The year of branding fear: a look back at six blatant negative reactions of 2024
It was the poet John Lydgate who famously said that you can’t please all the people all the time.
Is it important that he said these words in the 15th century? No way. The maxim is truer today than ever. In the face of seemingly intractable problems, including climate change, economic disparity, racial inequality, and the resurgence of the Cold War, it’s no wonder people feel helpless and angry.
Perhaps that’s why 2024 has been a year of backlash – against people and politics, of course, but also against brands and what they claim to represent. Below, six hot spots from the past 12 months.
AI quickly goes too far
Consumers have watched AI’s growing influence warily since the technology began replacing jobs several years ago, but the distrust has turned to anger in 2024.
It started when deep fake pornographic images of Taylor Swift moved from 4Chan to X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram, sending Swifties (and Congress and the Screen Actors Guild) overboard. In March, Glasgow’s flimsy Willy Wonka ‘experience’ enraged customers expecting a fantasy land – whose promotional photos turned out to have been generated by AI. Accenture data shows that 60% of consumers now doubt the authenticity of things they see online, and AI is a big reason why. A Washington State University study found that the more AI a product incorporates, the less likely consumers are to purchase it.
Heck, even the normally tech-friendly crowd at SXSW booed ChatGPT chief Peter Deng this year.
He really upset them
Consumers stressed by inflation probably don’t expect corporate America to comfort them — but it might be a good idea to at least not insult them.
Apparently Kellogg’s didn’t get that memo. In February, the food giant’s CEO, Gary Pilnick appeared on CNBC and suggested that eating cereal is a good meal plan for cash-strapped Americans. “If you compare the cost of grain for a family versus what they could do otherwise, it will be much more affordable,” said the CEO, who won more than $4.4 million in compensation in 2023. Not only was Pilnick’s advice empirically dubious (food bills eat up 11 percent of American incomes these days), she was — in the opinion of many — tone-deaf. “Is this the new ‘let them eat cake?'” the Instagrammer asked. Another consumer stung via TikTok said: “I will never buy cereal again. Eat this.
Diversity takes a hit
After years of embracing diversity (at least on paper), a phalanx of household brands, including Ford, John Deere, Target and Lowe’s, have decided to give it up in 2024, rejecting some of the very ideals they had trumpeted until recently. After the 2020 killing of George Floyd prompted soul-searching from leaders and resulted in written commitments to increase diversity and equitable inclusion, the social pendulum appears to have swung back into a case of fear caused by fear.
Social conservatives, frightened and angered by corporate awakening, coalesced around activist Robbie Starbuck, whose accusatory tweets and boycott threats subsequently frightened and angered corporations. A recent survey from the Public Private Strategies Institute showed that 82% of business leaders still believe in DEI, but the 2024 counterattack means they will likely be quieter about it.
The car renamed without the car
The Jaguar nameplate evokes images of races at Le Mans and the panther lines of the E-Type.
Apparently this doesn’t lend itself to a man in a dress wielding a yellow hammer or a group of androgynous models running around a purple moonscape like the Teletubbies. This was Jag’s face of the month for November rebranding effortwhich racked up 47 million views in its first day, many of which fall somewhere between bemusement and livid. (Oh, and the ads didn’t show a single car.)
A sample of the responses on » Critics slammed the effort as they woke up free with a look of disgust that evoked memories of Bud Light. The Dylan Mulvaney debacle. AB InBev backed down in the face of this backlash. So far, at least, Jaguar is sticking to the road.
No end to the fighting
The Israel-Hamas war broke in October 2023, after armed Palestinian extremists attacked Israel and killed 1,143 people, prompting Israel to launch a military counterattack that resulted in the deaths of 45,000 people.
But just as the violence has spread into 2024, the anger has focused on brands perceived as pro-Israeli — even if “pro” simply means having a presence there. Predictably, boycotts and threats of boycotts have focused on the most visible players, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Domino’s.
In some sense, some of the negative reactions were not new. The Arab League boycotted Coca-Cola from 1967 to 1991 after a bottling plant opened in Israel. (For the record, Coke also has four locations in the Palestinian territories.) McDonald’s Israel made headlines by announcing free meals for Israeli soldiers, but US headquarters apparently had nothing to do with the decision.
The peak hits a valley
In early December, a torrent of anger and accusations filled CEO Peter Dering’s inbox. The reason? Dering’s company makes Peak backpacks, one of which appears in a video still released by the NYPD as it hunted Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The public anger stemmed from a rumor that Dering himself recognized his product and called the police, which he denies doing. “We cannot associate a product serial number with a customer unless that customer has voluntarily registered their product on our site,” Dering explained in a statement.
Never mind. Trolls called Derig a “rat” and a “snitch.” On Instagram, another wrote: “Y’all have slept with the wrong people. Enjoy what’s left of your business.
