#MarketingMonday
My take on what’s happening in the marketing world
This is my rundown on all the marketing things I discovered on the internet this past week.
Oh no why did you do that?
“Women belong in the kitchen.”
— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021
“The final two tweets in that thread are all well and good, but Burger King UK lost everyone with their delivery. The chain used a harmful, sexist stereotype to try to grab people’s attention, then thought they could make everything fine by later revealing a “gotcha!”
The thing is, it’s 2021, and we have to be better and demand better than this sort of tired, lazy, plainly offensive brand strategy.” (Mashable 2021)
Trending on Twitter:
The royals are at the front of the news again, this time because of the Oprah interview that aired on March 7th. With it brought waves of different posts trying to capitalize on the despair of Meghan & Harry.
The interview was immediately turned into a series of (creative) memes shared by thousands of people however there has been some outcry from organizations like Slow Factory on the digital blackface side of things. Read more about that here.
In light of that perspective, I have only included one example below of an email marketing campaign using the relationship drama between Diana and Charles as a way to sell hotel rooms. Creative? Yes. Makes sense? Sure?
Now, this is unique:
Exactly what we needed going into the “one-year anniversary” of lockdown — some new sauce flavours. Heinz Canada made #HeinzCrowdsauced trending on Twitter, introducing three new sauces based on past posts they found on the internet. Side note: Heinz we just want purple ketchup back.
Cryptic, and unasked for, @Wendys decided to tweet out Morse Code sound clips. Not even the comments in the Twitter thread could help me understand this. But hey, it got my attention.
I want to be friends with their SMM:
The @NoNameBrands Twitter account is a masterpiece in sticking to a consistent brand strategy.
Favourite campaign of the week:
#HelpMeLEggo by Eggo US.
Eggo is playing a smart game. Ask parents to complain about their children publicly = free content + increase your brand engagement.
🧇 The cost? A few boxes of waffles.
The debate of the week: The Alegria Style aka “Globohomo”.
Maybe this is old news, but it’s new news to me so let’s debate.
I recently watched this video explaining why this style of graphic design feels “fake”. I headed to the comments (as you do when watching YouTube videos) and immediately felt the rage of so many strangers on the internet. Why are people so passionate about their hate for this specific design style(see comments below)?
“It’s like communism’s brutalism and globohomo deconstructivism had a baby.”
“This art reminds me of how the airport smells.”
“Dystopian futures are often imagined as dull, desaturated, blocky, and depressing, but a true dystopia would probably be like this, trying to convince everyone that it’s not one.”
Here’s a quick history of the style:
- Pre-21st Century: Die Fläche, A.M. Cassandre, Herbert Leupin.
- 21st Century: Skeuomorphism was a huge trend in design for years (think of your old iPhone apps).
- In 2017 things began to change, flat designs were becoming more popular.
- Designed by Buck, the Alegria (“joy” in Spanish) style was born, made for Facebook. Created for universal design.
You can find this style everywhere, it’s the current trend for “big tech” companies” because of the following characteristics:
- Simple to create.
- Extremely inclusive (yay).
- Easy to replicate.
Why do people hate it?
- Generic.
- Oversaturation.
- Lack of complexity; Inauthentic.
Ok, I get those points and being over the trend but why is there such a deep hate for it?
Strangely enough, it goes deeper than just graphic design.
Please note that I do NOT recommend doing the research yourself as I don’t think anyone else should consume (thereby support through readership) such content.
So here is what is going on: This art style has a large group of critiques from the alt-right. They claim that is it part of a larger (what they call) “globohomo” agenda of big tech, governments, and international organizations. Throughout my research ON THIS STYLE OF ART I have been exposed to hateful misogynistic, racist, discriminatory content from Reddit and YouTube. People who are not critiquing the “art” itself but critiquing the inclusiveness of the style.
In conclusion, the Alegria Style aka “Globohomo” trend appears to be coming to an end. However, the “end” of this style will not be possible until there is another (fabulously) inclusive design available to replace it. What can you do? Make edits to your flat designs, add some extra complexity or depth to the graphics. People want life, not simplicity.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Tara
