Culture Is Important… Until It’s Not.
Or…When brand soul takes a backseat to shareholder squeamishness.
The Great Pendulum Whiplash
Let’s stop pretending. We’ve seen brands trip over themselves to prove cultural relevance, until it’s no longer convenient. Until the tax break doesn’t show up, or an obnoxious corner of the internet throws a tantrum, or the CEO starts sweating bullets before earnings.
What was once celebrated becomes deleted. What was once a campaign becomes a compliance risk. Culture was the rallying cry... until it wasn’t driving conversion.
We’re in a moment of pendulum whiplash. One side wants visibility, dignity, and progress. The other side says, “Sure, but keep it off my coffee cup.” And stuck in the middle? Brands with no backbone. Trying to please everyone. Resonating with no one.
Consumers aren’t asking for perfection. They’re asking for clarity. They’re asking you to pick a lane and stay in it.
You can’t build loyalty if you pivot every time the pressure rises. You can’t foster trust when your culture is only a strategy slide deck deep.
When Brand Culture Becomes a Cage
Let’s talk about the people inside these brands, especially the ones who were hired to disrupt. The thought leaders. The change agents. The execs with big voices and bigger vision.
Organizations love to say, “Bring your whole self to work!” But what they mean is: “Bring your whole self, as long as it fits our brand guidelines.”
Thought leaders are recruited for their perspective… and then slowly ghosted by internal politics. Their posts get side-eyed. Their tone gets policed. Their ideas get diluted until they’re brand-safe enough to be boring.
This is where brand culture and personal brand collide. Because if you're a leader who's been hired to challenge the status quo, but the second you actually challenge it, you get muted, what was the point of hiring you in the first place?
When brands treat originality like a liability instead of an asset, they don’t just kill internal culture, they erode external loyalty, too. Consumers can feel when something’s off. When the brand voice sounds over-produced. When leadership suddenly disappears from public view. When a brand once known for taking a stand… goes silent.
That silence? It’s expensive.
Case in Point: Target’s Pride Fumble
Let’s ground this with a real example. In May 2023, Target rolled out one of its largest-ever Pride collections, over 2,000 items, a clear nod to years of support for the LGBTQIA+ community. The gays had always loved Target. It was colorful, inclusive, and felt like one of the good guys.
But then the backlash came. Conservative boycotts. In-store threats. Social media mobs.
And what did Target do? They pulled select products off shelves. They re-merchandised Pride items to the back of stores. They didn’t protect their message, their community, or their employees. They folded.
Result? A 5.4% quarterly sales drop, their first in six years. E-commerce was down 10.5%. Consumers across the board lost trust, not because Target took a side, but because it refused to stand by its own.
Here’s the takeaway: performative culture doesn’t hold up in a storm. And once trust breaks, the receipts are in the quarterly earnings.
The Loyalty Collapse in CPG (And Why It Should Terrify You)
If you think this is just a Target problem, think again. There’s a wider loyalty reckoning happening and it’s hitting legacy brands where it hurts: market share.
Let’s get into the receipts. In recent years, 90 of the top 100 consumer packaged goods brands lost market share. Ninety. Not because they weren’t recognizable. Not because they weren’t running Super Bowl ads or dominating shelf space. They lost because they weren’t trusted. They weren’t believed anymore.
CPG giants like Unilever, P&G, and Kraft Heinz have all faced this erosion. They priced up. They compromised their value props. They backpedaled on purpose. And consumers peaced out and ran straight into the arms of smaller, values-led challengers that actually deliver on what they say.
Much like Target’s Pride fallout this wasn’t an isolated financial blip. That wasn’t a boycott. That was a trust drop. That was a massive group of consumers saying, “I thought I saw myself in this brand. Now I don’t. I’m done.”
And here’s the kicker: Those loyal customers who walked away? They weren’t casual. They weren’t one-click coupon chasers. They were high-LTV, ride-or-die, tell-all-their-friends advocates.
When you alienate the very people who kept your brand emotionally alive, you’re not just losing transactions, you’re bleeding lifetime value.
Because loyalty isn't built on proximity. It’s built on principle.
The Brand Soul Audit
Let’s call it what it is: a vibe check for your values. Not the values you plaster on a wall. The ones that actually show up in decision-making, especially when no one’s watching, the pressure’s on, and the ROI isn’t clear yet.
If your brand’s been shapeshifting to chase headlines or avoid heat, it’s time to pause and ask some uncomfortable questions. Because culture without consistency? That’s not culture. That’s content.
Here’s your audit questions. And be honest because your customers already are.
1. Do we make decisions based on our values or our fear of public opinion?
If the answer is: “Well, it depends who’s mad this week,” congratulations, you’re officially in brand identity limbo. Consumers can smell it. Employees can feel it. And your most loyal people? They’re watching to see if you flinch.
2. Would our customers recognize our values in how we act, not just in what we say?
Mission statements are cute. But the real test? Do people feel the values in your customer service, hiring practices, product choices, and crisis response?
If the answer is, “We’re working on it,” cool. Just know you’re not alone and your competitors are working on it too. Faster.
3. Do our employees feel safe challenging leadership when we’re off-course?
If the internal culture punishes dissent or rewards conformity disguised as “alignment,” your brand isn’t rooted in culture, it’s rooted in control. Thought leadership dies here. So does innovation.
4. Are we investing in our values even when they don’t convert?
Here’s a hard one. If the spreadsheets say cut the DEI program, the LGBTQIA+ supplier contract, or the mental health initiative, do you do it? Or do you protect what matters most, knowing the payoff might not be this quarter?
Because how you respond when it’s uncomfortable is exactly how your customers will define you.
5. When we screw up (and we all do), do we own it publicly and without spin?
The era of hiding behind statements drafted by a risk-averse legal team is over. People want real accountability. They want leadership to say, “Yeah, we missed the mark. Here’s what we’re doing to fix it.”
Transparency isn’t a risk. It’s a requirement.
If your answers left you sweating a little then you’re on the right track. This isn’t about shame. This is about course correction. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to mean it.
How Brands Can Rebuild Trust
Let’s get one thing straight: you don’t win back trust with a campaign. You rebuild it with receipts. With time. With leadership that stops hiding and starts leading.
You don’t need a rebrand. You need a reckoning. Here’s how that starts.
1.Admit It. Fix It. Mean It.
Own your misstep. Out loud. In public. No spin. No “we regret if anyone was offended” energy. Just the truth.
Consumers don’t expect you to be perfect. But they do expect you to show up. To admit when you’ve strayed from your values. To course correct in real time, not after your quarterly numbers tank.
Take a cue from Domino’s, who straight-up said their pizza was bad. They didn’t sugarcoat it. They rebuilt trust through honesty, humility, and accountability. And guess what? Their stock soared.
Now compare that to Anheuser-Busch.
In April 2023, the company partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney to signal support for the LGBTQIA+ community. But when the backlash came from a loud, conservative minority they distanced themselves. Fast. And in doing so, they angered both sides. The result? A 26% sales drop for Bud Light by May. Not because of the partnership, but because they bailed on it.
Here’s the bottom line:
If your values change every time a hashtag trends, they’re not values, they’re optics. And people are done falling for that.
2. Stop Performing. Start Repairing
If you showed up during Pride or Black History Month, but ghosted the rest of the year, don’t post another campaign. Just...don’t.
Fix your house first.
That means:
Protecting the people who got you here
Paying your creators, contractors, and communities equitably
Putting systems in place so your values don’t vanish the second the news cycle shifts
Take Airbnb. When faced with repeated reports of racial discrimination on their platform, they didn’t issue a “diversity matters” post and call it a day. They brought in civil rights leaders. They reworked their platform policies. They restructured how users were verified, how hosts were held accountable, and how the company responded to claims. That wasn’t performance. That was repair.
Now let’s contrast that with L'Oréal.
In 2020, they issued public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, only to be called out days later for previously cutting ties with model and activist Munroe Bergdorf after she spoke out about racism. The internet noticed. So did the community. L'Oréal tried to walk it back, but the damage was already done. It looked like opportunism dressed up as allyship.
Here’s the thing:
You can’t cherry-pick your convictions for marketing purposes. You can’t be “for the culture” when it’s easy and disappear when it’s not. You don’t get to celebrate the margins if you won’t stand with them when it matters.
Repair is operational. Not seasonal.
3. Choose Conviction Over Consensus
Let’s be clear: you cannot please everyone. The second you try? You become noise.
Consensus branding is cowardly branding. It waters down your message, alienates your core audience, and makes your brand sound like it was copywritten by a committee of compliance officers.
Rebuilding trust isn’t about walking the line. It’s about planting a flag.
Look at Nike. They didn’t tiptoe around the Colin Kaepernick partnership, they went all in. They took the hit. Conservative groups burned their shoes on Instagram. Stock dipped. The usual outrage followed.
But Nike stood by their decision. Why? Because it aligned with who they are. Because it resonated with their core customers. The result? Brand loyalty deepened. And sales surged. They knew who they were speaking to and they didn’t flinch.
Now contrast that with Kellogg’s.
In 2024, during a cost-of-living crisis, Kellogg’s CEO publicly suggested that people should eat cereal for dinner to cut back on costs. It came across as smug and out-of-touch, especially from a billion-dollar food conglomerate. BTW, their CEO Gary Pilnick, rakes in over $6 million a year. A true STFU moment.
Consumers weren’t amused. They weren’t inspired. They were insulted. What could have been an opportunity to show empathy turned into a meme for corporate tone-deafness.
Here’s the truth: Your audience isn’t looking for brands that try to walk the middle. They’re looking for brands that know who they are and stand in it when it’s hard.
Conviction earns loyalty. Consensus earns eye rolls.
4. Codify Your Backbone
Here’s the part most brands skip: They say the right things. They might even mean them.
But they never operationalize them.
And if your values aren’t built into how your company runs, how decisions are made, how success is measured, how leaders are held accountable, then they’re just pretty words in a slide deck.
Values that live in the marketing team, but die in the boardroom? That’s a brand with no backbone.
Codifying your culture means:
Tying strategic objectives and leadership KPIs to integrity, not just performance
Making sure employee feedback loops don’t just exist, they change things
Putting resources behind your promises, even when no one’s watching
Having clear escalation paths when your values are tested and actually using them
This isn’t about performative ESG. It’s about building a culture that holds under pressure.
Need an example of what happens when you don’t? Let’s talk about Laura Ashley. (Yes, the floral everywhere brand.)
The brand clung to its legacy aesthetic and internal culture like a security blanket. It didn’t invest in modernization. It didn’t evolve with consumer values or lifestyles. It treated “who we are” as a stylistic choice, not an ethos that could stretch, breathe, and adapt.
The result? A slow, avoidable decline. From iconic to irrelevant.
Culture without flexibility becomes dogma. Values without systems become PR. And brands without a backbone? They collapse under their own weight.
The Brand Loyalty Manifesto
Because performative culture is easy. But lasting loyalty? That takes guts.
Let this be your north star when the pressure’s on and the politics get loud:
If your values change every time a hashtag trends, they’re not values, they’re optics.
If you betray your most loyal consumers to pacify your loudest critics, don’t expect a comeback.
If you only show up when it’s easy, you don’t get to call it “brand purpose.”
If you hire big thinkers, then silence them, you’re not building culture, you’re building compliance.
If your brand compass only points toward profit, don’t act surprised when people stop believing in you.
You cannot A/B test your way out of a soul crisis.
Positioning can flex. Essence cannot.
Long-term value isn’t just in repeat purchases, it’s in emotional equity.
Broken trust is expensive. Rebuilding it is slower than you think.
And if you keep treating culture like a campaign instead of a conviction: you’re not just bland, you’re replaceable.
Final Word: Be About It, or Be Gone
Culture is not your costume. Purpose isn’t your press release. And thought leadership is not a liability, unless you treat it like one.
So here’s your call to action: Protect your people. Stand in your values. And remember: if you lose the heart and soul of your brand…You’re not just off-message. You’re over.