This is the story of how roasting a chunk of your most loyal fans could be a great marketing move....
Do you have to love your customers? No
Do you have to like your customers? No
Do you have to respect your customers? You probably should do, really
What about if some of your customers are bringing down your image or just make you outright cringe? - Last summer, Doja Cat decided to come out and say just how she really felt about some of her fans...
Unsurprisingly, this went down pretty badly: negative PR, tweets deleted, and an estimated 1M lost followers on Instagram.
Its unlikely this was some long-planned tactical move, hatched alongside her PR manager and team of copywriters. However, sometimes sticking to your guns and your beliefs can pay dividends...
Why it could be a genius branding strategy
1M lost in the context of 25M followers isn't a lot (4% to be precise). And DC has reinforced a brand position that has become increasingly mainstream but with a rebel flavour. This helps differentiate from arguably her biggest competitor: Taylor Swift (being the most streamed female artist, highest grossing female touring act, etc).
Swift regularly shows love and appreciation for her fans, glowingly talking about the 'Swifties'.
When you consider this, killing off the 'kittenz' could end up being a great marketing stunt and branding strategy.
If Taylor is Evian, Doja Cat is Liquid Death. Despite the bad PR and the (no doubt temporary) loss in social clout, DC has achieved the following:
💪 Reinforced brand image
🎯 Focus on the core audience (those who like her for who she is)
🚀 Built a clear differentiator from the competition
Takeaways
When you're starting out, you can't afford to be picky about your customers. Sure you can, and you should, skew your promotions, your design, your tone of voice towards the target audience. But at this stage you may not even have 'product-market fit': your product might not be right for your target audience. Or, put another way, your target audience may not actually be the right audience.
If you launch a new fashion label aimed at 18-25yr olds, and find 13-16yr olds buying the clothes, do you steer away? No, you double-down on that demographic or you slowly nudge the product in a new direction towards that older audience.
However, as you grow and become more established, there are circumstances where you could find yourself with the 'wrong' customers':
⏱ Customers that take a lot of your time and energy (complaints, returns, etc)
🗑 Customers that undermine your brand image (eg. through social)
Before you start openly attacking them á la Doja Cat (not advised), look at the products they're buying. Are you pricing them wrong? Are you promoting them in the wrong places?
And then, if all else fails, tell them to "get off your phone and get a job and help your parents with the house" 😜
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