Campaign Crunch with Sima & Janvi - MN20608

In this episode of Campaign Crunch, hosts Sima and Jhanvi discuss the brand Fatami Co and its Hashtag Suck It campaign. They analyze how this campaign has negatively affected the brand's authenticity and purpose. The hosts also discuss the importance of body image and the impact of negative body image on one's health. They mention that while Fatami Co aims to support women and make them feel more confident, their campaign promoting appetite suppressant lollipops with the hashtag suck it has received backlash and is seen as disrespectful and not empowering. The hosts evaluate the campaign based on brand authenticity and explain how Fatami Co misaligns with its purpose-led mission. They also mention the criticism from influencers like Kim Kardashian and Jameela Jamil. The hosts conclude that the campaign has damaged the brand's trust and connection with its audience, and they discuss the impact on brand meaning and the formation of a community against body shaming. Welcome back to another episode of Campaign Crunch, where we will dive into the world of branding and dissect impactful campaigns. I'm Sima, and I'm Jhanvi, and together we are the voices behind this podcast. Today in episode 10, we will be talking about Fatami Co, a brand that understands and relates to the struggles of body image insecurities. Through offering a range of healthy products, they aim to help get their customers, who they call babes, achieve and feel their best selves whilst getting them back on track. Our discussion will be based on Fatami Co's Hashtag Suck It campaign and their viral anti-suppressant lollipops. We will be analysing the brand's purpose and how this campaign has negatively affected Fatami Co's brand authenticity through a misalignment with its purpose-led mission. First, we will be examining Fatami Co as a company, whilst also touching upon relevant trends and topics regarding the products they promote. Then we will delve into the evaluation of the actual campaign itself, and the reasons behind the unsuccess of the brand and its lack of authenticity. Finally, we will end with everyone's favourite section of the podcast. Based on our analysis of the Hashtag Suck It campaign, we will conclude with recommendations for future brands that may find themselves in similar situations. So, let's crunch this campaign! Beginning with a bit of background, upon aiming to address bloating and digestive issues, an Australian couple created Flat Tummy Tea in 2013. The company rapidly gained popularity through partnerships with influencers like the Intimus Kardashians for their successful detox teas, which gained remarkable reviews. In 2015, it was acquired by Synergy HCH and turned into the company we know today, Flat Tummy Co. They expanded into a wider range of products, right from detox teas, appetite control shakes, gummies for gut health, to lollipops for cravings. We found it to be an interesting and suitable brand to crunch, given its modern approach to targeting prevalent issues and topics in the health industry, surrounding body image, body shaming, health and weight, through a positive and encouraging light, hence their purpose-led mission to get you back to looking and feeling freaking good. Body image is an extremely important topic to consider given the severity of negative body image on one's health. In fact, important insights emerging from our industry research revealed that high body dissatisfaction is associated with a poorer quality of life, psychological distress and the risk of unhealthy eating behaviours and eating disorders. Jambi, out of 50,000 adults, 60% of women reported feeling self-conscious about their weight and 70% of them stated that they would not participate in certain activities because of how they felt and looked. This is truly disheartening. Flat Tummy Co. tries its best to support women and make them feel more confident. The brand clarifies, from one goal to another, we've got your back and we're here to help wherever and whenever we can. With over 1.5 million Instagram followers and over a million products sold, Flat Tummy Co. is indeed well-established. I respect them for optimising their popular platform by motivating women of all shapes and sizes to feel confident about achieving a healthy lifestyle through their range of products. Now, let's not get too excited. While it is true that Flat Tummy Co. raises complex issues around weight and body images, they weren't so cautious upon the campaigning of their already quite controversial anti-suppressant lollipops, which claim to control hunger and satisfy craving, while only containing 40 calories. So, quote, Flat Tummy Co. on their campaign promoting these lollipops. Girl, got cravings? Hashtag suck it. No wonder it received so much backlash. A campaign like that has severe consequences. It has been proven that advertisement in the health industry increases body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in women. This is a very serious topic, Jean-Louis, and Flat Tummy Co. seems to have forgotten to stick to their words by having their customers bax with this specific hashtag suck it campaign. It isn't looking very good for Flat Tummy Co. Let's evaluate the hashtag suck it campaign in more detail. It's no mystery that unfortunately for Flat Tummy Co., the hashtag suck it campaign was not a successful one. Before we dive deeper, let's understand the foundation of our evaluation. We will be measuring the success of the campaign through brand authenticity. But what exactly does it mean for a brand to be authentic? It's simply when consumers perceive a brand to be genuine, faithful, and supportive. Yes, and we could argue that it is all rooted in value congruity. As consumers, we use psychosocial differences between brands, including brand values, to dictate our decision-making. The self-congruity theory suggests that value congruity is all about comparing how much a brand's values align with our own. Value congruity can positively influence a person's identification with a brand, and as a consequence, a commitment to the brand. However, brands don't always maintain this commitment, and this is exactly where Flat Tummy Co. misaligns with their purpose-led mission. That's right. A great way to break this down is through Lachlan's explanation of brand authenticity. It's cultivated from the triad of consistency, conformity, and connection, the three Cs. Let's crunch it down. Authenticity through consistency is where a brand is consistent with its external expressions and its internal values. Flat Tummy Co. lacks such consistency in fulfilling their brand purpose by failing to deliver these values. Promoting an appetite suppressant through a campaign directing audiences to suck it is quite brutal. This clashes with their value of where it's supportive, where the brand claims to be reliable in helping wherever and whatever. Not only that, but also I wouldn't say telling your audience to suck it is very empowering, therefore conflicting with their value of empowerment. Although some would justify this as toxic motivation, it remains a clash with their authenticity because Flat Tummy Co. have explicitly identified themselves as that annoying best friend that isn't going to let you give up, and we're here to get you to feel freaking good. This leads us to the next C, conformity, where an authentic brand conforms to its social category. These are brands in the health sector supporting inclusive and realistic eating habits, as opposed to toxic diet culture. Actually, Sima, a brand within the same social category that also sells appetite suppressant lollipops is Celebrity Sim. However, they didn't market the products by telling their audience to suck it. Instead, they promoted it as naughty yet guilt-free. Unlike them, Flat Tummy Co. neglect the norms of being respectful and instead are discomforting audiences of this social category. Their campaign language, including the imperative of suck it, almost invalidates and belittles this challenge of tackling eating problems. As previously mentioned, more than half of 50,000 women report feeling subconscious about their weight. Clearly, with this campaign, Flat Tummy Co. has disregarded the struggle people face in their health journey, which is especially inappropriate given the rise of eating disorders amongst women. Finally, going on to connection, this involves a brand being authentic to the extent that it connects to people. In this case, the Flat Tummy Co.'s Babes. Not only did the Suck It campaign fail to connect with people, but it also created backlash. This all started with a tweet by Sophie Vershbow, a former anorexic teenager, raising awareness to take down the Flat Tummy Co.'s campaign. This was shortly followed by Hollywood actress Jamila Jamil, who was infuriated by the campaign and showed her anger. Although Flat Tummy Co. has fostered this community of babes, such criticisms of the campaign caused audiences to collectively turn against the brand. Flat Tummy Co. has betrayed their audience's trust, diminishing their authenticity. This ultimately damages brand equity and therefore any chance of potential target customers joining the community. But Seema, couldn't we argue that although this campaign didn't connect people to Flat Tummy Co., the scandal actually connected audiences to each other, uniting over their disapproval and passion for the need to stop body shaming and start supporting women to combat eating disorders? 100% John B., in fact, Test Holiday, a plus-sized model, started a petition highlighting, we need to stop telling women and girls that they're only worth how skinny they are, signed a petition and demand that Flat Tummy Co. remove its billboard immediately, resulting in 1,984 signatures, exemplifying this connection and almost formation of a community in itself. So now, let us move on to brand meaning. Like us, brands are impacted by external influences. A brand's meaning is shaped by culture, society, and people, including various stakeholders who impact the brand through their own brand stories. Bevin reinforces authenticity as a key principle in co-creating a brand's meaning. An author we feel has the most significant influence on Flat Tummy Co.'s brand meaning are influencers. Kim Kardashian, for instance, promoted the appetite suppressants, claiming them to be literally unreal on Instagram, giving the first 500 people 15% off, which contrary to her expectations, led to criticisms of fans emphasizing that they're disappointed to see such a post from such an influential social media icon. Eating isn't shameful, our bodies aren't shameful, we deserve better. In fact, Jameela Jamil responded to Kim Kardashian, maybe don't take appetite suppressors, have something to say about your life other than I had a flat stomach. Seema, even Dr. Liam Hackett's reason, eating disorders are a very real issue for a lot of young people, whilst shaming Kim Kardashian for actively encouraging her fans to develop a healthy relationship with food, stating that the post was terrifying and gravely concerning. This criticism is tied to Kim K's endorsement of Flat Tummy Co., which has led to a negative perception of the brand. There was a clear misalignment with brand stories here. Flat Tummy Co.'s brand identity was misinterpreted by their audiences, destroying their brand image and in turn authenticity. Like you and I, brands are people with their own personas. Think of your favourite character in a TV show. I love Chandler from Friends, he's a classic. Exactly, like ourselves and Chandler, brands have their own morals and values that they've got to stay true to in order to be authentic. In fact, speaking of characters, this is the perfect opportunity to bring up Beverlyn's brand character versus improvisation framework. Beverlyn claimed that to achieve authenticity, a brand must balance brand character with brand improvisation. A brand's character can be referred to as what it consistently says and does, its truth and values, whilst brand improvisation entails the need to keep the brand relevant and up-to-date. We can associate brand character with points of parity, which are associations a brand shares with other brands. Essentially, where brands are consistent. Alternatively, points of difference are unique brand attributes or benefits consumers believe they cannot find in other brands. Flat Tummy Co. attempted to differentiate themselves through a point of difference of a bold and attention-grabbing campaign tagline, hashtag suck it, as if trying to be satirical. Not to mention, they also took the extra risk of displaying the campaign in the advertisement hub of NYC's Times Square. However, they failed to account for the point of parity being respecting the sensitivities of their target audience, which led them to fall low on brand character. This guides us to the brand improvisation and brand character matrix. From a broader perspective, a Flat Tummy Co. could have been categorised for authentic, for genuinely maintaining consistency with their values, of being supportive to their babes and higher brand improvisation as they keep up to date with trends following a regular theme with promotional marketing on their Instagram Reels. However, by going against their values of being supportive and empowering through this insensitive campaign, Flat Tummy Co.'s brand character has decreased, positioning them lower to become a posseur. This reminds us that though attempts to improvise and maintain relevance are important, brands must ensure to stay cautious with their campaigns, particularly in drawing the line before your brand ends up in a scandal that risks its authentic reputation. Reputation influences consumers' brand knowledge, which is the personal meaning of a brand stored in consumer memory. As a result of Flat Tummy Co.'s campaign backlash, consumers' updated brand knowledge is likely to discourage them from purchasing Flat Tummy Co.'s products in order to avoid representing a company that fails to fulfil the expectations of being empowering. Now, you're all probably wondering, what Flat Tummy Co. actually did to improve this situation? Despite all the backlash received and criticisms, Flat Tummy Co. refrained from addressing them directly. However, they took an indirect approach by slowly getting rid of any connections with the Hashtag Suck It campaign. Now, if you look at their lollipop posts on their Instagram, Hashtag Suck It isn't used anymore. Instead, you will find encouraging hashtags such as Smart Snacking or Sweet Treat with Zero Gift. Interestingly, the original post advertising the campaign on Twitter has actually been deleted. It's time to translate the outcome of our campaign crunch into recommendations for all of you to consider. Based on what we have learned from Flat Tummy Co., the best approach to develop brand purpose through a campaign entails two core strategies, awareness and connection. Our first recommendation is for brands to maintain awareness and understanding of changing preferences in the industry, proactively monitoring target audiences' ever-evolving sensitivities and triggers, whether it's rooted in their political agenda, opinions on events or issues and recent findings. This involves understanding the industry and staying up-to-date with upcoming findings and issues through regular market research. Remember when we mentioned Celebrity Slim, a brand within the same social category as Flat Tummy Co., who marketed their anti-suppressant lollipops in a better way? Well, they carried out thorough market research which led them to be cautious when addressing body image issues faced by audiences in a very motivational way. The key takeaway is to be aware. Moving on to connection, if a brand faces a scandal like the Hashtag Suck It campaign that positioned them from being authentic to opossor, managers must reflect on its approach to connecting with audiences to regain authenticity. While Flat Tummy Co. had their community of babes, they lacked in their response to the brand public. The solution to being opossor would be type authenticity, where a brand conforms to the expectations of audiences in their type of brand, across brand activities that connect with audiences to eventually restore the authenticity. To ensure a brand is aligning with this type of audience, it must constantly reflect on its brand purpose and values. The final point we would give to brands with unsuccessful campaigns that have caused a lot of backlash is to announce a public statement of apology, alongside a reiteration of the brand's appreciation for those struggling with the issues that they even validated. This is especially because brand authenticity is the driving force that alleviates the negative consequences of brand scandals. It increases forgiveness and, consequently, trust. These were our final recommendations of the day. First, make sure you as a brand are aware of the industry you work within. And secondly, really focus on building a connection with your consumers through regular reflection on how much your brand's actions align with your purpose. We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast episode and we look forward to the next one. Remember to stay authentic! Thanks for crunching this campaign with us. Bye bye for now!