Blimey, it’s hot. Isn’t it hot? It’s pretty warm. Isn’t it?
I digress.
As I sit here in my shorts during the middle of the most extreme summer heat seen in the UK,… well, ever, I’m reminded that the heat on a certain Mr. Johnson began a little while before. A small fib here, a small white lie there and a few porking untruths in the middle and down it all came like a house of cards.
Marketers hit their stride with the news, of course, with supermarket chain Iceland instantly tweeting
“Having trouble keeping your Cabinet full? Shop everyday essentials from Iceland.co.uk”
Madame Tussauds in Blackpool tweeted out a beauty, too:
All of this is quite frivolous, of course, but the woes of BoJo do remind us of a danger faced by every brand: the loss of integrity.
Trust is your single biggest and most valuable asset as a business. Not the value of your buildings or your payroll: the trust your customers hold in you. If your customers don’t trust you to do what is right by them they will move elsewhere.
Papers love to bang on about the “creeping overstretch of “Woke”” but responding to customers changing requests, needs and wishes is what businesses do. Attacking that is like Canute trying to hold back the tide.
People – especially younger people – are more focused on social and environmental issues. That’s life. And, as it happens, progress.
Businesses, like politicians, make a promise to their customers to listen and adapt. To do less harm. To move with the times. That might seem “Woke” but it’s a natural promise of business and marketing.
Breaking those promises and not listening, like BoJo and his parties, comes with a consequence: your customers will abandon you. You’ve lost their trust. You’ve lost your integrity.
So, as Boris’s waxwork slowly melts like his career beneath this heat, remember that your business only exists because your customers trust you. Abandon that trust and you’ll soon be shown the door.
Now, who wants an ice cream?
