OFF-MUTE 🔈
💥 Public rants come with ramifications.
⏰ Adidas finally broke up with Ye (formerly known as Kayne West) after he spent weeks making antisemitic comments.
💯 Ye’s been spewing hate speech for years now and has found a way to offend nearly everybody at this point.
💬 Some call this humor, shock value, or mental instability, but what we do know is that words and actions can cause real harm.
🔁 This week, we scrapped our original newsletter topic to reiterate three important comms lessons from this fallout (because it’s not a message unless it’s repeated):
🤫 Silence is a stance. Staying quiet is often the same as taking a position of complicity. And taking too long to decide to speak up or shut up on a public issue can (and will) hurt your reputation. It’s always better to be proactive vs. reactive when it comes to corporate communications. Speaking up does not always mean doing so publicly because you do not want to do anything that’s performative. You need to know your communities and communicate accordingly.
👜 Spokespeople bring their baggage. And then it becomes yours. This can also apply to key stakeholders representing your brand from investors to partners and employees. If there’s a mess up, say so. Apologize, fix it and move on.
📣 Actions speak louder than words. They really do. With political and deeply personal issues like reproductive rights and racism, communication and action should always start from your values and what your audiences care about most. Be a good human.
