Ceding to cancel culture could see brands ‘paralyse themselves into purgatory’: Initiative’s Geer and Colter
Media agency Initiative is opening a dialogue on the impact of cancel culture on brands, urging marketers to walk back an often binary approach to contentious issues.
Ahead of a session at Nine’s Big Ideas Store, hosted by Initiative’s national managing director Sam Geer, he and chief strategy and product officer, Chris Colter spoke to Mumbrella about the agency’s ‘Grey Matters’ report, part of its Culture Shock thought leadership platform.
“The most important thing is to be really agnostic,” Colter said. “We’re not coming out saying we’re pro-cancel culture or anti, the issue itself has created so much of a binary view. It’s very black and white, but actually like everything, in the middle, it’s the grey that matters.
“What our point of view is in this area is what you don’t want to do is stifle the conversation around cancel culture. You want to be able to explore controversial ideas, a shoot for the stars, end up on the moon-style mentality, and what we have noticed is as particularly with media being at the heart of driving a lot of cancel culture, specifically social media, we play a really strong role in its propagation, but also it’s understanding.”
The pair said brands are listening to their consumers more than ever before, but as a result “it’s paralysing them on how they should move forward”, with social media’s prevelance fast-tracking the resetting of culture standards and norms.
“It’s been harder than ever to keep on top of what is the societal line that you can’t cross. What we joked about last year is not acceptable today. What we were allowed to talk about is not acceptable today. So brands need to be on the front foot of that and also ensure that they’re almost anticipating what those future lines will be so that they don’t get canceled for yesteryear’s work, and that’s really interesting to help them find out.”
According to Geer, this is an area that has been an amplified point of cultural discussion for five years, and is often a topic brands and agencies steer away from.
“But that’s bullshit because we’ve got to be talking about this kind of thing,” he said. “The whole point is we need to be having a discussion. There has to be a discourse otherwise people are going to be confusing brand safety with brand dilution.”
For those in the marketing and media industry, “we want to be really creative and do things with a point of view and have a point of interest for consumers,” said Geer. “We’ve got to be talking about this stuff, otherwise we’re just going to become the victims of it.”
Those that shy away from this conversation are “effectively paralysing themselves into purgatory,” according to Colter, ending up producing bland work trying to avoid offense.
Grey Matters informs a panel discussion this week at Nine’s Big Ideas Store
“In actuality, they’re removing a lot of the personality from their marketing and their work, and that’s what we want to try and nudge people to try and have a conversation, make this more of an open dialogue and go back to embracing brave thinking.”
But again, it isn’t a black-and-white solution to ‘be brave’.
“Clients are right to be risk averse, particularly at the moment, and it’s also dangerous to paint every client with the comment that I just made,” added Geer.
“Some clients do need to be risk averse. Some do need to appeal to the masses. Some can’t afford to be ostracizing half of the population or even more in some cases. But equally, the opposite is true. If you’re a challenger brand, if you’re starting out of the market, if you’re trying to disrupt the market, the risk of alienating some is not as great as the risk of being vanilla.
“So that’s what we’re trying to get to. Understanding the nuance of where your brand is, and also the nuance of what your audience perceives, and then how to play that. We’re not telling brands to go out there and everyone should be provocative. We need to have this discussion to talk about where your personal line is as a brand, and where your audience’s line is for a brand.”
According to the agency’s research, very few brands are ‘cancelled’ to the point of genuine cancellation, Geer said. “They have backlash if they stick to their guns. What we’ve seen is that the commercial opportunity is actually far greater off the back of that.”
The panel discussion, which features Nine’s Today Show co-host Karl Stefanovic, Pernod Ricard’s global marketing director Eric Thomson and Josie Rozenberg-Clarke, head of editorial at Pedestrian is this Friday at Nine’s Big Ideas Store.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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You know who else liked to control what people say and think through fear? Chairman Mao. Cancel culture is quite literally fascism rearing its ugly head again in the 21st century.
Those who seek to control what you can and can’t say through fear of being cancelled aren’t doing it for the virtuous causes of equality, they’re doing it for power.
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It takes a lot of energy and balance to comfortably sit on a fence. There will always be a risk that you may fall to either side. Consumer perceptions may influence the side to which you fall with minimal input from yourself and here’s hoping you land on the side du jour. People enmass can be very fickle and mostly love to see brands fail. Marketing has become a dangerous mistress for big brands seeking to be inclusive and not exclusive at the same time. Good luck all!
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