The Business End Of Social Media Outrage

Brand heads should read the outrage well. While some require an apologetic stance, others can be used to their benefit.

- M Muneer

The outrage expressed by a section of Twitterati over HUL’s tea brand Red Label follows a similar social fury against its Surf Excel brand earlier this year. Both the times, the issue was around ads that featured people of two different faiths.

Despite both ads scoring high on emotional connect, storyline, memorability and social relevance, a firestorm got erupted in social media.

Red Label is one of the top-selling tea brands in India and its ad, centred around Ganesh festival, has left some people fuming in social media, perhaps justifying the essence of the ad itself. The ad is about a Hindu shopping for a Ganesh idol but he hesitates to buy the one he liked when he realises that a Muslim has made it. Angry tweets said it was an insult on the majority Hindus and that no Hindu would display such hesitation.

Many commented that brands should stay away from religion in a polarised society.

The question should not be about brands using religion as a theme but about how brands should manage social fury to their benefit. Firestorms are often seen as negative (Uber and United Airlines suffered when their crises went viral), but they can be good brand weapons. There have been incidents of bomb threats and large-scale petitioning online, but at the same time the brand followers have increased by the 1000s.

Brands can get entangled in social fury not just because of religion. Chobani, the leading Greek yogurt brand in the US, promotes its natural ingredients with the tagline, “How Matters.” The campaign of its low-calorie ‘Simply 100’ yogurt didn’t go well with the scientist community because of the message under the lid: “Nature got us to 100 calories, not scientists”. The brand had to apologise online, and ended up offering free yogurts to scientists to cool the online heat.