Facing Fear Head On: How Marketers Can Turn Obstacles into Creative Opportunities

At the end of a recent interview with a potential new hire, I asked the candidate if he had any reservations about joining the team. Though he felt good about our agency, he feared for the future of the industry. His father was a roofer, and once upon a time that meant he was the guy on the construction site who made the most money. That all changed when roofs became pre-fabricated. He told me, “I don’t want to become a roofer.”

Fear plays a very real role in our working lives today. Like this candidate, 58% of employees fear for their job security due to AI. One UK study reflected that fears around appearing racist are actually hindering boardrooms from diversifying. In my world of brand building, clients face a daily plethora of fears including embracing edgy campaign ideas and staving off upcoming competitors.

While fear intends to protect us, it often blocks us from being truly creative, which in turn limits growth and innovation. It’s not really our fault. Safety has always been found in assimilation and human nature drives us to try and fit in, feel safe, and survive. But this “lizard brain” instinct is antithetical to doing the kind of boundary-pushing work that actually breaks through the noise!

So how does one fight their instincts? By acknowledging and harnessing fear head on, marketers can turn potential obstacles into creative opportunities.

Fear is the Elephant in the Conference Room

Here’s the thing about marketers – although they’re meant to be the ones seeking out the spotlight, most aren’t nearly as willing to step into it as they should be. Just look at the conversations that happened at Cannes’ creativity festival this summer – amongst all that talk of innovation, “brand safety” was still one of the biggest topics.

As an agency, when our “out of the box” ideas are turned down – ideas we know could move the needle – we often hear “I love it but …” followed by one of the following:

• “…[insert more senior executive here] won’t.”
• “…our audience won’t get it” / “…our audience will feel alienated.”
• “…we need to have a more serious tone.”

This is actually pointing to a core element of human nature – we need to feel connected to our “tribes.” This desire runs so deep, neurological studies show our brains lighting up when we’re praised by our “in-group.”

In today’s world of clickbait headlines and public-shaming on social media, it’s no wonder CMOs aren’t nearly as brave as they’d like to be. Ironically, creative work that feels safer is actually the most dangerous of all. The thing is, you cannot survive as a brand if you’re not willing to take the risk of standing out. Safe campaigns that don’t stand out aren’t remembered.

Reframing the Fear: Marketing is not a Zero Sum Game

It’s not just fear of rejection holding marketers back, it’s also the fear of facing a zero-sum situation. It seems as though marketers believe that a bold campaign could lead to the irrevocable collapse of their brand empire. Studies have consistently shown that people will avoid situations that they perceive to be zero-sum, even when it’s at a cost to themselves. Our brains are hardwired such that potential losses hold more weight than potential gains.

So marketers often end up making unadventurous decisions that are counterproductive to their assigned task.

I get it. No one wants to be the next headliner at the consumer backlash tour. But if we keep painting marketing “fails” as world-ending for brands, CMOs will continue to turn down good creative, hiding behind committees and choosing what appear to be safer alternatives.

Brand building is not for the faint hearted or the wallflowers. It’s important to remember that even when the worst-case-scenarios are realized, the consequences are never insurmountable.

A caveat – jobs have absolutely been lost over risky campaign decisions. However, I’d counter that the real risk is in how outsized negative attention is handled. Last year Bud Light served as the poster child for marketing gone wrong in the way they mishandled blowback from working with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. In apologizing to the anti-trans haters, they in turn also alienated their LGBTQIA+ audience. Consequently, their reputation suffered and sales have still not recovered. That being said, AB InBev still isn’t headed towards any kind of corporate graveyard.

Harnessing the Fear as a Creative Catalyst

I personally feel that if a campaign doesn’t scare you a little bit, it’s probably too safe and not worth the investment. In creative development, I know we’ve got it right when my gut feeling is like being at the top of a rollercoaster – an equal mix of elation and angst. So how can we work with our very normal human fears?

One of the avenues to breaking down the barriers associated with tribalism is a psychological framework known as moral reframing. In short, it suggests finding common ground over polemic topics by starting from a place of values. When it comes to assessing campaigns that feel scary, this should be the first metric for whether or not an impulse towards rejection is worth listening to: Does it align with brand values?

I can only imagine the kind of pushback Workday’s “Rockstar” campaign came up against when it was in the early stages of development. But when a company lists “having fun” and “taking smart risks” as core values, how can the powers that be say no to an ad that pokes fun at “rockstar” as corporate jargon, stars Billy Idol, and aims to raise brand awareness?

Though something may feel edgy, if it’s not out of line with brand values, remind yourself who it’s for and what the goal is. Being really clear on exactly how the creative aligns with the target audience and strategic aims will help you to envision potential gains rather than losses, while also better equipping you to advocate on behalf of the creative should you need to defend it against someone else’s fear.

Finally, it’s important to remember that you (and your boss, the board, the brand) are not the target audience. While you may have spent countless hours looking at this campaign, your audience won’t. It will simply be one of the thousands of marketing messages they see on a daily basis, so the more memorable the better.

In describing his work on fast vs. slow thinking, cognitive scientist Daniel Kahneman warned against the belief that gut instincts are always correct. He does, however, give the example of a chess master being able to trust that instinct, presumably due to all their time, practice, and exposure to the game. The more you take creative risks that pay off, the more trust you will build in yourself and the more resilience you will have to boldly stand out, no matter how much your lizard brain may want you to hide.

Originally published in The Drum