The Future of Brands: And Rise of the Brand Hero
[…and how to use the SEAR method to create supercharged hero campaigns].
I call most brands ‘net takers’, meaning they take the earth’s resources, reconfigure them into a product, and take our money. Very few brands give back to the planet to the extent they take.
Consumers point to governments to fix the planet, but most governments are broke and in my view are not well positioned to turn the ecological disaster ship around anyway. Brands on the other hand are mostly very well resourced, hold power over the long term, and are experts at persuasion. In my view, the onus on reversing the ecological damage caused by years of mass consumption lies with brands.
Which begs the question: Should brands be held accountable for the footprint they leave, and should brands do more to legitimize their existence?
Let’s start with the obvious one: Are brands responsible for the poor state of our planet? I think no, at least not entirely – in my view all humans are responsible. But brands should bear some responsibility, after all – brands have been convincing consumers to ‘buy more’ for at least the last century. They convince us that our possessions are no longer relevant and that we need to constantly update our belongings (‘psychological obsolescence’). They even purposely produce products with an expiry date to force us to purchase again and more often (planned obsolescence). And of course, we all know it is impossible nowadays to update your phone battery, or repair a variety of other commonly used products because ‘they’ would rather we just bought new (technical obsolescence).
The planet is in a bind – the damage we’ve done is most likely irreversible now – but should we continue to blindly accept the role of brands in this ecological disaster? Edelman’s latest ‘Trust Barometer’ report suggests that consumers are shifting their attitudes: 37% of consumers don’t trust brands, and 46% say they’re not doing enough to address issues like climate change. Fortunately for brands, the same report also suggests that 59% of consumers will pay more if a brand does good in the world – yet so few do!
Are brands toxic?
When a human shows little regard for fellow humans because they’re focusing on themselves, we call them narcissists. A narcissist is characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, and this distorted self-view manifests as toxic behaviors. Narcissists seek attention, strive to be ‘number 1’, believe they are the best and convince others of the same. But aren’t these also the standard traits of most brands? Their advertising tries to convince us that they are the best, and of course they seem to exist to outdo their competition. If brands are personalities – as most brand managers believe they are – then the narcissistic tendencies of most brands should make us think.
The opposite of a narcissist is a Hero. Heroes are humble, pro-social entities, tackling problems that matter. They share three common traits: (1) Heroes are role models, providing guidance to others on the best way to live a virtuous life; (2) Heroes are self-less, elevating the needs of others above their own needs often in the face of adversity, and; (3) Heroes are guardians, protecting the needy from evil and injustice.
As it turns out – the best performing brands nowadays embody these heroic traits. Hero brands not only win the best awards, but they also earn tremendous respect in society that ultimately benefits them over the long term. Positioning your brand as a hero increases brand awareness, customer loyalty, and the brand’s ability to generate profits.
Heroes are guardians.
Fictional heroes such as Batman or Wonder Woman exist to protect and save people against wrongdoing, danger, and injustice. Being a guardian and protecting people from threats is a core part of a hero’s character.
For a brand to become a hero through guardianship, I discovered that the person or group being protected by the brand must satisfy three criteria: (1) they must be facing a genuine disadvantage; (2) they should want the threat to stop, and; (3) the disadvantage must be considered genuinely unfair.
If any of these criteria are unmet, then the brand won’t be seen as a hero. For example, celebrities find it difficult to walk around in public while avoiding attention (criteria 1 met) and would prefer they were anonymous (criteria 2 met). But society doesn’t consider the attention they receive when they’re in public as genuinely unfair (criteria 3), and therefore saving celebrities from their public attention issue isn’t a valid way for a brand to earn hero status.
Consider instead Wall Street investment firm Global Advisors who wanted to bring attention to women’s equality and gender diversity in the workplace. This social issue and those affected by it match the three criteria above: the evidence is overwhelming that women face a genuine disadvantage (criteria 1 met), women obviously want it to stop (criteria 2 met), and it is reasonable to expect that at least half of society believes the disadvantage is unfair (criteria 3 met).
Since the three criteria were met, Global Advisors were in a good position to demonstrate heroic intentions. On international women’s day they erected a bronze statue of a young girl, defiantly facing the fired-up Charging Bull of Wall Street. The ‘Fearless Girl’ statue stood for women’s strength and courage in the face of America’s most iconic symbol of economic prosperity – the Charging Bull. The campaign resulted in an additional 152 companies adding a women director, and 34 more with an intention to follow suit. The relatively low budget moral statement earned Global Advisors over 140 million media mentions, and significant credibility within America’s financial world.
When heroes are guardians, they often find themselves battling against powerful adversaries. This gives the hero a chance to demonstrate courage and valor – two further very important characteristics of a hero. I found that hero brands also oftentimes battle powerful adversaries in the name of justice, demonstrating courage and valor.
Carrefour supermarket chain demonstrated tremendous courage and valor battling for change against the European parliament. An archaic European law forbid French farmers from growing 97% of fruit and vegetable varieties. The law threatened biodiversity, unnecessarily increased the cost of agriculture, and deprived consumers of more flavorful varieties. Carrefour defied the law by opening 400 “Black Supermarket” stores across France selling the illegal varieties of fruits, vegetables, and grains. By demonstrating how the world would be a better place without the law, Carrefour won their battle against the European parliament, and the law was eventually repealed. The campaign resulted in 377 million media impressions and propelled Carrefour to the top most preferred supermarket in Europe.
I am not advocating that other brands break the law to achieve their means, but this example does serve to illustrate how courage and valor is an important part of becoming a hero brand, and when done right can start a movement to drive change.
Havaianas lifestyle brand in Brazil also battled a powerful adversary, creating a strong movement to drive change and install fairness. The conservative Bolsonaro government had removed questions from the national census that asked about sexual orientation and gender identity. This decision left the LGBT+ community invisible and threatened their ability to fight for public policies. Further angering the LGBT+ community, the Brazilian government instead ran an independent survey claiming there were only 2.9 million LGBT+ members in Brazil, suspiciously low in a country of 214 million.
Havaianas sprang into action and commissioned their own research, finding the number of LGBT+ people in Brazil was actually 15.5 million. To gain public support, they disseminated their findings through influencers, NGOs, congresspeople, and even other brands. The campaign elevated Havaiana’s image to hero status, earning them 14 million media impressions, and increasing the sales of their Havaianas’ pride collection by 75%.
Guarding the rights of others need not be restricted to humans. Pedigree pet food brand in New Zealand achieved hero status by helping to save the 3000 shelter dogs that are euthanized in New Zealand each year.
The “when they move out, move on!” campaign encouraged empty nesters – parents whose children had recently left home – to replace their recently departed kids with a rescue dog. The campaign featured an online platform that made it easy to search for and adopt a rescue dog, supported by initiatives such as converting the child’s bedding into a dog bed. The campaign increased Pedigree’s sales by 10.8%, and importantly increased dog adoption enquiries by 824%.
Heroes are self-less.
In comic books, heroes will risk their life to save others. But it isn’t the risk to their well-being that earns them hero status, rather its their stubborn willingness to promote the needs of others over their own needs – they are one hundred percent self-less in everything they do.
I discovered Hero brands are the same, acting selflessly to ensure the well-being of others. Hero brands don’t risk their life, but they do appear to act solely on a moral obligation to help others rather than to profit.
Greek confectionary brand Lacta illustrates selflessness well. Lacta wanted to address a sudden rise in domestic violence cases reported in Greece, and so produced a video on the theme that ‘partners aren’t possessions’, and that women in abusive relationships could get help. Not once did Lacta suggest they were addressing an important social issue for self-benefit – yet nevertheless they experienced an increase in sales – a common side effect of behaving like a hero.
If a brand attempts to help those in need, but appears to be driven by selfish needs, then things will most likely backfire and the brand will earn disrespect and criticism from angry consumers. Consider the unfortunate case of Sellitonline – an Australian online shopping website. In 2013 forest fires spread across Tasmania, destroying dozens of homes and hundreds of miles of land. Sellitonline offered to provide much needed electrical generators to those affected, but with a condition: they would base the number of generators they would donate on the number of Facebook page Likes they could get. Consumers interpreted Sellitonline’s plan as profiting from the suffering of others, which resulted in significant negative backlash against the brand.
Korean carmaker Kia made a similar blunder – starting with an admirable quest to feed the starving in war-torn Sudan. The campaign featured an image of a starving Sudanese child with the message “1 Like = 1 Day Food for 1 Family”. The campaign also incited backlash on social media, criticizing the brand for emotional blackmail.
Even though many brands do profit from running a hero campaign, it should never be the main aim, nor should the campaign ever allude to the idea that the brand will benefit in any way. Remaining selfless will accrue benefits to the brand indirectly, eventually increasing brand awareness, trust, and brand love.
Heros are mentors and role models.
Heroes like Mother Theresa or Nelson Mandella inspire and empower others – they’re good role models. I discovered that hero brands are also role models and achieve hero status through effective mentorship.
Consider the lingerie brand K-Lynn. They found that despite breast cancer remaining a serious concern in the Middle East, only 40% of women had ever had a mammogram check. When the women were asked why they didn’t get a checkup, they claimed they were short of time. Yet it was also discovered the same women spent at least one hour a day shopping online. Using this knowledge, K-Lynn devised a way to mentor women on how to do a breast self-check while they were shopping, by changing the typical model poses in their catalogue to instructional poses demonstrating a breast self-check. By mentoring the women about an important health issue, k-Lynn increased their sales by 23%, and increased mammogram appointments at local clinics by 43%.
In action films, there is often a ‘mentor architype’ who teaches and guides the hero to overcome challenges and achieve their goals. They are the unsung hero – the protagonist gets the glory, but it is the mentor that is the real hero. With hero brands, they are often the unsung hero – addressing social issues that are oftentimes unrelated to the products they sell or the services they provide.
Roto tanks for example sells water tanks in Kenya, but wanted to help young children in rural areas suffering from chronic malnutrition – a far cry from their usual mission to provide clean water. Mothers in rural areas had little knowledge of modern postnatal care, and relied on traditional wisdom that was proving ineffective. To teach the young mothers modern nutrition principles, Roto tanks printed lessons and nutritional guidance on the traditional slings the mothers used to carry their children around. Staying true to their role model status, campaign success metrics focused on human impact rather than traditional profit focused analytics, benefiting 90,000 children and reducing reported cases of severe malnutrition by 10%.
Another way hero brands demonstrate mentorship and become role models is by taking the lead on an issue within the industry they operate in. Hero brands recognize that they often leave a negative footprint on society, and that they may contribute to mass consumerism through their advertising – in all bad for the planet. By demonstrating a commitment to preserving the integrity of the industry they operate in, hero brands earn respect from their competitors, in addition to signaling to consumers that integrity is a core part of their character.
Like many FMCG brands, Corona beer had made it their mission to improve their packaging and make it plastic-free. But they didn’t stop there. Taking a lead in their industry to reverse the damage caused by plastic, they also planned how they could reduce the 14 million tons of plastic floating in our oceans. Their solution was to run global ‘Plastic Fishing’ tournaments, whereby fishermen were incentivized to catch plastic instead of fish, and sell the plastic to recycling companies. The campaign not only helped reduce the plastic footprint extracting over 200 tons of plastic, but also boosted the brand’s positive sentiment on social media channels by an historic 98%.
It is not only FMCG brands that can demonstrate leadership in this way. The New York Times sought to be leaders in the integrity and authenticity of information in times where fake news and disinformation is rife. They proved their commitment to getting at the truth by producing footage showing what it’s like to be a NYT reporter. The footage demonstrated the extraordinary lengths NYT reporters go to uncover the truth on big social issues like counter-terrorism, refugees, and climate change. The campaign was extraordinarily successful, resulting in a 100% increase in NYT subscriptions.
Sometimes a role model strategy adopted by a brand appears counterintuitive to the corporate mission, but this can earn great respect from the public. Creating an ironic contrast in marketing is powerful.
Take for example Ikea, and their ‘Cirkulär’ campaign that encouraged consumers to purchase used Ikea furniture over new. The campaign began on Black Friday when most brands were encouraging consumers to buy and save. Taking a different tact, launching with the message “save more than money” Ikea signaled to consumers that although it was okay to buy up big over the sale period, we shouldn’t forget that mass consumerism comes at a cost to the planet, and we should therefore buy second hand. The initiative earned Ikea a 17% increase in brand desirability.
Creating a Hero campaign: The SEAR Framework
Brands earn hero status through their actions. I learned that running marketing campaigns that demonstrate the brand’s commitment to strong moralistic principles, and an affinity towards social justice is the most direct way to build hero brand status.
To help guide brands when creating a hero campaign, I developed the “SEAR” framework. The framework includes four necessary conditions to ensure the success of a hero campaign, including: (1) Severity: The issue needs to be severe enough for people care about it; (2) Effort: The brand must be able to demonstrate considerable effort towards solving the issue; (3) Affinity: The brand must demonstrate a desire for justice, and; (4) Reach: There needs to be sufficient volume of people who are affected by the issue.
The success of a hero campaign is contingent on satisfying each of the four criteria – if one fails, then the entire campaign won’t be seen as heroic.
Severity
Creating a hero campaign begins by identifying a problem in society that is severe enough for people to care about. The litmus test for identifying a sufficiently severe social or environmental issue is that consumers must view it as a genuine threat, either now or in the future. If the public doesn’t understand the severity of the issue, the campaign will likely fail to meet its objectives.
Protein World is a brand that misjudged the severity of an issue they sought to address, that ultimately resulted in backlash from the British public. They sought to address the issue of obesity and poor health in the UK, devising the “Are you Beach Body Ready?” campaign. The campaign featured advertisements depicting a fit looking Australian bikini model placed throughout London’s Underground train stations. The campaign unleashed significant backlash from the British Public who saw the campaign as body shaming and unfairly targeting women’s bodies. Basically the public didn’t think it was a severe issue.
Sometimes the brand identifies a severe issue in society, but the public needs educating that the issue is indeed severe.
Consider the dishwasher brand Finish, and their quest to save America’s water. Most Americans turn on the faucet and think nothing of it – yet in reality 40 out of 50 states are expecting a water shortage in the next decade. Finish ensured the public understood the issue was severe by partnering with National Geographic to produce footage that educated America on the severity of the impending water crisis. The campaign encouraged people to ‘skip the rinse’, and provided evidence that rinsing the dishes before loading them into the dishwasher was unnecessary when using Finish. The campaign was a huge success, increasing sales by 33%. But without educating Americans about the water crisis, Finish’s quest to save America’s water might have fell on deaf ears.
Effort
Hero brands demonstrate determination, dedication, and a commitment to helping others. From the public’s perspective, it looks like the brand is expending considerable effort in their quest to help solve a severe social issue.
Picture a firefighter attempting to save the occupants of a house on fire. The firefighter won’t be seen as a hero unless they do their absolute best to save the people inside. Giving up too early not only forfeits any associations of heroism but may also breed resentment from onlookers disappointed in the firefighter’s lack of determination.
Lacoste and their mission to help save endangered animals illustrates how poor effort can backfire and fail to create a hero brand. To make a statement and signal the importance of saving endangered species, Lacoste changed the traditional crocodile logos on their polo shirts to include endangered animals. The brand came under fire when it was discovered they continued to sell gloves and bags made from various kinds of animal leather while running the campaign. Although Lacoste had identified a severe problem, they failed to go all-in and demonstrate extraordinary effort towards tackling the issue.
I found that hero campaigns oftentimes tackle big problems such as fixing the environment, reducing poverty, or changing cultural norms. But that they do not need to actually solve the problem – it is sufficient instead to simply demonstrate considerable effort.
Supermarket brand Tesco for example chose to address plastic pollution in Malaysia. But rather than attempting to tackle the issue directly, they instead focused on what they could control – the use of plastic bags in their own supermarkets. In a simple but effective campaign, Tesco encouraged their shoppers to bring their reusable bags with them when they shopped by printing discount codes on the bags. The simple initiative was enough for the brand to demonstrate their commitment towards reducing the harmful effects of plastic on the environment, resulting in the greatest reduction in single-use bags in the brand’s history.
Sometimes simply making a powerful statement is enough to demonstrate effort. Dicks Sporting Goods (DSG) for example wanted to help tackle the problem of mass shootings in the USA. Obviously stopping mass shootings is a huge undertaking for any brand, and so rather than trying to stop the problem directly, DSG instead made a statement by destroyed $5 million worth of assault-style rifles. DSG were expecting some backlash from gun enthusiasts, but although sales dropped in the short term DSG quickly recovered sales to higher levels in some stores than before the guns were destroyed. The campaign showed DSGs commitment and effort towards fixing the issue by demonstrating that DSG were willing to self-sacrifice for the benefit of others.
Affinity
Affinity is a key element in the Going Viral marketing framework, and I found evidence of it amongst hero brands and their campaigns. Affinity is a feeling of warmth, respect, or deep appreciation for an activity, idea, or object. In other words, for something to go viral, it needs to make people ‘feel’ something. A marketing campaign that has high affinity is highly relevant to the target audience, while a campaign with low affinity is seen as irrelevant.
To illustrate failure caused by a low affinity campaign, consider Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to make available a 360-degree virtual reality fly through of Puerto Rico right after they suffered a disastrous hurricane. His intention was genuine – to help aid Puerto Rico’s recovery. But instead he drew significant backlash since it looked like he was actually promoting disaster tourism and his new social VR tool ‘Spaces’ that was enabling the experience. By failing to demonstrate exactly how Facebook was going to help, they failed to create the necessary affinity required to make the campaign a success. People couldn’t see the relevancy of Facebook’s actions.
The most common way to exaggerate the affinity in a hero campaign is to position the brand as a justice seeker, since almost everyone has a natural tendency to value justice.
In the ‘Paving for Pizza’ campaign, Domino’s Pizza partnered with local governments to fix potholes in the roads. Road potholes not only contribute to car repair bills, but they also breed resentment against local governments for not maintaining the roads. Although Domino’s jokingly commented they fixed the roads to protect the pizza’s from being knocked around on delivery, to consumers it appeared that Domino’s was improving people’s environment where local governments had failed. The sense of justice achieved by the campaign drove its success.
A sense of justice, and therefore affinity, can also be achieved by challenging a powerful adversary in the name of change.
Consider the campaign run by Grupo Estratégico PAE in Honduras, that aimed to overturn a national rule prohibiting the use of the morning-after contraceptive pill. Prior to the campaign, one-in-four women in Honduras gave birth before the age of 18, yet the morning after pill that could have lowered adolescent birth rates was made illegal. Grupo Estratégico needed to battle the Honduras government to make the morning after pill legal again, and so they developed a campaign that featured a floating dispensary in international waters where women could obtain the morning after pills legally. The boat ride out to the island gave Grupo Estratégico the opportunity to create powerful story-like footage of the women, that went viral helping Grupo Estratégico to gather two-million signature petition. The campaign was successful and in 2023 the Honduras government repealed the law banning the morning after contraceptive pill.
Reach
The last element necessary for the success of a hero campaign is reach – a hero campaign needs to reach a significant number of people to be effective.
I discovered that there are three criteria underpinning the campaign’s ability to reach enough people to be effective. First, most people need to have heard about the social issue. Second, most people must recognize that the social issue negatively impacts society. Third, the social issue should affect a significant number of the brand’s customers.
If these conditions are unmet, then the campaign will struggle to reach enough people. Consider the example of Ink Coffee – an upmarket café chain from Colorado. The brand believed they had a noble cause improving neighborhoods through gentrification, posting a sandwich board outside one of their cafes exclaiming “Happily Gentrifying The Neighborhood Since 2014.” However, Ink Coffee misjudged the value of their presence, since most people saw gentrification as a problem, not a solution, associating it with homelessness and displacement. They failed to satisfy an important condition when running a hero campaign: people didn’t agree that a problem existed.
One way to boost reach from a campaign is to ride the wave of related attention. This can be achieved by associating the brand and the brand’s cause to an event that is already being publicized.
Take for example the Brazilian soda brand Guaraná, who fought for gender equality. They learned that the prize amount given to women footballers in Brazil was the same amount as the men were given in the 1980s – a clear disparity. To reach enough people with the campaign, Guaraná dressed players from the national team in 1980’s apparel at the Tokyo Olympics, and relaunched their beverage in the same bottle used in the 80s. Since the spotlight was already on the football team and the Olympics, Guaraná was able to generate significant exposure to their cause, reaching millions of people around the globe. The reach from the media attention was enough to get a rule change mandating equal prizes for all genders.
There is no doubt that the world could be a better place. But it is wrong to leave that responsibility to governments and charities – the responsibility lies with all of us. In many ways, brands are in the best position to address social and environmental issues – they’re usually better resourced than most activist groups, and they’re usually competent persuaders.
In many ways brands are like people – they have personalities, they want love, and they want to look good. But not all brands are like good people – no-one likes a person who exists to serve themselves get attention. A good person, just like a good brand, has a far deeper appreciation and understanding of their role in society. Good people, like good brands, ask themselves “How can I be a better person?” and this starts by striving to be a valued member in society.
Hero brands understand the impact they have on the planet, take responsibility for their footprint, and have a strong sense of world community. Maybe it’s time for all brands to become a hero.
About this research
A hero brand is defined as: a company that has an ethical ideology integrated into their corporate strategy that includes a desire and willingness to promote the needs of others over their own needs, and serve the planet through altruistic social responsibility. The SEAR framework was developed by identifying hero traits amongst the winners and near winners of the Cannes Lions awards from 2019 to 2023, and analyzing commonalities in their strategies to achieve noble heroic goals.
