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Cancel culture—the process of canceling, calling out, calling in and/or boycotting a person, brand or company on social media—has reached a crescendo in recent months. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the term, you’re likely to know a brand or public figure that has been canceled for their offensive actions: Papa John’s, Ellen DeGeneres and J.K. Rowling, to name a few and more recently, Piers Morgan.
From the removal of Confederate monuments to the rebranding of offensive sports team names and hundreds of examples in between, unprecedented levels of participation in cancel culture have helped organic movements rapidly achieve their desired outcomes in ways we’ve never seen before.
This should have marketers worried. An effort to cancel a brand can ignite and spread instantaneously, causing reputational harm and major business implications.
How can marketers best avoid damage and distress that may occur? In an analysis of 755 million tweets from more than 4 million people calling for brand cancellations, there were four key insights.
Modern social pressures have fanned the flames of cancel culture
Though the term “cancel culture” became prominent this past summer, boycotts or angry protests are nothing new. What is new is that social media and cultural pressures over the past year have sparked a phenomenon.
A straightforward comparison of all 2019 cancellation conversations to all 2020 cancellation conversations shows a staggering year-over-year increase of more than 52% of total tweets. What’s more is that the average number of tweets per cancel culture contributor remained roughly equivalent, indicating growth is not driven by the same number of people, but more people are participating at the same rate.
Marketers should be inspired to take time now to evaluate the strength of your brand’s equity and understand the relationship between your brand and its audience. Develop a robust brand citizenship framework, which clearly defines and translates a brand’s purpose and values into real-world communications and behaviors.
Nonbiased political affiliation
A sweep of cancel culture opinion articles and online conversations would have you believe this phenomenon belongs to a political affiliation or ideology. However, our examination of more than 3 million Twitter users participating in cancel conversations over the last two years shows the practice transcends political spectrums. By evaluating these Twitter users’ political affinities based on who they follow, findings suggest a nearly equal split of liberals and conservatives in both total mentions and unique authors (with conservatives having a slight edge). But given the sheer volume of conversations, it’s difficult to get granular on the sentiment of all the tweets.
Every brand is a potential target for cancel culture. Your brand citizenship framework should address all issues important to your audience, making sure a brand’s actions are grounded in genuine human needs and interests. Also, while owning and sharing your purpose may alienate or provoke some audience segments, being silent has significant reputation risks.
A threat on a near-constant basis
In 2020, the weekly volume of cancellation conversations exceeded 50,000 mentions 20 different times: a nearly relentless flow of anti-corporate fervor punctuated by massive jumps in volume and unique authors.
Big brands generate a great amount of social discussion, but canceled brands aren’t just Fortune 100 companies. Much smaller brands like Mellow Johnny’s, a 13-year-old Texas bike shop, have been thrust into the national spotlight, receiving thousands of angry mentions, replies and #CancelMellowJohnnys tweets within a matter of days.
Cancel culture goes from zero to 100 mph in the blink of an eye. Marketers should engage in thoughtful social listening and analysis to hear, understand and be prepared for relevant fluctuations in cultural conversations. And a reactive process of actions and communications should be planned in advance in order to act wisely and strategically in the moment.
Cancellations are short-lived but pack a punch
Nearly every week seems to bring a new cancel culture target, which seems fleeting and assumes the best brand response is simply to weather the storm. Yet an examination of #CancelNetflix, 2020’s biggest brand cancellation, proves otherwise.
The #CancelNetflix uproar was ignited by controversial promotional material for the film Cuties. While #CancelNetflix was short, net sentiment on Twitter took nearly two months to recover. Additional consequences like a Change.org petition and Texas grand jury indictment caused major business implications. Netflix stock price dropped more than 7%, Netflix cancellations increased 800% and total new subscribers were 1.2 million short of expectations that quarter.
Cancel culture’s possible dire impact should be taken very seriously, but it can also bring opportunity and inspire brands to do better. A brand citizenship framework and an accompanying communications plan will help marketers neutralize reputational threats and nurture credible advocacy. A brand’s actions done well may strengthen relationships in the long run.
