full picture, examine what you're being told and question whether it's the full picture. It likely isn't. In other words, don't do a Marks and Spencer. It's the shop we all grew up with and it's the shop we've all pretty much deserted. It's the retailer that's going to be turned around every year but never is. It's the brand the public keeps telling that we love its food and underwear, the rest of the stuff, not so much. People smile and react positively to the name. It's a part of our culture. But our actions which keep sending profits down tell another story. The data has been telling the company this for a good decade or more.

The second lesson is, again, very simple. Old establishment telling us what to think and do. That's gone. The British cabinet is dominated by maverick figures, the same is likely to happen as other countries in the EU and it goes without saying that the New Year will see a very different executive arm flexing its muscle on Capitol Hill. 

Marketing and technology has led in this. The huge companies that we use daily weren't around a decade ago, or if they were they were just some friends in a garage doing "neat" stuff. Start-ups have fundamentally changed the way we find stuff out about the world, how we interact and conduct commerce. The old ways of doing things were complicated, time-consuming and not focussed on customer convenience. They served the corporations' interests, they concentrated power and influence where it had always been. This needed turning on its head.

It's little surprise this wave of the new has been extended to politics as Farage in the UK and Trump in the U.S. have shown what can happen when you go beyond the data, the everyday picture and see the hunger for change, to take power away from old elites. The big brands get it. They've been incubating the start-ups that may rise one day to slaughter them for quite some time. It's Elvis and The Beatles all over again. It's a punk movement, in a suit. 

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