Culture Jamming - Are they laughing off your brand?

Ideas from Idea Engineers
Culture jamming is in the news again as Laugh it off squares up against Unilever. Idea Engineers recently presented a paper on Culture Jamming at the 'Branding in the New Economy' conference. Here are some thoughts following the conference.

So what is culture jamming?
The viral introduction of radical ideas that uses the enemy's own resources to replicate itself. The innovative and alternative ways in which people are offering a form of creative, non-violent resistance against the way in which we view the world, either for the sake of the interruption or for getting an alternative message across.

In a branding context culture jamming is the practice of subverting brands using the same mediums that brands use to reach us.

Culture jamming news & insight:

Culture jamming makes the news again in South Africa
When the culture jam hits the fan - reputation advice
Local thoughts and opinions on culture jamming
More about culture jamming

1. Culture Jamming In The News
Laugh it Off vs. Unilever: Round one

Laugh it Off (LiO) is heading towards another legal battle, following the receipt of a letter from Unilever PLC and Lever Ponds SA claiming trademark infringement of the 'Domestos Arrow Device' in the Laugh it Off Annual of

South African Youth Culture
The company published what it is calling a 'satirical advertisement' in the annual, to highlight the horror of domestic violence in South Africa. It shows a woman, obviously recently beaten, using a cleaning liquid that looks suspiciously like Domestos to wipe away all evidence of the abuse.

The 'pay-off' line reads: "Domestic Violence: stifles all reports and charges, including sexual, physical and psychological abuse". LiO is no stranger to the legal battlefield, having wrangled with SAB Miller last year over its now infamous 'Black Labour, White guilt' t-shirts.

Although no one from Unilever was available for comment at the time of publication, LiO confirms that the patent lawyers representing Unilever, Spoor & Fisher, are not only demanding that the company pay its legal costs, but also that it 'offers up for destruction' all advertising material bearing the 'domestos arrow device'.

"Effectively", states an e-mail newsletter from Lio, "Spoor & Fisher is asking us to destroy all copies of the Annual that 'are in your (our) possession or under your (our) control'. We have strong feelings on the matter, and consider it ludicrous that both Unilever and Spoor & Fisher should take their Trade Mark so seriously as to want to 'protect' it from the satirical use thereof in a book.

"When does the constitutional right to freedom of speech triumph over the right to protect a trade mark, if not in a book?" According to the crew at LiO, one in four women are physically abused by an intimate partner, and South Africa has the highest number of reported rape cases in the world. The ad in question seeks to highlight this social horror.

The newsletter is signed off in the following manner: "Laugh it Off is proud to have survived various legal pressures in 2003, and is ready to fight on in 2004".

Interbrand Sampson's Jeremy Sampson walks a fine line when asked to comment on the matter. He maintains, in LiO's defence that "sometimes the major brand owners need to retain a sense of humour", but quickly adds that they are also obliged to protect their brands, and their brand equity.

"At one point, it was all about student pranks and a bit of fun, and I think we can all overlook that," he says, "but it seems to me that they [Laugh it Off] are starting to push their luck. They're becoming serial abusers."

2. When The Culture Jam Hits The Fan

How to tackle the problem from a reputation perspective, by Idea Engineers
When culture jammers take target at your brand and lawyers start getting involved, you are entering a perceptual battle field. While you may win the court case against the culture jammers, you may not win the perceptual war.

Idea Engineers advise that companies go into crisis mode when a culture jamming events courts media attention, or when you plan to respond legally. And whatever you do, don't knee jerk or let the lawyers lead your reputation campaign. Here are some pointers:

Prepare, plan and brainstorm before the culture jam hits the fan:

Create a team for handling the reputation crisis. These are the people who protect your company's image and who will have the skills you need to manage a calamity well.
Establish a "neighbourhood watch" and employ good online tracking and monitoring tools. A culture jamming whirlwind can break out during anyone's beat. Make sure you employ web spiders and engines to track what activists are saying about your brand.
Brainstorm, strategise, leave emotion alone.
Scenario plan for best and worst case scenarios and create appropriate messaging and response strategies for each of your invented scenarios. List appropriate action steps for each potential scenario play out. Then get your reputation crisis team together and think through the implications and outcomes of each action and debate what would be the best likely actions.
Get professional help.

Then when the culture jam hits the fan:

First get the facts - you can't expect to respond appropriately if you don't have all the facts at hand.
Prioritise. Take action and focus. A reputation crisis is normally a time for urgent and decisive decision taking.
Turn up and face the music. If your culture jamming crisis is driven by a bad business horror story, your first instinct may be to dive for cover or head for the hills. That's the worst thing you can do. Face the crisis and take it on the chin, and see what meaningful action you can take to reposition and become a company that really cares for its constituents and the environment it operates in.
When speaking to the media keep open lines of communication. Be truthful, frank and factual.
Tone is everything. Ensure that when you do communicate you do so in a tone that is appropriate for your company and for the issue you are facing.
Get good legal advice, but don't ever let the lawyers run your reputation campaign. They may know about suing, but will know very little about media management, crisis handling and could lead you into reputation ruin through aggressive behaviour or by not considering the consequences to your brand.

3. Local Opinion On Culture Jamming

Idea Engineers canvassed opinion from youth marketing experts and media watchers on culture jamming - here's their take. "People in SA do not engage in the kind of intellectual debate that occurs overseas around the ideology of culture jamming. In SA there is no particular youth movement that claims to challenge brands. For example, the SAB debacle was more about the constitutional right to mock the brand as opposed to the real labour issue behind it. There is no authority on culture jamming in SA - it's more of just a trickle down from international trends, like a weak diluted version. In SA the people are frustrated with brand life and dominance, but the youth do not have the money, the avenues or the technology that they do overseas. So, the powerlessness and frustration exists but there is no opportunity to voice it into a structured, organised
form of culture jamming."

- Andrew Miller, Trends Watcher & Youth Marketing Expert
"Culture Jamming is teaching us that brands need to pay more attention to culture and society. It is a sign that brands can't impose communication on consumers. To take a lesson from the international culture jamming, brands need to have real integrity and brand values. Brands are losing touch with what markets want. They are talking AT people although they claim to be talking TO people. For example Cell C launched their youth campaign on Yfm by buying out substantial amounts of airtime, and bombarding the listeners with Cell C messages, but were they really talking to their market? And
was the market listening? The key now is to talk WITH the market – that should be the ultimate brand mindset, but it is not the case in SA despite brand claims. There is an increasing disbelief about what brands are saying - although not everyone outwardly communicates this disbelief, the mindset exists. Brands need to stop recycling cultures and trends. They need to interact on a more personal level and become real facilitators of lifestyle, and they are going to have to adopt viral methods to achieve this.

Brands need to be asking "how can we HELP cultures?" and not just impose a culture on a community. When brands do this they will see a stronger relationship with their consumers and high brand loyalty. Companies need to be confident enough about their brands to literally laugh it off. And if companies aren't able to, then they need to look to themselves and ask "why not?". It all depends on the severity of the situation and companies need to assess themselves internally to determine whether or not the anti- brand sentiment is founded. The main lesson for branding is to realise that communication is no longer a one-way street. There is no such thing as controlled communication any more, the world is changing, the customer owns brand and there is a whole new mindset out there. Brand consciousness is shifting and decreasing value of marketing spend."

- Andrew Miller, Trends Watcher & Youth Marketing Expert
"Culture jamming is a global trend that reflects a backlash against corporate grief, using satire to make a point. The SA market is not as mature around culture jamming than overseas. But there will definitely be more culture jamming in the future, it will emerge into a more commercial sphere, following the international trend. These days people are cynical about empowerment action and are reacting against excessive profits because of the negative effect it has on consumerism."

- Herman Manson Editor of www.mediatoolbox.co.za
"As more international media and images permeate the South African market, and as more people are connecting around the world and seeing what's happening around the world, a new form of consumer consciousness is growing in the country. In SA, none of the major companies can hide from the fact that they benefited from the apartheid era."

- Herman Manson, Editor of www.mediatoolbox.co.za
"At the moment, the small groups in SA that are concerned with culture jamming don't have big enough voices, so there is not enough consciousness and understanding of the movement in the country, especially in the townships and rural markets. This is largely due to the fact that the large corporations who culture jammers attack are in fact the corporations who sponsor the media. As a result, SA has "hot" media (media that is fed in a subjective manner and allows for no interpretation by the reader). The media are dependent on these large corporations for funding, so if an attack is going to happen it is going to have to be through new media, and it is going to have to be viral."

- Michael Balkind, Owner - Jhb Live (www.jhblive.com)

4. More About Culture Jamming
The Culture Jammers:
http://www.adbusters.org
http://www.subvertise.org/
http://www.billboardliberation.com/
http://www.re-code.com
http://www.urbanize.org
http://www.cafeshops.com/subvertpress/
http://www.areyougeneric.org/

About Culture Jamming:
http://www.abrupt.org
http://www.sniggle.net
http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Activism/Media/Culture_Jamming/

About Idea Engineers
Idea Engineers drives business growth by growing brands. Idea Engineers believes great brands are built on three bedrocks - a differentiated strategy, a strong reputation and an experience that lives up to the brand promise. The brand and reputation consultancy helps companies enhance market share, profitability and customer loyalty by developing, managing and protecting an organisations' most valuable asset: its brand. Founded in 2002, Idea Engineers has enjoyed rapid growth with clients that include UUNET, Gold Reef City, Nashua Mobile, Consology, Valvoline, Can!do, the South African Post Office and Acceleration. Idea Engineers is situated in Woodmead, Sandton.

- Idea Engineers is developing a white paper on culture jamming.
To get a copy of this email janice@ideaengineers.co.za

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Branding related letters can be mailed to Janice Spark at janice@ideaengineers.co.za

Letters regarding reputation management can be mailed to Mandy De Waal at
mandy@ideaengineers.co.za