Commitment Void: Where Are the New Year’s Resolutions from America’s Brands?

No pretend friends in 2020!

The media is hooked on New Year’s resolutions, likely because they are barometers of desire that, like suicide vests, come complete with their own mechanisms of self-destruction.

But I’ve looked and looked, and what’s conspicuously missing in the deluge of commitments is a single New Year’s resolution from a brand.  It’s an obvious opportunity, and indeed, necessity, if brands are to fulfil their oft-stated mission of building “emotional connections” with consumers. What’s a more authentic connection than a resolution?

And when has there been a better time to promulgate them? The digital age has volcanically amplified the level of brand-to-person communication, so there is no shortage of channels for resolutionary expression. 

The reason for their absence isn’t access. It’s the opposite. In one word: vulnerability A resolution – or at least one with any honesty and transparency – risks exposure. By definition, a resolution commits to a change in behavior and is predicated on a degree of self-reflection and a desire to be better. 

That’s why the most popular resolutions are hopeful fables about losing weight, spending more time with family, expressing gratitude, learning a new skill, reducing consumerism and saving less, managing cellphone addiction. These are areas for self-improvement and growth, which require an admission of imperfection. 

Companies and brands, however – despite their efforts to come across as human – don’t want to risk self-examination. They are self-created, emotionally impregnable, mythical structures of perfection.  When you peel away the humor or snark from their Facebook posts, Instagram stories and Tweets – when have you ever found a brand to express humility and vulnerability?  Unless they are in a reputational crisis and need express regret and contrition – like Uber, Boeing, Starbucks, VW – and then they do with lawyered-up language that is about as authentic as a letter from your friendly Congressperson. 

So what would New Year’s resolutions sound like, if brands decided to let their transparency flags fly? Something like this.

• We resolve to spend less time pretending to be your friend and more time acting like one.

It’s easy for us to create a false feeling of intimacy, but much harder for brand to actually behave the way a friend would. We’re here to sell you stuff, after all. When was the last time a friend told you they accept PayPal? So we’re going to work harder at becoming as close to a friend as is possible for an entity that files a tax return and hires lobbiests. That means having conversations about things that have nothing to do with ecommerce or transactions, to check in with no ulterior motive. And it means accepting you for who you are, rather than trying to change you into someone whose identity is best expressed through the stuff we sell. 

• We resolve to respect your space.

Our data may show that sending promotional offers 10 times a week might drive more revenue than sending them five times a week, but we need to do a better job of considering the overall impact of our intrusiveness, including on those who are not revenue responders. Continuing to speak when no one answers is a selfish practice we resolve to stop. (Which also means we need to listen better, including be able to hear silence.)  Actually listen, not to say “your opinion matters to us” and then continue to go about our business in the same way. 

• We resolve to stop seducing by idealization.

This is a hard one, because brands are supposed to be – in the words of our marketing people – “aspirational.” But when we reflect on our Instagram posts and Facebook feed, we see the harm we have done by creating a world where everyone basks in perfect lives, with our product explicitly or implicitly connected to that careful utopian construction. We resolve to be more mindful of the impact we have, and to portray a more balanced reality that makes people feel good about their lives and what we have to sell, and doesn’t invite invidious comparisons as a strategy.

• We resolve to actually care about your privacy.

We like to say we do, but then every year we add more mumbo-jumbo to our privacy policy, which we have to admit is an excuse to continue to do whatever we damn please.  Last year, the New York Times 150 privacy policies – ours was one of them – and said they were an “incomprehensible disaster.”  That’s something we commit to fix, and while only 8% of people live up New Year’s vows, we resolve that everything we publish will be written to encourage you to read it. Please hold us to it a year from now

• We resolve to care about the things you really care about.

We’ve read the data about what consumers want today, including ours, including – very likely – you. One desire that struck us, and where have let you down, is that the vast majority of people want brands to use their power to help people connect and break down the differences between them. To unite them. We’re not doing that, and the reason is we’ve lacked the courage to admit that people are divided. It’s easier to ignore the reality that grows scarier every day, than it is to take on the role of doing what we can to bridge that polarization. Most brands don’t want to step into that messy reality stream, but we resolve to take on the role that you want us to. 

• We resolve to recognize our failures and shortcomings.

Lastly – and this captures everything – we must stop pretending that our relationship is perfect. We make mistakes, a lot of them, and our apologies come across as fake “We regret the inconvenience…” because they are not deeply felt or personal. They come from a customer-service database. We need to stop pretending that the people behind our brand are a collection of perfect individuals. And a brand is just that – people masquerading as branded apparatus.  

Which means that sometimes we launch products (and policies) we shouldn’t. Often we exaggerate and barrage you with self-congratulatory emails promising “An amazing new product”, that isn’t. (Which is another way of not respecting your discerning intelligence.)  Sometimes we treat people badly. Sometimes we sit back and say nothing when we should enter the conversation. We resolve to get better in 2020.

Like all New Years’ resolutions, these will be impossible to carry out, but are valuable (and valid) to capture and communicate, because the very act of writing them involves a mind that is attentive to introspection and humility. If we want brands to be active dramatis personae in the emotional lives of our consumers, then they need to be fully-realized, sentient characters that are capable – even if only by transference from their calculating puppeteers – of actual thoughtfulness.