Brands that try to please everyone end up mattering to no one. Strange how that works.
I scrolled past three different companies this morning with identical statements about “supporting everyone’s right to their opinion.” Could’ve been selling trainers, coffee, or tax software. Impossible to tell.
Here’s what keeps nagging at me: we treat neutrality like it’s safe. Risk-averse boards love it. PR teams defend it. But nobody ever built loyalty by saying nothing that matters.
The maths doesn’t even work. Let’s say staying neutral keeps you from losing 20% of potential customers who’d disagree with you. Sounds smart until you realise the other 80% now have zero reason to actually care about you. You’re just… there. Background noise in a feed that scrolls past at lightning speed.
Taking a position costs you some people, granted. But it gives the rest something genuine to grab onto. And those people don’t just buy from you. They tell their mates. They defend you in comment sections. They stick around when a competitor undercuts you by 15%.
The truly weird bit? Most founders I know have proper opinions about their industry, their craft, how things should work. Then the marketing department wraps it all in cotton wool and ships out something that sounds like it was written by a committee of algorithms.
Everyone’s scared of the backlash. Nobody’s scared of being forgotten. Those fears are backwards.
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