By now you have likely heard about the highly controversial Facebook ad run by Dove earlier this month.  Dove’s ad was a three-second GIF featuring body wash.  The GIF first showed a black woman wearing a brown shirt.  She removes the shirt to reveal a white woman wearing a light-colored shirt.  She removes the shirt to reveal another woman of color wearing a darker shirt.  The ad was immediately met with backlash and became the focal point for a discussion around racial insensitivity.  Dove pulled it and issued an apology, but the damage was done.

As marketers, this is a case study we need to learn from.  Dove made mistakes here.  And – from a marketing standpoint – I believe that the mistakes Dove made are not uncommon to mistakes a lot of small businesses make.  We expect more from a company with the budget and the human resources power of Dove, and this should be a call to action for all of us to take a closer look at how diligent we are in our marketing.  We need to be careful that we are actually sending the messages we intend to send.

There is one key lesson that we need to take into account:

Your Brand Is What Your AUDIENCE Says It Is

This is something Dove just learned the hard way.  No matter what message you think you are sending, it is what the audience picks up that matters.  Period.

Your brand is what your audience says it is. #marketing #smallbusiness #business #nonprofit Share on X

I can’t tell you how many times I have had a business owner show me a business card, a website, or some other piece of branded collateral.  I’ll pick an element and ask them about it.  “Why a flower?”  “Why the color green?”  “Why this font?”  “Why that tagline?”  Very often, I get the answer, “I liked it.”

Every choice we make as marketers must be intentional.  In anything you design, you are very likely layering subliminal messages and psychological cues underneath the overt message you are creating.  Formatting, placement, typography, color, image choice, word choice…body language, tone of voice.  It all layers into a complete message for your audience.  (If you are interested to read more about color psychology, for example, click here.)

Every choice we make as marketers must be intentional. #smb #smallbiz #nonprofit #business Share on X

Your audience will not just interpret what you put in front of them as an isolated incident.  They are bringing the entirety of their life experience with them.  Everything they associate with all the elements of your branding is coming along for the ride.

I know how difficult it can be to take a step back and review your materials objectively.  I have led many workshops and seen business owners be 100% on point with their feedback to other businesses, yet totally confused when trying to apply the same principles to their own business.  We get so close to the details. In fact, we bring our own baggage in when we look at the details.

If this is scary to read, in a way I am glad about that.  We should be serious about what we put out into the world.  Because the moment we get too relaxed about it, we end up sending a message that gets interpreted entirely differently than we wanted.

If you feel like you need more insight on this topic, I recommend that you check out this presentation I did with the Michigan SBDC on How to Build Your Brand and Reach Your Target Market.  If you are not a design expert, if you need a little guidance in how to create elements of your branding that will reinforce your messages instead of counteract them, it is worth spending some time to get the basics down.