When confronted with a mob of non-consumers demanding you take a particular course of action, what do you do?
Bumi from Avatar: The Last Airbender had a great answer...
The social media marketing team over at Pepsi would have benefitted from this lesson this week. They made a silly post on X and then were confronted by the shallow outrage of people who probably never have had Pepsi except at a pizza party in elementary school.
In the moment, they were given 3 options:
Double down and lean in even more into the joke the mob made it out to be.
Retract and apologize.
Do nothing.
Option 1 is likely not truly an option as, I would imagine, Pepsi does not consider SA to be a core value of its brand. This would be a very foolish (and yes, sinful) move to make.
Option 2 is what they chose, which is also a poor choice. By caving in to the pressure of the irrelevant mob, you have shown that you can be bent. If only there is enough force applied, your fear of man will take control and leave you vulnerable to manipulation by the opposition. It will not be forgotten and will only be exploited later.
Option 3 would have been the better option. By doing nothing, you show that you are above the false accusations and have a confidence in your team and in your messaging that you have nothing to prove to the naysayers. It is taking the high-ground and letting the fiery arrows fall short of reaching you, because they don't have the strength to shoot them up to your level. It is a position that commands (not requests) respect.
Doing nothing in these types of situations concerning false, petty (keyword: petty) allegations gives the media cycle enough time to blow over. People will have their fill of fake outrage for the day before they crash out on another entity the next day and another one the following day. In about 2 weeks, the situation will be 99% forgotten about and you will have shown self-confidence through weathering the storm.
Remember, it's just noise.
Be courageous and never back down.
Remember, it's just noise.
Ready to put this thinking to work for you?