Susannah Morgan, Deputy Managing Director at PR agency, Energy PR, discusses how Lizzo’s recent lawsuit and surrounding controversy is a sobering reminder to brands not to undermine the reason their audience loves them.
Lizzo’s recent PR disaster is a reminder of just how easily years’ worth of brand building efforts can be undone.
It’s a lesson that can be applied to personal brands and organisations alike. In an age full of cancel culture and power to the masses, brands must remember that audience sentiment dictates their success or failure.
So, what can brands learn from the Lizzo saga, and how can they work to protect themselves from reputational crises?
What’s Love Got to Do with It?
No one is immune to cancel culture and no brand is untouchable. In fact, more than a third of Brits have turned away from a brand because of its behaviour. Nevertheless, a brand that is loved is far more likely to have its missteps tolerated than a brand struggling to connect with its audience.
Our research has shown that consumers will give brands they love more than twice as many chances after messing up than they would a brand they didn’t love.
Achieving real love is no mean feat. For a brand to be loved by its audience, it must achieve at least three things:
Three Pillars of Brand Love
- Its values align with the consumer’s values.
- It is closely tied with the consumer’s identity.
- It becomes part of someone’s life.
However, no matter how much brand love is built, it’s worth noting that consumer tolerance has a ceiling, one which brands sometimes forget exists. Tolerance is a valuable asset to have as a backup when things start to go wrong, but it mustn’t be pushed.
The Lizzo Saga
Celebrities. From global pop singers and famous athletes to Love Island influencers, they all are essentially brands like any other. Fans buy into their values and behaviours and it’s these that fuel their celebrity status and keep their followers engaged.
The same values and behaviours dictate how much people are willing to spend on that celebrity, whether that’s devoting time or money on merchandise, performances etc. If a celebrity’s behaviour undermines the very reason fans love them, the resulting backlash can be swift and severe. And Lizzo is a prime illustration of this.
Lizzo’s brand and supporting fanbase is built on the ideals of female empowerment, self-love, and body confidence. Lizzo also founded ‘Yitty’, an all-size-inclusive shapewear brand, that further carries her ideals of body positivity and cements Lizzo’s position as an inclusive ‘brand’.
Lizzo’s audience is predominantly female, the majority of which are in their twenties and thirties. Other celebrity influences for her fanbase include Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Hilary Clinton, Mindy Kaling, and Ellen Degeneres – all of which have a strong female empowerment and inclusivity theme tying them together.
Lizzo has cemented herself within the lives of her audience. How? Well, her core values tap into her fanbases’ own values and self-identities. And the sheer volume of her content available - be that social media posts, music, TV, the shapewear brand – keeps them in a constant consuming cycle.
All three pillars of brand love are achieved. So, Lizzo reaps the benefits of a strong brand and accompanying audience that share the same ideals. But she has been accused of behaviour which contradicts the very reason fans love her, bringing those three pillars crumbling down and leaving followers feeling betrayed. It will be incredibly challenging to recover from and if the lawsuit finds her or her managing team guilty, it may not be possible to come back from at all.
Trumping Defeat
Donald Trump the point in a different way. He seems to avoid any and all criticism from his own audience. To them, he can do no wrong, even if he is proven to have done wrong in the eyes of justice and the US law.
Whether he’s being sued, arrested, accused of sexual harassment, or spouting unreliable ‘fake news’ - it doesn’t impact the reasons why people love him. In fact, whenever he is hit with a fresh lawsuit, it only reinforces his adoration with fans as a ‘martyr’ against the broken woke establishment.
The strength of their feeling for Trump makes him almost invincible – in their view and in his own. This untouchable anti-woke martyr is an incredibly powerful marketing positioning. Trump knows his audience and he plays to it, trumping defeat time and time again.
Convenience Over Better Judgement
In a similar vein to Trump, Amazon is capable of weathering criticism that would detrimentally affect other brands, because it doesn’t impact the reasons we love it. Amazon’s business model fits neatly into our spontaneous and convenience-driven lifestyle. We love the fact that we can order a cheese grater or Halloween costume and have it delivered the next day.
The way it fits into our demanding modern-day lives is a strong pillar of brand love, hailing Amazon as our shopping saviour. As a result, we are slightly more able to tolerate the negative stories and that our hard-earned cash is founding one man’s billionaire fund.
Whilst the missteps of a celebrity may feel worlds away from your business, Lizzo’s downfall could be yours if your behaviours erode the very reasons your audience is loyal to your business. Knocking down just one pillar of brand love could be the most expensive mistake you make.
