How far can brand damage spread?

Note: Image from Newsweek

Yesterday I came across an interesting article surrounding BP, and how the oil spill is not only affecting its brand but it's also impacting the brand of the entire Oil Industry.

Obama was quoted saying:

"This disaster will shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come"

and that we need to:

"move forward in a bold way in a direction that finally gives us the kind of future-oriented... visionary energy policy that we so vitally need & has been absent for so long"

These statements that got me thinking - actions with instantly noticeable results strongly influence the public's opinion/perceptions of brands, be it organizations, industries, people, nations, etc.

Because of the BP oil spill, people see oil in a horrendously devastating way that is beginning to impact their lives. Seeing poor birds covered in oil, or oil seeping onto the coastline and beaches is an extremely impactful and negative association to have with oil.

Rather than perceiving oil as this wonderful resource that gives people energy to perform daily needs (i.e. driving cars, powering homes, etc.) which is also 'supposedly' hurting the environment, people are now seeing oil in a dirty and environmentally damaging light!

The threat of environmental damage is not as impactful as the damage happening in the moment in a way that affects people directly!

Take smoking for example: with all the knowledge we have around the fact that smoking kills and the labels we put on cigarette packages, we still see people in love with smoking. I believe this to be because there is no immediate cause and effect. People have never experienced the pain of dying from lung cancer, and, therefore, are unable to comprehend it. Rather, the immediate benefits a smoker receives from smoking a cigarette are far more influential than the future threat of dying.

This is the same for oil, pre-BP oil spill: people couldn't see or understand how it's going to impact the environment because they have no personal experience with it, so demand for oil & gas remains high.

But now, with seeing the horrible impact of this spill, people's perceptions of oil are changing and based on Obama's statements, demand for new energy sources will be on the rise. Of course the revolution, in how we consume energy and where that energy comes from, will not happen over night. But it's interesting to see that one organization's actions and lack of up-front honesty around the situation has begun to impact the entire industry! People are beginning to question the industry as a whole, due to the inability to live up to promises!

So a lesson can be learned from this for brands:

People's perceptions are strongly influenced by immediate cause and effect, which impact them and/or their surrounding environment far more than the threat or the distant promise that something will happen.

So, for organizations to effectively influence consumer perceptions of their brand, they must make a promise and immediately deliver on that promise in a way that is relevant to the consumer (i.e. through innovations, customer service, philanthropic initiatives, etc.), otherwise you risk confusing the customer or you end up being meaningless in their eyes. And being meaningless means you are providing no valuable reason to buy, and are left to compete on price, which jeopardizes your earning potential stunting the brand's ability to accomplish its reason to exist!

But even worse than becoming meaningless, a brand could create passionate hatred and distaste, if it produces actions that run drastically counter to its promise, which could spread these negative emotions impacting the perceptions towards the entire industry, as we're beginning to see with BP and the Oil & Gas industry!

So to positively impact your brand's perceptions, you must create initiatives that produce immediate results proving that the brand lives up to its promise and is satisfying its purpose for existing!