Brand and Butter
Always straight-talking (occasionally in-your-face), Brand and Butter is the no-BS branding podcast for modern marketers and business owners. Packed with clear-cut advice on the influence and power of branding - and how pairing associations, consumer behaviour, and design thinking can impact how we see, think, feel, and even taste.
Brand and Butter serves up refreshingly honest and never-dull conversations with some of today’s boldest brand strategists and architects. Sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable (and often unapologetically blunt), this is the podcast that you wish you’d listened to before launch.
Tara Ladd is the Founder and Brand Strategist at Your One and Only, a brand and design studio here for brands who refuse to settle. Evolving brand identities to stay relevant fusing psychology, strategy, and design.
Brand and Butter
The Ethical Responsibility of Brands in Shaping Societal Norms
Have you ever wondered how unseen biases shape every aspect of your life, from personal decisions to marketing strategies? In this episode, I speak to the hidden forces that subtly influence our perceptions and choices. We'll explore how our past experiences and memories shape our current worldview, and how acknowledging these biases can help us make better, more informed decisions.
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When it comes to understanding people. How well do you think you do that? And when I say understanding people, how well do you reflect on what you say and what you do and revisit or critically think the way that you're communicating with someone when you think that you're right or wrong? Now, whether you're right or wrong isn't actually the conversation today, but it's something that plays a huge role in general communication and especially when we're trying to attract appeal or be attracted to in communication. What I want to speak to specifically in detail today is the role of biases and how they actively shape the way that we choose to buy, work with or communicate with people. From my perspective of a business owner and a marketer, the biggest thing that I'm noticing at the moment is what I would consider to be micro-niching, and essentially, we've seen this happen the past few years, but communication is getting more personalized and narrowing in and it's all about that hidden. Well, it's not hidden, it's in plain sight, but it's that finding the real drivers of why people do things that's led with emotion and our biases and our opinions and our environments and our upbringing and so many different things that is, you know, plays a huge role in this, in shaping our choices is really nuanced, and so today I want to talk about the role of biases and how they can be impacting you from moving forward. And so, naturally, our brains actively interpret and organize information into meaningful patterns, and I think we think that we're in control of what we're doing and what we're saying, when a lot of that time it's coming from intuition and it's coming from gut feeling and a place of emotion.
Speaker 1:Now you could be choosing between two brands or even a choice of an event that you want to go to Say you've been double booked on the same night. One may be with a close friend, but the other one may be an industry event and be something that can really amplify your professional career. Now the choice that you make here is purely emotional, regardless of what you think. If you miss a good friend's party, you're being a shit friend or you're feeling like you're being a shit friend. Whether you are or not, it's a different story. And then if you don't go to your professional event, then you're actually questioning whether you'll be missing opportunities and advancing your own career. So one choice is for someone else being there for someone else and the other choice is for you, and neither choice is right or wrong, but it all comes down to making a decision, and that stems from emotion, and so I want to talk about the importance of memory recognition, our past and our upbringing, and how it all plays a role in how we make decisions today.
Speaker 1:So our memories aren't perfect recordings of the past. They're actually formulated to fit the perspective of how we see the world today. So if you made bad choices when you were younger, or you thought a certain way, or you were a different, I guess in terms of political alignment or whatever it may be sometimes our brain will fill the gaps to make us think that we've always thought progressively or conservatively or whatever that may be, when, in fact, if you were to see something from the past, you may even look at that and go. I never said that, but our brains are very, I guess, clever in fragment, of fixing the fragments to piece together things, and it's really important to understand this when you're talking to an audience and you're understanding different perspectives and different drivers and different life cycles and how people are feeling in the moment. So we actively generate what's happening in the world around us and it's almost like a controlled hallucination. It's really interesting. Anil Seth is a neuroscientist said this himself, and I'll read you this quote because I think it's really important. It says that we don't just passively perceive the world, we actively generate it. The world we experience is a kind of controlled hallucination, constrained by the input from our senses, but shaped by our expectations and prior beliefs. So, as I was just talking about and that backs that up, we create our own perception of the world. Our world environment is our own reality, and it's hugely important for you to understand this when you're talking to audiences, because there are hidden biases in them and in you.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about one that's really important. It's confirmation bias, and confirmation bias, if you're unaware of that, is when we're drawn to information that confirms our existing beliefs. So, instead of going out and looking for counteracting or, you know, opposing things to, you know disagree with whatever it is that we're looking at, we will just continuously keep looking for the same information to make sure that it feeds our ego. Essentially is to say, yes, of course I'm right. So this one says this and this says this and this says this, and you will actively find the things that relate to what it is that you're saying, and this happens all the time in marketing and this is why we're so blinded by missing gaps in our own businesses or our own strategies, because sometimes our emotions are leading us to think differently and that's why someone completely different can come in and go. That's where you're wrong and you'll be like, oh why did I not see that? It's because you had your blinders on and our brain has done that deliberately, and it's actually quite hard for you to challenge your own beliefs sometimes because it just comes so naturally that you think that it's the right thing to do. So I see confirmation bias happen all the time.
Speaker 1:It's that when someone delivers a message or they talk about something specifically and they don't ever question it. It's just always how it has been, always how it was. And we see this because humans don't like change and notoriously, as we move on and this world that we're living in is forever changing we're seeing all of these things happen and constantly we're on, on the go and now more than ever, it's important to understand the key drivers and emotions and things that are involved in decision making if we want to target the right audiences and if we want to frame our messages to attract certain people. So we talk about things happening from, I guess, a point of I guess is it ego, is it a place of like self-belief? But it can backfire. It's called belief perseverance and it's like the illusionary truth effect, right? So it explains why we're more than likely to believe something if we hear it repeatedly. So if we're constantly reading things that confirm our own beliefs, or listening to things in certain consumptions of media that will say, or types of media, certain publications or certain profiles that will repeat the same type of information, then we will hear it over and over and we'll start to believe it.
Speaker 1:True, and it may be true this is not saying that it's not but without having some kind of difference, I guess difference in opinion, we were always going to stay stuck in that same track, and so it's important sometimes to step out and have overlook or see someone that sees things differently, to get a different perspective. Now, another bias this is that is at play here, but that is the availability heuristic and a heuristic, if you don't know, is basically your brain shortcut to getting something you know easy. So we see this with association um, we see the color green and we instantly think of the environment, because that is a shortcut. We know that that green has a stereotype it's aligned with environment and growing, and you know all of that type of stuff. So, naturally, when we see green, our brains will go huh environment, and that's something that's really important to consider when choosing colour sets and creating, I guess, communication that is appealing to certain audiences, and people will try and change things, obviously because everyone else is doing that and you want to do something different.
Speaker 1:But there's a really important thing to take into consideration if you are going to challenge a stereotype that is, I guess, universally known to people, you have to be very aware of people not being able to understand that, because what we see has been shaped, narratives have been shaped, and if we change something too far out of the box, it can actually backfire. And so what's important to know is you want to challenge things gradually and do things in a way that still challenge but also stay slightly outside of the box, because a lot of people aren't, I guess, ready for huge changes to happen, unless there is a huge song and dance in terms of communication, in which case you would have to have a very banging strategy to make sure that people understand that, or some kind of familiar undertone that can still connect people you know to the brand. So what we can see is if a brand does a rebrand and they completely changed their name, they changed their logo, they changed their color, so it's like it's like a completely new brand and unless you have gone out and completely educated the market on that launch and this is where you have different launch strategies then people won't know who you are because they're so used to seeing a certain thing or hearing a certain thing. And that's why too much change or doing too much too soon can actually be damaging. So I always take a gradual approach and a very strategic approach as to how you implement change, but also being aware of what the audience is expecting from you.
Speaker 1:So with Hear it, you Want it Only. We've gradually shifted a different positioning into a different audience and we've changed the way that we approach our work. But that's been a 12-month narrative switch and so gradually we've changed that to the point where now we're asking questions and people are exactly where we wanted them to be. But that was a big understanding of what our audience I guess who we wanted our audience to be, figuring out who our old audience was and letting them come with us or drop off, being very wary of the content that we were putting out and making sure that it aligned to where we wanted to be, and being ready to drop things off that you know. And relationships not necessarily relationships, but like drop ideas of what we thought we were to move forward.
Speaker 1:So, coming back, going off tangent a little bit, but coming back, I want to talk about the availability heuristic and so a few things to take into consideration. With the availability heuristic is when you see something in front of you, it's more likely to come to mind. So, if we're talking about brand recall, when you see a brand online, very active, consistently coming and showing up which is why consistency is important naturally you will become part of recall and well, if you're doing a good job of it anyway. But what will happen is that people engage with your things and they'll like what you're saying and they'll see you all around. But having ongoing presence and being present, visibility and being in a lot of different places and being there all the time makes people think that you are there all the time. Um, even if you're not, so it could just be that you've done a few things, you've been around a few times and then all of a sudden, you're in everyone's feed because you're doing all that. This is happening with Taylor Swift, so everyone's like, oh my God, she's everywhere. She's actually not.
Speaker 1:If you're just not consuming that content, you may see something here, there and everywhere, but the minute that someone comments and says, I'm so sick of seeing this woman, you've then entered the algorithm chat and so you're going to get that content, and so what you see is a reflection of the things that you're interested in or the things that you're engaging with. And that's why it's important to know what it is that you're consuming, where you're consuming content, because those things that are repeated to you will become part of your memory system and it's when you can move it from it, from you know, your short term into the long term and then ready for recall. And that's why consistency is key with brand, so you can say some really important things. But if you're rocking up every now and then, then you're dropping off and coming back, and dropping off and coming back, and it's it's harder to work that consistency. You know it's like rolling a ball up a hill. Slow movements are way better than like trying to push it fast and then run like you know, there's, there's strategies and there's ways to do it.
Speaker 1:It's always the long game, um, and so when we're looking at it from that perspective, it's, I guess, bringing into the conversation is a new story that showed, um, shark attacks, and so naturally you see or you feel that more people would die from shark attacks than airplane parts falling from the sky, when there's been studies done to show that more people die from random airplane parts falling out of the sky, but that's not being reported on and no one even talks about that. So of course that's not going to be even considered because it's not even in your mind. But when there's things that have been plugged in deliberately you know we've seen things on the movies, we've seen jaws, and you know we hear about shark attacks on the tv, and these are the stories that that people, you know, I guess, gravitate towards or are more interesting to some people, and therefore we would assume that more people die of shark attacks. So it's the availability, heuristic, at play and it's understanding how that works and how you can actually use that to your advantage. But when we start to work through biases, it's like what things have you been exposed to? What culture do you have, who are your social circles, how is your family upbringing? And, again, the media consumption all play this huge role in what shapes your perception, and we talk about prejudice and ideologies and all of these things are learnt behaviors and they come from these things, and so when I say, as communicators, it's our role to make sure that we're pushing out the right narratives. This is why this is important now.
Speaker 1:Recently we saw witchery go through a bit of a hell storm because they decided to drop a dress size the larger dress size and it caused a big uproar in the community. Now, naturally, I think that that was a very bad decision. It could be a business decision, but the way that they promoted that and spoke about that was just the wrong approach and that why that fell flat. But what you will see here is a narrative that we've seen play out, notoriously in women's fashion and body shaming, that the smaller sizes are much more favorable than the larger sizes, and so we saw this emotional drive of women saying we're so sick of being put in these boxes, of trying to be too small, and then everyone was like, well, no one was buying you know the larger size, and then you heard comments about it not being available, simply not being available for them to buy. But when you're looking at plans and, I guess, directions from businesses and they're within their right to do so, but there's a role that we play as well.
Speaker 1:So when the average size Australian woman is a 14 to 16 and they cut the size 20, that's only two to three sizes above 16. If we start at 14, 16, 18, 20, but then if you look at they went down to a size 4 and we're looking at the average size being a 14, you go 14, 12, 10, 8, 6. So it's like four sizes underneath 12, 10. Yeah, so you're going way below the average. What's more than that. Look at me trying to hit here. I am trying to talk about two things at the same time can't even calculate 40, 12, 10, 8, 6. Yeah, anyway, you get the point 12, somewhere in there. So like they go more down than they do up, and so what that's done is it's contributed to a damaging societal narrative of body shaming and what society expects women to look like, when naturally they just don't look like that.
Speaker 1:And so this there was a huge uproar here and I had conversations with people in my dms about this because they were like, why should they have to do that? And you know, like, because we have a role to play here, like as brands, we have a role to play to show people what you can't just make up, what the average is. The average is this and this isn't promoting. People will be like, oh, you can't promote uh, unhealthy body. Naturally, a size 12 to 14 is like, you know, not fat. So you look at these conversations around body shaming and like calling the average woman overweight is just wrong. It's like so it's, it's just anyway. That's a whole conversation. So I have many conversations in the dms, also very different and varying, um, I guess, perspectives, and that's why this is so nuanced.
Speaker 1:Right so, but we have to be very careful as brands now because and everyone's like I don't know what to say anymore and I don't know what to do it's actually you just have to learn and being aware of biases and privilege and these things are important and and I think you get this all the time of people say why should I, why should I have to worry about that? It's like, well, if this was happening to you on the flip side of the coin and someone was saying something negative about. You didn't fit in and they just didn't bother to address to try and get you in. It would make you feel bad. The reason that you haven't felt that is because then I would say that you're probably in the privileged type that hasn't had to have that happen and it's interesting to have that called out.
Speaker 1:And so, to give you an example, if we move past that little rambling, if we look at examples of unconscious bias in marketing, it plays out across the board. Now we saw this happen with so one. We just saw that happen with body image, but we also see this happen with gender bias. So we see those not so much anymore, but we definitely saw those stereotypical women with the you know, the homeware products and, uh, men with the outdoor tools and those conversations around what those gender roles were. Now, naturally, you can still do that, it's fine, but it was like having being very specific with the type of wording that was used and how they were being used, and I put that down to and, as someone that's come from advertising, I put that down to the fact that they notoriously had men in those high-level creative roles that were the ones executing those big picture of thinking, and so they just aren't aware of those other narratives that are at play, and so that's why it's so important to really be aware of, or having a diverse and inclusive team to call things out, because we're living in a society now where it's just not acceptable and you'll hear people go, oh why should I care? It's like, well, you should, well, you kind of should care, and what's wrong with being more inclusive? Now you can have a target market, you can speak to a certain demographic, but there's a difference between being sexist and targeting a gender. It's fine, right, there's there is a difference, and it's the way that you use things and it's the way that you shape things. So wrong. There's no derogative language in the way that it's done. Or you know shaming someone and you can tell there's definitely boards now and people will tell you. If you haven't figured it out, people will tell you that it's wrong.
Speaker 1:But another one is racial bias, and this is this happens all the time. This is what we're going through with at the moment. But actually, another thing to add to the gender bias is like, um, you know women in leadership and having women on boards, and that is a gender bias. And then when they do actually get in and someone's like oh, you only got here because you're a woman, you're a quota, that's a bias. It's things there that are challenging, right, and then so we look at coming back to Faisu is the racial bias, and I said that because it's a similar thing. You have a conference and all of a sudden you've just got white people on the board. There is no representation to anyone that sits outside of that token white, you know, um, demo.
Speaker 1:And then we look at the different ages. You go down into ageism and, without even thinking in our content, you may just put people in your content, um, that if you're choosing stock photography that look like you, so if you're a young white person, you're probably going to choose people that look like you, and it's unconscious, it's just you choose people that look like you. And so you actually have to change the hardwiring of your brain to actively think how can I be more representative or more inclusive and represent other people and other cultures within the things that I'm talking about so I can appeal to different audiences, and that's a challenge that we're seeing. And so another thing is ageism, where there's not a lot of things that you see when you see, like you know, moving onwards of you know 50 plus is I mean sometimes, but, like Hollywood is notorious to this, you see old men on the screen all the time, but they're dating younger women. The mothers in the movies are always younger women. It's very rare, but we're seeing this change as more women are coming into the role of director and telling women's stories.
Speaker 1:We're seeing these narratives change and that's why it's really important, because we can be completely unaware, based on what we've seen, what's gone out, how the world has changed, and we can just fall into old ways. It's so interesting and nuanced and that's why human behavior is actually a really good topic to speak to, because you'll suddenly crack open all of these opportunities that you otherwise would have missed. Because there's been blinders on and the blinders aren't a bad thing. It's just how we've been brought up school systems, curriculums, cultures that we live in, conversations that we have with friends. Stepping outside your own friendship group and talking with other people will have you realize that there is a whole other world of conversation. Traveling will let you see different parts of the world and understand different perspectives.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, but our brains aren't just influenced by external factors. There's so many different other things that come into play, so many different other things that come into play. For instance, one thing that we see a lot is survivorship bias, and that's the conversation of. I went through this. Therefore, others should have to as well, or I did this. Therefore, nothing is wrong with it and you can do it too. When really changes happened progressively for good reason and there's obviously a reason why it didn't work, so there's.
Speaker 1:We can sometimes hold on to the good things that have happened in the past because it's safe, and then it's also our brain's way of saying nothing's wrong, didn't change, don't do it, because our brains don't like change. They will stick to what they know, even if it's unsafe, because it's what they know. However, you could be sitting pretty on the other side of the fence if you just decide to challenge and and do things differently. It's kind of like you know better the devil, you know, but hang on a second. What's over here in door two? And then you open it and there's a whole new world of opportunity. However, if you place in the garden, that feels safe, but it's not necessarily safe, you'll stay there. The door will stay locked, and what I'm saying is that challenging and seeing things from different perspectives and having conversations with different people can actually open up your whole direction and strategy as to who you're talking to, why you're talking to them and understanding different nuances.
Speaker 1:You know men and women have different perspectives, and that's a good thing, and then we see things, or it can be a bad thing, but you know from the majority you don't want people to think the same. Different ethnicities think differently, different disabilities think differently and different people in different socioeconomic backgrounds think differently. And it's important to create that diverse approach, because you don't want people to think the same way or we would be stuck in the same way of thinking. So we want to be challenged and we want to do things differently so that we can create new conversations. And it's only then, when you start to look from the outside in that you start to see these holes.
Speaker 1:And so a good way to look at it is the, I guess, the economy that we're living in at the moment, and you will have these messages that say um, people are still buying. You know, stop talking about doomsday blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that can come from a place of privilege as well, because those people haven't experienced loss and so they're trying to. It's almost like a selfish thing to make people say you don't have a right to feel like that. Um, you know, it's okay, just stop feeling like that and start buying um when you if you actually go. Okay, let's empathy map here for a second. What are these people going through? Um, we saw people in industries that we never thought were going to go out during the pandemic, and so we saw people in positions that we didn't think that was that was ever going to happen, and so they struggled.
Speaker 1:And what happens is when you have a financial um, I guess the difference in financial well, a shift in your financial circumstances, is what I'm trying to say. I couldn't even spit that out properly is that what comes with that is an identity crisis, because you can no longer spend the same way that you used to be able to spend, or you have to allocate your spend to different things that you otherwise would have spent money on, and it can become a struggle because you can't do the things that closely align with what represent you as a person, and then you can start to have internal conflict, and so you make different decisions based on that and you can get stressed and you can get anxious and all of these things bubble up. And so if you're sitting on the outside looking in and you're unaware of how these people are feeling and that's your general target market you're missing an opportunity to deeply connect with them through empathy and honest connection, and it could be that your messaging is wrong because they're in a completely different place to you and that's why that you're not connecting with them and conversations happen. It's not just about being sold to, it's like telling those stories. This is why brand story is important, because you start to build conversations through shared experience and people will connect with brands and marketers and stories through relatability and seeing themselves in the conversations that you're having. It shouldn't always be about persuasive tactics to get people to buy. It should be natural and authentic conversations that help you to bring in people that really align with your values and your beliefs and I talk about this all the time and then you will build those connections. And I talk about this all the time and then you will build those connections. This is why biases happen, because you gravitate towards people that are like you. That's natural and fine. It's just being wary of if you're trying to target a wider demographic and you want more people to see your things.
Speaker 1:Or it could be that you're actually bringing in an audience and you're just completely blinded to who that audience is. It could be there, right in front of your face, and you're going. Hang on a second. Let me take a look at this audience that I'm speaking to, or the people that are actually buying from me, and you closely assess them and you realize that there is actually a deeper, a deeper connection here. You're like, oh, why, why are these people buying from me? Like they look very similar. I didn't even notice this before. And then you can start to tackle that.
Speaker 1:What I've noticed is that the connection pieces happen when you identify just two more questions also. So it could be that you think that you know your target market. Everyone thinks that they know them, because if you don't know them, you don't look at people feel that they don't. They're not doing a good job. It's an ego thing and, uh, addressing that you don't have the thing that's correct or it's wrong makes you feel like you don't know something, and so that's a bias, because you're going no, no, um, I know what I'm doing. That's confirmation. You're, you're confirming that what you're believing is correct and there is no problem when, in two, two seconds, I can have a conversation with someone and be like you have missed a massive opportunity here because you're not speaking to your audience correctly. And they'll be like, oh, I thought I was and it's like, well, no, you are, but it's generic and you're missing an opportunity to actually dive deeper here.
Speaker 1:And it's when you dive just that layer deeper and that's when the connection pieces happen. And a lot of that can come from addressing your own bullshit, but also addressing what's going on in the world and making people think differently as well. If you can make someone go, oh, I didn't even think about that, then that's great. So I guess, at the end of today, what I want you to really take away from this conversation is just to be wary of the world that we live in right now, the feelings that are at play, because people are always going to buy with emotion, and if we're unaware of the emotional drivers that are fueling purchasing decisions, then how are you creating messaging that is attracting people, how are you creating visual identities that are going to appeal to the right audiences, and how are you positioning and placing your brand in the right places that people are going to see and consume your content that will buy from you. A lot of the times that people aren't getting leads is because they're probably in the wrong spot or they're not diversifying their strategies.
Speaker 1:So you know omni-channel presence and social media isn't just a platform. You have to have multiple different ways of accessing people. And you know real life and networking and paid ads, and you know PR and all of these different things to take into consideration of the reach, but also the connection pieces and the relationship building is always, always the core, because if anything I've learned from this last 12 months, it's the people that I've built really great connections with are the ones that share my name. It's advocacy there, loyalty there, ones that you've helped to create change with, and sometimes they may not even be a customer. They just may be someone that has seen your stuff and referred you to someone that has been, you know, looking for stuff like that, and it's always that case of the referral base and knowing how to connect with people on that much deeper level, and that comes through sharing stories and that comes through being vulnerable and that comes through honest and open communication.
Speaker 1:So what I would love people to do is just to be have more conversations is to have more conversations and look at the wider lens of things and speak to people and audit your things and get people to give you opinions, because what you think you're doing may be slightly off and it just needs like one or two things to just hook you back in line and I can tell you that with literally everything that everyone's selling, there will be someone out there doing what you do and still making money, and there'd be a reason for it and it's not necessarily because they have better marketing. It could be because they're having better conversations or the timing was right or they know people in certain places. There's a whole bunch of different things to take into consideration, but you could just be one conversation away from the right lead or the right time and exposure, and it's just being wary of continuously researching, assessing the narrative and understanding where people are at and continuously optimizing reading data and having conversations that can allow you to constantly tweak and adapt until you hit that golden nugget. That's it for today. If you are interested in things like that, please sign up to our email Design Mind Theory, because we assess a lot of different things based on biases and we speak about the psychological principles that brands use to tap into emotion and drive consumer behavior, and it is a really good assessment.
Speaker 1:From small to big brands, governments, a lot of different strategies and, if anything, I think we're only going to be zoning in more on human behavior as AI and technology adapts and evolves, and I think that this is a place, especially in terms of brand, that more and more businesses will be investing in, and if you can get ahead of it now, you will be in a really good place for when everyone else decides that they want to do it. So that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, you know where to find me. You can find me on my personal Instagram at I am Tara Ladd, or you can jump into our DMs on Instagram for your one and only at your one, and only underscore AU. Until then, I'll chat to you next week.
