Brand Lush Goes Off Social Media: Is that a start of a trend?
Sanjay Mehta, joint CEO at Mirum India, explains how, in a world where social media marketing is a pivotal step for strategizing the brands of all kinds, both for customer support and engagement, Brand Lush has taken a bold step of not using the social media in today’s communication business. Is it really start of a trend? Have a read!
The current state of marketing is that nearly all brands want to be on digital media, and most of them are increasing their presence on digital and social media. If anything is being talked about, and seen, in media circles, it is how the media budgets continue to skew towards digital and social media, rather than the traditional media.
So, at such a time, if you hear about a brand choosing the EXIT social media, it certainly is a contrarian move that would attract attention, if nothing else, then just for the audacity of it!
That is exactly what happened when cosmetic brand LUSH announced that it was closing all its social media accounts in the UK.
The reasons that LUSH sighted for making this move can be appreciated from their announcement: “Increasingly, social media is making it harder and harder for us to talk to each other directly. We are tired of fighting with algorithms, and we do not want to pay to appear in your newsfeed. So, we’ve decided it’s time to bid farewell to some of our social channels and open up the conversation between you and us instead.”
Ominous as it sounds, is it really the start of a trend? Where many other brands also choose to walk away from social media? Or it this a one-off case?
What I suspect to begin with, is that someone in the brand team, just got fed up at one point! The constant changes in algorithm, in formats, in rules that many of these platforms have, etc., can create a sense of exasperation! For a brand to constantly keep adapting to these is not always easy.
That your own marketing – and consequentially, your business itself – is subject to, what would seem to be, the whims and fancies of some of these platforms, makes you feel helpless. You want to be controlling the parameters that drive your business, and don’t want surprises from outside sources. That is the kind of feeling one could easily be getting, in the face of such shifting sands, of the dominant platforms.
That said, the reality is that platforms like Facebook and Google, or e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon, are frenemies. Which means, you can’t really do away with them.
One of the main reasons why a Brand like Lush has decided to air off the Social media, is because it creates a barrier to communicate directly with the customers. Instead, the community of Brand Lush decided to focus on more personal way of communicating with their audience. However, one can also argue to disagree, especially in this era.
To draw a parallel with Brand Lush case, some years ago, the fashion and lifestyle brand, Myntra had decided to abandon the web and be a mobile-only platform. But soon, it abandoned the mobile-only strategy. LUSH is not going off social media, it is just pruning its presence.
Today, many of us will agree that Facebook and Google are the foundation of promoting the brand right from its initial stage. But at the same time, you have to pay a price of sorts to be with them. In a world where social media marketing is pivotal step for strategizing the brand for all kinds, both for customer support and engagement, Brand Lush has taken a bold step of not using the present weapon of networking in today’s communication business.
But the question remains the same; is it the new way of engaging the customer or a bold step to go back into the first stage of marketing business?