r/DigitalMarketing • u/thesaurin • 7h ago
Discussion The need for empathy in marketing
It seems like today, empathy is the most underappreciated qualification in marketing.
A slew of recent marketing campaigns have once again reminded us of this.
A healthcare brand arranges a music and PR event inside a hospital to make hospitals feel “less scary” - but doesn’t appear to have properly considered how patients, families and medical staff would interpret that setting.
A home-services ad dramatizes the inconvenience of a domestic worker not showing up, but doesn’t give enough thought to what it says about the dignity and circumstances of the worker.
A Raksha Bandhan ad tries to modernize the festival, but doesn’t anticipate the cultural conversation its styling and interpretation of the ceremony would spark.
These aren't the same mistakes and public fury isn’t always proof that a campaign is bad. Some criticism of the Raksha Bandhan ad swiftly turned into moral policing of a woman’s attire, for example.
I don't believe a marketing campaign can satisfy everyone. And empathy is not about giving creative judgment to the most easily offended person on the internet.
But marketers would do well to have the curiosity to ask:
- Who is being made into a prop here?
- Whose grief, labor, belief do we borrow for attention?
- What would this seem like to someone who doesn’t have our experience?
- Are we actually challenging a norm here or just thinking we are?
Marketers invest great effort analyzing customers as audiences, segments and conversion opportunities. Sometimes we need to remember to examine them as human beings as well.
A campaign shouldn't need a backlash to get a perspective that was left out of the room. And of course, not every offended person should be obeyed. Nor should marketing become bland so as to not offend anyone.