• by Christina Beavis , October 3, 2018

Halloween is the one time of the year when costumed zombies walk among us, but some businesses out there embody the spirit of the living dead all year round.

These “zombie” brands, too brain-dead to forge their own identity and achieve ownership over their brands, mindlessly stumbling alongside their competitors without realizing that the inability to differentiate themselves is the path to decay.

Zombie brands traditionally are defined as those that have not had revenue growth in three years or more. For example, the Coca-Cola Company announced recently that it will eliminate a number of undisclosed “zombie” brands from its portfolio.

But there’s another type of zombie brand that we define as either deliberately or unintentionally trying to co-opt the equity and messaging of another brand.

In another era, they were called “me-too” brands, but now there’s a movement with that name. The term “zombie” in these cases is more suitable, because of the seeming laziness with which their messaging and execution were created.

Take the following examples as cautionary tales:

Coca-Cola’s 1971 TV spot, “Hilltop,” which featured the jingle, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” was so effective in its message and execution that it is considered the gold standard of advertising. It has had many imitators, most conspicuously and recently rival Pepsi -- in a much-maligned spot featuring Kendall Jenner, who quells tensions during a street protest by handing a cop a can of the beverage.

When Your Social Team Needs to be Quarantined

DiGiorno’s social team might have actually benefited from a serving of brains when they tweeted the following:

The tweet seems innocent enough -- except for the fact that the #WhyIStayed hashtag was a heart-wrenching conversation between survivors of domestic abuse. This one was probably unintentional and therefore more embarrassing.

Don’t shuffle mindlessly through social. The pace of Twitter is relentless, but eagerness to “be part of the conversation” without due diligence can lead to gaffes that range from mildly annoying to callous and harmful. Intentional social strategy is one of the most effective ways to distinguish your brand, so it is absolutely critical to take the time to understand context instead of corpse-walking through hashtags.

This may sound obvious, but the zombie-esque approach to social can seem bordering on an epidemic -- as when, for example, "Entenmann’s made a grave trending topic-related mistake" several years ago, as discussed in this Techcrunchpost. 

When “me too” is a #MeToo fail

Just as “why I stayed” was a moniker to raise awareness about domestic violence against women, the #MeToo hashtag represents a movement to combat sexual harassment and sexual assault.   

The hashtag identifies whoever invokes it as someone who has experienced harassment or violence, and its use is a means of empowerment through revelation. Most brands have been savvy enough not to try to capitalize on it, perhaps learning a lesson from cosmetics brand Hard Candy, which fell on its cause-marketing sword early this year when word got out that it had attempted to trademark #MeToo.

Twitter lit up with negative comments:

• I cannot believe Hard Candy tried to trademark the ‘#MeToo’ hashtag that is some shameless siphoning

• This was disgusting and shady and hard candy knew it#metoo doesn’t belong to a company

• I love when corporations turn sexual assault awareness concepts into profit.#hardcandy #MeToo

Unsurprisingly, the backlash forced Hard Candy to withdraw the trademark application.

Halloween is one of the best times of the year because we embrace the idea of being scared and having fun with it. Some businesses put us through enough scary advertising fails all year, and that’s not fun. The last thing we need is a zombie brand-pocalypse, too. It’s time for brands to stop acting braindead and resurrect their boldness, creativity, individuality, and above all, empathy.