Worcester Business Journal

6 Worcester Business Journal | October 26, 2020 | wbjournal.com Before taking stances on political or social issues, marketing professionals caution companies to think about their employees and their brand authenticity Getting involved BY MONICA BUSCH Worcester Business Journal Staff Writer Steven Schuster, CEO of Rainier Communications Central Mass. political party preference, in the 2016 presidential election Source: Politico Worcester County Middlesex County Norfolk County 51.7% 41.2% 66.3% 28.2% 61.2% 33.3% % voted Democrat % voted Republican B etween the upcoming presidential election on Nov. 3, fiercely divisive debates around social issues, and the governmental response to the coronavirus pandemic, strong opinions are everywhere. As community members with sometimes significant audiences, should brands and companies join the fray? According to a handful of marketing, communications and public relations firms doing business in Central Massa- chusetts, that depends largely on what your business does and who it serves, as well as a brand manager's end goal. "At the end of the day, all we're trying to do is relate and persuade a target audience. So you better know who you are, you better know what your audience wants because you can miss the mark," said Michael Donovan, chief strategist and creative director at Metaphor, a digital advertising and marketing agency in Worcester. Donovan, like others interviewed for this story, said he tends to distinguish between political and social issues, espe- cially when it comes to brand alignment. is is particularly true with companies working in Central Massachusetts, where a client's political persuasion may be more difficult to guess. "Social and political are close, but you'll see much more social [alignment] locally than political, because most businesses in this region want to do business with both sides of the aisle," Donovan said. "So they avoid partisanship." Considering employees Aligning one's brand politically, or socio-politically, can come in many forms. A messaging campaign may be as straightforward as putting together a press release, or as complicated as a multi-platform marketing campaign. But while it's easy to focus attention outwardly, external audiences aren't the only ones to consider, especially when endorsing a social issue or political opinion. is is particularly true if a brand or company doesn't work in a field directly related to the issue at hand, said Jim McManus, principal at Slowey McManus Communications, which has offices in Worcester. McManus pointed to the resurgence in Black Lives Matter protests over the summer, when many business owners felt compelled to weigh in on police misconduct against Black people. When fielding client concerns, McManus said he focused on who such statements would actually be serving. "Most of them, I didn't think had anything terribly valuable to say because they were not in the criminal justice field," McManus said. "And so I could kind of steer them to focus on internal audiences, their employees who are upset and want to do something. And, you know, that was, I think, that's the way to go. Sometimes, people should focus on their employees." But it's not necessarily just a matter of whether a company has something productive to contribute to a political, social, or politically social issue, said Kathleen Pagano, CEO of Pagano Media in Worcester. It's also a matter Downtown Worcester restaurant deadhorse hill put a handmade Black Lives Matter sign on its door this summer. PHOTO | GRANT WELKER DREAMSTIME.COM

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