Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, England, Reputation
Reputation.
In many ways, it’s all we have.
How we are seen … what we’re associated with … what we are known for.
I get it, it can be scary which is why so many brands probably embrace the beige centre … thinking it’s a safe place, without realising that also informs their reputation.
Mind you, I don’t know if that’s more or less bonkers than those people/brands who either don’t think reputation matters, or believe it can be changed with some PR and flashing of the cash.
Like Elon Musk.
Donald Trump.
Or the British Conservative Party.
Talking of Brits …
England is a nation with a proud – and despicable – history.
And yet there are so many people – and institutions – who only see the good.
OK, so some of that is because if they acknowledge the bad, they may have to acknowledge their role in some of it … but this blind and blinkered support for a nation that [1] has done some terrible shit in its time and [2] is in a horrific current state, is insane.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no England hater.
In fact, I feel more English than any other nationality despite being half Italian and living all around the World.
But that doesn’t mean I think it’s perfect. That I can dismiss any wrong doing as an act for the greater good. Or from a time where that ‘stuff’ was acceptable.
No … England, like many countries, has done a lot of fucked-up stuff and acknowledging that doesn’t mean you’re a traitor, it means you want the nation to make amends for past deeds so that it can move forwards in ways that will let you – and future generations – be proud for the decisions it makes.
But there are many who refuse to think this way.
Who believe they are better than everyone else.
Who need to believe they are better than anyone else.
But sometimes, something comes along that destroys delusional bubbles so completely … it redefines and changes everything.
Who you are.
How you see yourself.
How others see you and will see you. Forever.
What’s amazing is that often the thing that causes all this can – on first impression – feel small.
Almost incidental or accidental.
But timing and context turns it into a nuclear bomb.
Like that picture at the top of this post.
The shitty cheese sandwich that revealed the ugly truth of Fyre festival …
That eviscerated the [fabricated] reputations of the organisers, forever.
I say this because I recently saw another thing like that cheese sandwich.
It’s not actually a picture … more a few words … but what they say has the same effect.
A truth bomb that doesn’t just change the way you will see the target forever … but changes the narrative around the target forever.
An explosion that destroys all the blinkered thinking and unites all the victims of it.
This is it …
How amazing is that?
It’s so, so, so, so good.
Forget your Effies, your Pulitzers, your Nobel’s … this is a clap out loud moment of reframing magnificence.
Because underpinning those 14 words, is a truth so sharp, it can slice your breath away.
And while it’s cutting to the extreme, the reality is it’s true.
So true in fact, that if Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg had a baby, even that bastard love-child would not be able to live in delusion.
What makes it all even better for me is that the person who typed these words has the name ‘Lord Ringo’. As if they’re a member of the families or establishments that helped England become the ‘Independence Day’ superstore for the World.
Amazing.
The common narrative is reputations are hard to build but easy to destroy.
That’s true … but the real issue is when you do shit but pretend you haven’t.
You may think you can front it out.
You may think you can PR your way out of it.
You may even think people will ultimately forget.
But if 14 words can kill the reputation of a country that has spent hundreds of years trying to manage how it’s seen, you’re definitely going to be caught out.