Be A Responsive Brand

Understand what people are feeling. Know when to respond. And know when to stop pushing.

A campaign is approved, the agency is happy, and the brand team is happy; the media plan is ready, and millions are committed. Then the public sees it. Within hours, the conversation changes. That is exactly what happened with GIVA.

GIVA’s recent Raksha Bandhan campaign featuring Kriti Sanon was intended to celebrate the festival and extend the idea of family to pets. Instead, criticism erupted over the styling and its appropriateness for a traditional festival. GIVA withdrew the campaign from its media platforms. A few days later, founder Ishendra Agarwal clarified that the brand’s belief in the campaign’s intent had not changed. The decision to withdraw was driven primarily by concerns about the safety of employees and stores amid escalating tensions.

That makes the GIVA case more interesting than a simple story about a brand giving in to backlash. The brand didn’t necessarily change its mind about what it wanted to say. It changed what it was willing to risk, and that is an increasingly important distinction for brands, because this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a campaign collide with public sentiment.

In 2020, Tanishq withdrew its Ekatvam campaign after intense social-media backlash. The campaign portrayed a Hindu woman being welcomed into a Muslim family for a baby shower and was intended to celebrate the coming together of two cultures. Tanishq said the film had generated severe reactions contrary to its objective and cited hurt sentiments and the well-being of employees, partners, and store staff in its decision to withdraw it.

A year later, Fabindia withdrew its Jashn-e-Riwaaz festive campaign after criticism that its positioning was inappropriate for Diwali. The brand maintained that the collection was not its Diwali line and subsequently promoted a separate Diwali campaign.

Then came Dabur’s Fem Karwa Chauth campaign featuring a same-sex couple. The intention was clearly around inclusion, but the campaign faced backlash. Dabur withdrew it and apologised for unintentionally hurting people’s sentiments. Different brands. Different campaigns. Different intentions. But the same uncomfortable question: what should a brand do when the audience doesn’t receive the message in the way the brand intended?

Be responsive. Not reactive.

This is where the distinction matters. A reactive brand sees outrage and asks, how quickly can we make this go away? A responsive brand asks, what is this reaction telling us? There is a world of difference between the two. Not every criticism deserves a campaign withdrawal, nor does every social-media pile-on represent the views of your customers, and finally, not every uncomfortable reaction means the brand has done something wrong.

A brand needs conviction. Otherwise, every loud voice becomes a veto, but the opposite is equally dangerous. A brand cannot hide behind creative intent and say, “That’s not what we meant,” when the audience is telling it what they actually experienced. Intent belongs to the brand. Impact belongs to the audience. That is the part marketers sometimes forget. You may intend humour. Someone may experience disrespect.

You may intend provocation. Someone may experience insensitivity. You may intend inclusion. Someone may experience cultural disconnect. A brand’s job isn’t to surrender to every criticism. It is to understand the criticism before deciding what to do with it.

Brands don’t operate in a vacuum

A campaign doesn’t land on a blank piece of paper. It lands in a culture. It lands in a particular moment. It lands among people carrying their own history, beliefs, anxieties, identities, and emotions. What worked five years ago may not work today. What was considered harmless in one context may be deeply sensitive in another. That is why responsiveness has to begin before the campaign goes live. It means asking questions beyond, Is this creatively strong? Is this differentiated? Will it get noticed? It also means asking, how will this land? Who might feel excluded? What cultural context are we entering? What is happening around us that could change the meaning of this message? And perhaps the most important, are we prepared for the interpretation, not just the intention?

David Aaker’s recent work on modern branding makes a similar strategic point from another angle: relevance is contextual. A brand has to be visible and credible in the context in which consumers encounter it, while loyalty depends on delivering the promise and building meaningful relationships over time.

Also read: Britannia: How Portfolio Diversification Captures Every Consumer Segment

Responsiveness is not about pleasing everyone

This is important. If brands start treating every angry post as a mandate, we will end up with brands too frightened to say anything meaningful. That isn’t responsiveness, that’s paralysis.

A responsive brand does not ask, how many people are angry? It asks, why are they angry, and does it matter to the relationship we are trying to build? Is the criticism coming from your actual consumers? Is there a legitimate cultural blind spot? Is the execution creating a meaning you didn’t anticipate? Has the conversation moved beyond the campaign into the brand itself? Are employees, partners, or customers being affected? Finally, is defending this campaign worth what it could cost the brand? Those are leadership questions, not just marketing questions.

The Brand Custodian’s job

This is where the role of a CMO has changed. The job is no longer simply to ask whether the brand is being noticed; it is to understand the environment in which the brand is being noticed. Know the culture, listen to consumers, understand emotion, recognize sensitivity. Distinguish noise from a genuine signal. And, when necessary, dare to say we heard you. That may mean changing the work. It may mean explaining it better.

It may mean apologizing. Or it may mean saying we understand the criticism, but we believe this is something worth standing for. Any of those can be the right answer. What matters is that the decision comes from understanding, not panic, because being responsive isn’t about giving the public control of your brand. It is about caring enough to listen before you decide how to use that control.