Sometimes, the harsh responses to something a company releases into the universe are just part of the ubiquitous faux outrage-industrial complex. Some basement-dwelling edge lord getting themselves into a lather about the gender identity of an M&M or some other equally inane perceived culture war transgression usually says more about them than it does about the subject of their ire.
I am talking about unforced errors that leave you shaking your head in disbelief that someone thought this was a winning idea. The ne plus ultra of such jaw-dropping boneheadedness is this infamous ad from several years ago, in which a mattress store gleefully announces its “Twin Tower Sale” on September 11th by featuring two employees who collapse into two towers of mattresses. The cringe is strong with that one, to say the least.
While it is highly unlikely that any notoriously risk-averse law firm would ever step in it as deeply as that quickly shuttered mattress store, they are not immune from screwing up, even with the most well-intentioned of marketing efforts.
“I didn’t think about that!”
How do such marketing backfires happen when they seem so obvious in retrospect? A likely scenario is that once an uproar begins, or even if a client or colleague quietly points out that there may be an issue, those behind the content or ad are legitimately shocked, crying out something along the lines of, “Oh, my God, I didn’t think about that!” as they take down their social media accounts, update their resumes, or go into hiding.
“Not even thinking about that” can be a fatal flaw in law firms’ marketing and social media campaigns. While we may be aware of our target market’s demographics or have abundant market research at our fingertips, we are still vulnerable to crafting content and marketing from inside our own personal or professional echo chambers.
This limited prism, based on our own background and experiences, can make it difficult to see problems that appear painfully obvious once folks with different backgrounds and experiences make themselves heard. And once we convince ourselves of an idea’s brilliance, our ability to see that idea any other way is even more compromised.
Similarly, we may fail to consider that the zeitgeist or current events can transform an idea or concept that would otherwise be non-controversial in the abstract into an offensive debacle. Fashion company Zara found this out in December of 2023 when, as reported by CNN, it released advertising images for a line of jackets that “featured rubble, ripped plaster and mannequins wrapped in plastic. One picture showed a model holding a mannequin shrouded in white, which social media users said was reminiscent of a corpse.”
Coming as it did during the ongoing and brutal Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, the campaign created an uproar and calls for a boycott of Zara for its perceived insensitivity, even though it was developed well before the Oct. 7th attacks. It is a reminder that content and marketing efforts can be overtaken by events, like when a TV episode filmed months ago about a terror attack is shelved because of a subsequent incident that made it suddenly inappropriate. Pay attention to the world around you when considering how marketing material may be perceived.
Furthermore, efforts to be “edgy” or “provocative” or the pressure to create viral content or “get people talking” can lead to envelope-pushing, which, while innocuous in intent, may be offensive in execution.
These kinds of marketing fails don’t just involve issues of race, sex, religion, and politics. They can just as easily be matters of bad taste, like a Filet-O-Fish sandwich. One of the consensus marketing disasters of 2017 was an emotionally exploitative McDonald’s ad in which a child learns that his late father liked Filet-O-Fish just like he does! Nothing says profound grief and a fatherless childhood like tartar sauce. The world was not lovin’ it.
You can’t please everyone, but you don’t have to.
Of course, you can never eliminate the possibility that someone, somewhere, may take offense at your content or marketing, nor should you try. I am reminded of an email I once sent to a fellow attorney in downstate Illinois, asking if he would like to meet for lunch since I would soon be in his “neck of the woods.”
My superior at the time, copied on the email, expressed her sincere concern that the phrase was offensive, implying that the attorney lived in some backward nowheresville (which was also heavily forested, apparently). Of course, I scoffed at the idea that “neck of the woods” was pejorative in any way since I say the same thing about Chicago neighborhoods a mile away from mine. I stand by that assessment, even though I now know at least one person felt differently.
But headline-making marketing mistakes aren’t about outliers or hypersensitivity. They aren’t about cancel culture, political correctness, snowflakes, trigger warnings, safe spaces, and all the other ways we talk about offending people’s sensibilities in the public square.
They are simply about failing to see things from perspectives other than your own. That is why diversity is so important. And why it is critical to have multiple sets of eyes look at your law firm’s proposed marketing ideas, whether those are the eyes of colleagues, friends, or focus groups. Once you gather those perspectives, you can evaluate how your marketing concept will be received — in your neck of the woods and beyond.
