When Did Brand Loyalty Get So Paranoid?
Last week, I spent 45 minutes comparing oat milks — not for flavour, not for price, but for narrative. That’s 45 minutes decoding packaging, checking who owns what, and yes, Googling supply chains like a suspicious ex. Welcome to modern brand loyalty, where trust feels more like surveillance.
We don’t just buy, we investigate. That’s not new. But what’s shifted is how brands now twist themselves into pretzels trying to anticipate our micro-critiques. Remember when a rebrand meant a new logo? Now it’s a 12-part Instagram confessional about regenerative farming, DEI audits, and what the founder reads on Sundays. And still, the internet calls them phony.
There’s something weirdly performative creeping into brand storytelling. Everyone is defensive. Everything is pre-defended. It’s less about conviction and more about preemptive apology. The result? Neutrality dressed in earnestness. Brands are getting less brave, not more.
Here’s the fix: stop treating us like the jury. Give us opinion, give us specificity, give us weird. Not every brand needs a TED Talk trauma backstory. Sometimes making an excellent product and standing for very little, except consistency, is enough. But if you do stand for something, own it. Not everyone’s going to clap. That’s fine. That’s life.
We don’t just buy, we investigate. That’s not new. But what’s shifted is how brands now twist themselves into pretzels trying to anticipate our micro-critiques. Remember when a rebrand meant a new logo? Now it’s a 12-part Instagram confessional about regenerative farming, DEI audits, and what the founder reads on Sundays. And still, the internet calls them phony.
There’s something weirdly performative creeping into brand storytelling. Everyone is defensive. Everything is pre-defended. It’s less about conviction and more about preemptive apology. The result? Neutrality dressed in earnestness. Brands are getting less brave, not more.
Here’s the fix: stop treating us like the jury. Give us opinion, give us specificity, give us weird. Not every brand needs a TED Talk trauma backstory. Sometimes making an excellent product and standing for very little, except consistency, is enough. But if you do stand for something, own it. Not everyone’s going to clap. That’s fine. That’s life.