It could be the worst scandal in US history. Yesterday marked 10 years to the day that then US President Barack Obama’s controversial tan suit took the stage. Global headlines, a Wikipedia page, a thousand tweets later and we see Kamala Harris make a surprise appearance at the Democratic National Convention in – you guessed it – a tan suit.
So what can Harris’ choice to playfully nod to Obama’s “scandal” tell us about convention and, more specifically, when to subvert it?
Conventions are a powerful driver of cultural codes. They are social truths. They are “what we do around here” and, depending on where “here” is, they can be enforced with anything from a subtle nod to radical vehemency. W. David Marx calls them “the molecules in the chemistry of culture” itself.
Understanding how conventions compose themselves to drive your audience’s culture – and how you can create messages by adhering to or subverting conventions at the right time – can spark very smart conversations.
What exactly creates conventions? They can manifest as customs, beliefs and traditions, or something more short-term like a fad or fashion. But to exist, they must be commonly understood by the collective.
In his book, Status And Culture, Marx illustrates why these matter so much on a scientific level: “Conventions provide a ‘solution’ when trying to coordinate behaviours with others … Our brains prefer when other people meet our expectations, because this means we don’t have to expend extra mental energy on thinking through alternatives … Meeting expectations elicits smiles and cheers. When they aren’t met, the sociologist George Homans writes, an individual ‘has in effect been deprived of a reward, and he repays deprivation with hostility’.”
Sounds rather intimidating really. So, how do brands manage to get away with subverting a convention and not inspiring hostility? Here’s a tip: most don’t. It’s a very delicate game, and that’s what this issue is about. So, let’s get into it shall we?
1.Act
The big conversation-starting ideas, strategies and executions that give businesses something to talk about. It’s about walking the talk to lay the foundations of a powerful message.
For context, in 2014 Obama’s wearing of a tan suit to a conference discussing US military involvement in ISIS created such a stir that the controversy has its own Wikipedia page.
The thing is, context counts. And sure, you could argue that Obama just shouldn’t have worn a tan suit at that precise moment, for that very specifically earnest announcement. But it runs deeper than that. Kamala didn’t just get away without sparking hostility, she was overtly celebrated for her choice to wear the suit at the DNC. Why?
Conventions are codes. In and of themselves they are imbued with various messages and associations that accumulate over time. Going back to Marx (for the last time we promise!), the creation of convention is described as being when “individuals know something, know that others know it, know that others know that they know it, and know that others know that others know that they know it, ad finitum… moving the population toward a new convention requires new common knowledge”.
In this way, subverting a convention demands that your choice and subsequent action comes with its own, separate set of common knowledge or context. People need to inherently understand why you’re doing it, and that means the choice to act in a way that subscribes or subverts convention should be seen as a message.
With that in mind, ask yourself:
Does the subversion of this convention in this moment align with the dialogue I am are trying to create? Will people actually understand what I’m trying to say?
In Kamala’s case, the answer is a hard YES. The tan suit has a very specific Democratic link that Kamala’s team cleverly chose to draw on.
First, it draws on nostalgia for the Obama-era of the party that the Harris campaign has consciously tried to stir. Second, it aligns with her campaign’s history of leaning into internet discussions, codes and memes. She’s relevant, people! She’s down with the kids (see BRAT below). Finally, she wore it to what is essentially A PARTY, not to announce the death of a terrorist – which, yeah, makes more sense anyway – and it also positions her as an even more progressive evolution of the former President (first a black President, now a black woman who can pull off what even Obama couldn’t!?). One suit. A whole lotta messages.
Your ability to subvert convention is determined not just by external contextual factors like time and place, but also personal factors like your brand history, or your audiences’ expectations around how you or your brand should behave.
The key here? Subverting a convention isn’t throwing it out the window entirely, it’s toying with what’s already there. The tan suit subverts expectations of the more traditional navy, but it’s still a suit – and in the case of Kamala’s choice – the subversion actually aligns with a bunch of other cultural codes or conventions left by her predecessor. The message is clear, the context resolute, the execution seamless. No notes.
2.Explain
The way those big ideas are distilled into words that resonate, build brand identity and nail the message.
Explain speaks to the way brands communicate their choices – actions – through design, language and tone. In short, the sort of things arguably most prone to convention, so this little chapter could go on forever.
There are many brands subverting conventions right now. Off the top of our heads: We’ve got Charli XCX subverting her clean-girl, Taylor-pop polish with BRAT, the album and the movement. We’ve got Liquid Death, eau de Gen-Z, subverting the clear-bottle, sparkly mountain air marketing around water.
But you know the good ones, everyone wants to talk about them. We’re going to instead spend our time breaking down something that didn’t work.
Because you know we love to do that.
FROG CLUB
The Frog Club restaurant made headlines for a lot of reasons in NYC, starting with a well-publicised list of strict rules that resulted in your immediate ban. Some were reasonable enough, like, no lying about your birthday. Sure! And its infamous no-photos policy felt like a logical remedy to a lot of dining experiences being ruined by the flash of a TikToker’s video. But a lot of the others? Less so.
The issue was, Frog Club didn’t do the work to build context, brand or narrative before it started taking shots at convention. In fact, it seemed as though its sole purpose was to explain just how anti-convention it was, with a manifesto on the menu reading: “Here the customer is not always right”. The problem is, it did this without any sort of value proposition or moral to the story that would justify it doing so. You know, beyond scoring a cheap headline.
If you’re going to subvert convention, your tone, branding and copy must clearly explain the why, and use the subversion to create a more layered narrative. Otherwise you just look like a bit of a tosser.
It seemed that Frog Club was so preoccupied with breaking rules and making rules that it forgot to be a restaurant. And it doubled down on the fact that it didn’t care. The rules, the exclusivity (bookings were hard to come by, available via a secret email address, at the discretion of those at the other end of it) and the emphasis on quirkiness (think: extreme frog decor) and nostalgia (think: Heinz ketchup frozen hot chips) made the place err on the side of gimmicky. A publicity stunt gone too far. The other, probably bigger, issue? Nobody really seemed to love the food. We can examine sociological drivers of cultural codes all we want, but at the end of the day if you’re not adding value for your audience, well, you’re shit out of luck pal.
Reviews like these guys popped up everywhere:
Eventually they dropped the charade. Not only is the restaurant now bookable on Resy, they’re even letting the TikTokers in. As Helen Rosner said: “What’s the point of bragging about your impassable moat if you always keep the drawbridge down?”
On another tip, Charli XCX might have subverted convention successfully – creating a whole new bank of common knowledge with the BRAT aesthetic – but that doesn’t mean all brands have a permission slip to follow suit…
What brands should learn from Charli XCX
3.Amplify
It’s not a conversation if no one’s listening. Cleverly amplifying the message to the right audience, at the right time, is the final piece of the puzzle.
Speaking of US politics, let’s talk about the convention around celebrities amplifying a particular political view. While many UK pop stars bang on about everything, including politics, their US counterparts – by and large – keep shtum.
When they choose to break convention, the consequences can be dire.
In 2003, the Chicks (then the Dixie Chicks) announced mid-concert that they didn’t agree with the imminent Allied invasion of Iraq and that they were ashamed that George W. Bush – like them – was from Texas.
The comment nobbled their career. US country radio stations dropped the Chicks like a hot rock. It took them years to come back (although they did score a Grammy-winning song, Not Ready To Make Nice, from the controversy). The Chicks either misread — or chose to ignore — one of their key target markets: country music radio station programmers, the people who are happy to play any number of flag-waving songs and just as happy to chop anything that doesn’t pander to their conservative listeners.
In short: if you’re sending a message by subverting a convention, remember the audience you’re amplifying that message to.
So, as Taylor Swift faces mounting pressure from Swifties to endorse Kamala, the real question is: should she? Should she subvert the convention that says pop stars and politics should never mix, or should she speak now? Do megastars like Taylor have the right? Do they have an obligation to take a stand?
Like everything above, it depends on the context and the narrative they have built over the years. Does anyone care if Sabrina Carpenter backs Trump or Harris? No. But Taylor is different. She has made it clear she is no fan of Trump. There’s common knowledge at play; publicly endorsing Harris wouldn’t be out of step with her narrative, but it would be at odds with the convention of US stars – particularly those with country roots – speaking out against political candidates. In Taylor’s case, we’d wager that only adds more weight to the message she’s primed to send.
Yes, it would be brave to stand in the face of countless conservative individuals who believe pop stars should stay out of politics. But Taylor has an arguably bigger, global fanbase with a different set of common knowledge. It’s that second audience she owes her pop music career to, and that audience she should defy convention to support.
Picks & Recs
HOW BUSINESSES AND BRANDS HAVE BEEN CASHING IN – OR TRYING TO – ON BRAT GREEN AND CHARLI XCX
Here’s an uncomprehensive list of some of the most interesting and unique Brat brand plays:
Helluva good play on the word, but right target market? Probably not. Still, you gotta hand it to plant-based food brand, Field Roast, which bought billboard space in downtown Toronto during the city’s Pride parade linking its bratwurst products to the trend.
OK. Shout out to SKIMS on this one who a) have the right target market and b) didn’t overdo it on the green!
It’s not just fashion: in the run-up to the UK’s general election on 4 July, the Green Party created a Brat green graphic in the style of the album cover with the words “Vote Green” instead of Brat, to try and speak to young audiences.
Tony’s Chocolonely were quick to take to TikTok with some mock packaging.
Would you believe us if we said we got served this Instagram ad yesterday. For an ADHD quiz???
And finally, Williamsburg’s now-infamous “Brat wall”.
While this is actually advertising for the album itself, it’s too good not to share. The big, bright green wall that belongs to a climbing gym in Williamsburg was there since the Charli herself first teased the start of the Brat era with a live performance of 360 on top of an SUV parked nearby in front of The Lot Radio. But there’s more; this way went through many iterations (featured above). It was this “dynamic paint job” that kept fans and locals entertained and engaged for months post-album launch. Hell, it even spawned its own “Brat generator” website.