The Great regression
How the American Dream became synonymous with home ownership and what we can do to create a path of upward mobility for everyone.
HOMEWORK:
RESOURCES:
I’m Still Here, Black Dignity In A World Made For Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
What Has Happened To The American Dream by Eleanor Roosevelt
The Transformation of the American Dream by Robert Shiller
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to Rebranding America, a series that explores the question: who would America be if it actually became who it said it was? We’ll be exploring this idea through the lens of marketing and branding. I have dedicated the last twenty years of my life to the study of brands, how they’re made, why we feel so strongly about them and what gives them the power to shape culture by influencing how we behave. In the past decade, I have guided nearly 200 brands through a process that gives them language to define what they stand for.
Here is what I’ve learned:
A brand is the promise of an experience.
In the first episode I laid the groundwork of what makes a good marketing campaign successful. As I dove into the process of marketing, I made it clear that a tag line is often created when trying to make a brand promise more shareable/digestible to its intended audience. I explored that, while Declaration of Independence paints a picture of our ideals or values, The American Dream is the best tag line we’ve had to get people to buy into an experience that reflects our collective aspirations. I also noted that rebranding America starts with each one of us who call ourselves Americans.
Today, we start the rebrand process with doing a little research. The goal of this step is to gather enough data to create a roadmap of facts so patterns of cause and effect can be established and the risk of repeating behavior that doesn’t match our values is minimized. With older brands, like a 400 year old nation, it’s best to reduce this search to milestone moments that led to significant evolution or rebranding in the past. I like to put these on a continuum with three key buckets to help keep things organized:
The first is replicate.
To replicate only requires the appearance of substance. The facts we’re looking for in this bucket are new packaging on the same experience or a complete copy of what someone more successful in the marketplace was already doing. A quick example here would be BOBS shoes by Sketchers. These are blatant Rip-off of TOMS from both the perspective of style and business model. The second is to reinvent.
To reinvent requires evolution of systems, behavior and language. The facts we’re looking for in this bucket are shifts in thinking, communicating and behavior. We’re also looking for results that indicate growth in revenue, innovation of products or services, increased engagement from both employees and consumers. One of the best examples here is Patagonia. While they haven’t needed to rebrand, they have been in a constant state of reinvention as they push aggressively to change the way apparel manufacturing operates in order to do as little harm to the environment as possible. They’ve changed the game here by being the first to invest in such revolutionary thinking, systems and behavior.
In order to reinvent, a brand must go through a refining process. The facts we’re looking for in this bucket are examples of processes that were implemented that led to the growth. For instance, staff training, consistency in messaging and communication or investments made into the development of people or ideas.
Because I’ve been doing this for a long time, I’ve also discovered a more nuanced category: regression. This looks a lot like Refining because the need to reinvent has been made perfectly clear by internal and external sources. But instead of developing constructive processes to evolve, they shift into denial that the soul of the company is dying and begin throwing all resources at distracting people. The onslaught of ad campaigns continues in hopes of distracting everyone from the real problems and false hope that change is actually occurring settles in at the top at the expense of employees and consumers. This happens when leaders don’t have a vision for anyone but themselves. Their identity is so tied to the brand itself that appearances of success are the metric because self preservation is the goal. Facebook is a great example of this. As they get new information about how their platform is used and manipulated, the allure to capitalize on those threats has taken over any remnants of a values structure that may have been set when the brand was first built.
Let’s look at how this applies to America and our beloved American Dream.
To be fair, this idea of appearances and self preservation is why we, the people, are so afraid to re-invent the American Dream or admit that it didn’t fully work in the first place. The identities of so many Americans are tied up in this Dream. A lot of money, time, energy would feel wasted if we admitted the dream was no longer serving us in the ways we hoped it would.
There are key points in American history where we had the chance for a complete reinvention that would have offered an opportunity to refine our behavior to match the promise of equality, liberty and justice for all found in the expression of the American Dream. In fact, Austin Channing Brown points out a big one:
“The moment Black Americans achieved freedom from enslavement, America could have put to death the idea of Black inferiority.“
AUSTIN CHANNING BROWN
As you know, we didn’t. We chose instead to replicate what we had already done and repackage it into new language through Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow laws legalized the segregation of white and black people. So, while black people had technically been given freedom from enslavement, American lawmakers simply repackaged what slavery looked like by denying Black people access to upward mobility by literally keeping them separate from where the opportunities were.
The abolishment of this Jim Crow law of segregation was another opportunity to reinvent ourselves. As Michelle Alexander points out, however, we decided to create a New Jim Crow through mass incarceration under the War On Drugs campaign. In her book The New Jim Crow, she says,
“These new rules have been justified by new rhetoric, new language, and a new social consensus, while producing many of the same results.”
MICHELLE ALEXANDER
These are just two examples of major moments in American history that served as fertile ground for providing equality, liberty and justice for all … finally becoming who we say we are, but instead opting for replicating poor behavior through the repackaging of the same lack of substance instead. What looks like evolution is just a redesign, not a marker of transformation that leads to reinvention.
Now, let’s go back to our promise of The American Dream. When James Adams made it popular in 1931, it signified morality and character. It painted a picture of a meritocracy, where no matter your race, age, gender, sexual orientation, working hard is the pathway to opportunity. This, of course, resonated because it echoed the values rooted in our Constitution that had yet to be actualized. This meaning was promoted through the 1960s when Martin Luther King, Jr gave it even more power as he spoke of a vision, “Deeply Rooted in the American Dream” in reference to his “I have a dream” speech.
In 1961, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote an article in the Atlantic titled, What Has Happened To The American Dream. In it, she warns of America’s devastating tendency to replicate other world superpowers as a means to get ahead:
“We owe it to ourselves and to the world, to our own dignity and self-respect, to set our own standards of behavior, regardless of what other nations do. By practicing what we preach, putting democracy to work up to the very hilt, showing the world that our way of life has the most to offer the men and women and children of all countries, we may regain our lost leadership. Against those mindless millions we can oppose the unleashed strength of free men, for only in freedom can a man function completely.”
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
America was making attempts at matching behavior with words during this period, even causing Lyndon Johnson to say “A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise unkept” in regards to the result of the Emancipation Proclamation. “Promise was broken.”
This is the closest we came on the other side of refining before The American Dream was hijacked by home builders in the 70s and 80s. Homebuilders decided to run relentless ad campaigns during this time using the phrase “The American Dream” to sell homes. From there, a ripple effect into our political system gave way to The American Dream being synonymous with home ownership as seen in the bill signed by George W. Bush: American Dream Downpayment Act. Even Trump’s recent reference to bringing back “The American Dream” is referencing real estate, not equality for all citizens.
Words have the power to determine how people choose to behave when an experience is attached. This is why research is important.
We have consistently evolved the meaning of the American Dream through supplemental campaigns and messaging without evolving as a nation.
The campaigns aren’t working for us anymore. When homebuilders used aggressive marketing tactics to make the American Dream synonymous with upward mobility being directly tied to home ownership, it was everyone for themselves. And when this happened, The American Dream became about our individual rise to material wealth instead of our collective rise to the moral fortitude of equality, liberty and justice. As marketing became more accessible through newer mediums, it was easier for anyone to take the American Dream and use it to manipulate Americans into the accumulation of more materials.
Before we knew it, the goalposts didn’t just keep moving, they multiplied and became so unattainable that community gave way to isolation. We all became prisoners of the idea that buying a house was the Dream when the real investment is in a home where everyone can experience a richer and fuller life. This is our chance to actually reinvent ourselves, both as a nation and as Americans.
And that’s where Americans come in. Pause this to grab a pen and paper or download the worksheet available in the show notes.
We do the research. If we want America to evolve, we have to start with us. First, give yourself permission to disconnect with the idea that succeeding as an American requires home ownership. Then, do some digging. Where have you believed that, as an American, you’re more or less successful because of the accumulation of property? Whatever your belief, take into account how that has impacted decisions you have made.
Where have you noticed yourself choosing to replicate instead of committing to the process of refining in order to actually evolve? When have you been moved by information about how Americans have been treated but haven’t taken active steps to engage in your own behavior shift in regards to those individuals? Is there something you have invested in that gives you a glimpse into the American Dream where all have an opportunity to live a life of equality, liberty and justice?
The American Dream is still possible for everyone if we understand that, depending on where you find yourself in the existing system, the work will look different. That begins with acknowledging where we’re starting from. What Dream did you inherit? What Dream have you bought into? With that data, what Dream do you want to create?
That’s all for this week on Rebranding America. Join me next week as we further unpack our values and the vision they built. Thanks for being here.
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