I came across an interesting video on a fintech’s social media account recently that left me a wee bit stunned.
It was an audacious 8-second use of sexual innuendo to promote an innocuous quiz on their website, with the caption reading: “#HowLongCanYouLast.”
#HowLongCanYouLast pic.twitter.com/BqD1Xr6FvC
— Cowrywise (@cowrywise) April 2, 2024
Now, you see, I am a fan of audacious marketing.
People’s attention spans are cooked.
It is hard to drive engagements, so I understood where their team was coming from.
However, this particular campaign failed to elicit nothing but an “oh ffs!” from me.
And it seemed I wasn’t the only one left unimpressed – much of the engagement the post received consisted of people openly expressing their displeasure.
It made me remember a conversation that I had last year with a colleague about legacy organisations imitating startup marketing culture.
But this wasn’t your typical legacy organisation struggling to adapt to modern marketing tactics.
It was a fintech startup – a company operating in the traditionally staid financial services industry, no less.
And yet, this particular campaign felt decidedly out of step, veering into territory that struck many as being rather poor taste.
How We Arrived Here
Every industry is different. Fashion from health; finance from entertainment.
Yet, as social media has become a crucial channel for business growth, we’ve seen a convergence of marketing tactics across industries.
Ever since social media stopped being a mere publicity function and showed inbound promise, companies have scrambled to inject more “personality” into their online presence.
Why?
It is because attention is currency and it is fickle. You have to dance and perform to get some for your business.
Organisations in staid industries face immense pressure from within to shed their “boring” corporate image and embrace a more vibrant, relatable, Gen-Z-esque brand persona.
That’s why they’ve looked to the marketing playbooks of disruptive startups for inspiration – experimenting with bold, irreverent content that promises high engagement.
Unfortunately, the results have been decidedly mixed.
While some companies have managed to pull off this transition seamlessly, especially B2C-facing ones, others have ended up in a peculiar “social media identity crisis.”
They find themselves trapped between their traditional brand identity and an ill-fitting, overly-casual online persona.
The aforementioned fintech startup perfectly captures this phenomenon.
In the pursuit of engagement, they went over the fence, resorting to risque tactic that clashed with the professional image typically associated with the financial services industry.
The backlash from their audience suggests that people have clear expectations of how organisations, especially in traditional industries, should present themselves on social media.
And these are the people that companies need to be attentively listening to.
Forget the engagement metrics and the overzealous growth hires for a second.
There is a delicate balance to be had that doesn’t involve diverging from their identity.
Examine the social media metrics of the Deloittes, Siemenss, Clearlakes of this world.
You’ll find that their online channels function more as extensions of their public relations and corporate social responsibility efforts rather than pure marketing plays.
When they venture into more overt marketing on social media, they manage to showcase their industry expertise and thought leadership in a way that feels authentic and builds trust.
No need for gimmicks or shock tactics.
Even young, high-growth startups would do well to move past the “banger-boy marketing” persona as they mature.
The goal should be to build a social media presence that complements and reinforces their brand identity, not one that undermines it.
