Be Careful to Whom You Cave: How Lowe’s Failed Trying to Appease Complainers

If nothing else, the recent "Butt Seriously, Chapstick?" controversy shined light on an unfortunate risk facing marketers: thanks to the rise of social media, outrage from even the tiniest minority can end up reaching every corner of the globe. As a result, most brands will need to exercise extreme hypersensitivity about the messages conveyed by their products and marketing campaigns.

Hypersensitivity, however, can come with a palette of its own risks—and Lowe’s is experiencing that first-hand. In responding affirmatively to outrage over a marketing campaign, the home goods retailer ended up opening a far messier can of worms.

Recent branding snafus have conditioned businesses to believe that making controversy go away quickly is the best strategy. Evidently a product of that environment, Lowe’s seemingly responded to protests over a forum for its ad campaign—TLC’s television series "All-American Muslim"—in a way that appeared best-suited for calamity: pulling the commercials.

Lowe’s likely thought its decision would ease the issue quietly into the night. Instead of arguing with the protesters or dragging its feet, it simply caved, halting any progress the complaints made in going viral with broad support.

Or so it thought. While Lowe’s did please the sect responsible for the complaints, it unfortunately failed to consider how the rest of its society perceives the agenda of the Florida Family Association, the group most associated with the complaints. As it turns out, the FFA is a deeply-conservative Christian group opposed to principles they believe to be in contradiction with their perception of traditional, Biblical values.

In 2011, much of mainstream America, though not necessarily opposed to all of the group’s views in nationwide polling, would likely identify the core FFA principles as far right. And insofar as many of the entities controlling the media’s compass, especially new media in digital and social forums, are particularly-sympathetic to progressive causes, the FFA’s views will stand out as particularly explosive. Acting in accordance with their demands will naturally risk creating the impression of an alignment with their views—views which run counter to the logic and passion of those responsible for controlling new media.

The FFA website primarily showcases the group’s campaigns to get major brands to pull advertising from television shows they deem controversial. Series like "Degrassi," which the FFA says affirm and promote the "homosexual and transgender lifestyles," are constant targets. "All-American Muslim" recently came under the FFA’s fire as "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values." That is the message on which the Lowe’s complaints were built.

While Lowe’s maintains that the FFA did not specifically dictate its decision and that its complaints amounted to only one of many perspectives it considered, it ultimately did side with the perspective in favor of taking the ads down. And to the extent that the TLC series does not offer a gratuitous depiction of sex and violence, it is hard to imagine that the complaints Lowe’s received—FFA-affiliated or not—were far removed from the overall viewpoint that a show portraying Muslims as normal Americans, rather than as those complicit in or sympathetic to terrorist activities, is harmful.

As far as many social media users, bloggers and journalists are concerned, that is the wrong viewpoint, and they had no trouble subjecting Lowe’s to their wrath. Showing a willingness to respond to customer demand is laudable in most cases, but when that customer demand is perceived by the media as offensive, it cannot stand. Instead of receiving praise for its customer-centricity, the organization will receive condemnation for its spinelessness and involvement in a message of prejudice.

If only the final message were as simple as "don’t side with complaints from customers perceived as radical." Insofar as Lowe’s decision concerns a marketing strategy—one for which it pays a significant amount of money in order to advance the business—it cannot so cleanly be broken down into a matter of taste and tolerance. At the end of the day, Lowe’s management team has a responsibility to make wise decisions for its shareholders, and if it invests money into a campaign that does not achieve the desired results, it is guilty of bad business.

When contemplating running ads during "All-American Muslim," the proper question is not simply, "If Lowe’s wants to showcase its social conscious, is it better served by supporting or opposing a series that presents a favorable view of America’s Islam practitioners?" Plenty of companies perceived as "evil" by the common man are successful, and many of those viewed as "conscious" struggle to gain market share.

As the LA Times correctly notes, the decision ultimately comes down to business: is it worthwhile for Lowe’s to advertise to the "All-American Muslim" audience? No matter how much its current detractors believe Lowe’s should opt to make a statement in favor of Islamic tolerance, they are not really asking Lowe’s to make a statement. They are asking it to invest thousands and thousands of dollars into a marketing strategy without any insights as to whether or not that spend will produce a return.

One can argue that a failure to restore the ads will result in business-damaging boycotts from disgruntled customers, but Lowe’s definitely knows advertising on the show will attract aggressive opposition from groups like the FFA. The "progressives" might believe their position is more justified, but to what extent is "right vs. wrong" the way to analyze an ad buy? Lowe’s’ key objective is to spur favorable, commercial action in response to its marketing, and the avenue most likely to achieve that objective is the path Lowe’s should follow.

Granted, the FFA sympathizers are not the only ones who can inject business rationale into the debate. Insofar as Lowe’s did, prior to the controversy, agree to buy ads on "All-American Muslim," it clearly identified the show’s target audience as consistent with the customer profile it wanted to attract. And even if Lowe’s underestimated the conservative Christian outcry, could it possibly have thought that a show like this would have drawn sizably from an audience that opposes any non-hostile depiction of Muslims?

So, with that in mind, one certainly can argue that in pulling the ads, Lowe’s was throwing away a marketing opportunity it had deemed valuable in order to please external political forces. And, as a result, it angered an audience far more likely to fall into the target group that actually watches "All-American Muslim."

Caving to the protesters, therefore, is far from "putting business ahead of principle."

Lowe’s’ dilemma is not necessarily proof that companies should refrain from overreacting to customer complaints—no matter how trivial, and no matter how small the minority responsible, today’s media climate can turn the outcry into business-damaging PR.

But when the company does respond to complaints, it has to take ownership of its responsible—it has to know why a portion of the audience is frustrated, how that portion’s frustration corresponds to sentiment from the rest of the target audience and what it hopes to gain from its response.