Steve Zaroff, CSO de McCann North America
The bitter divisiveness and partisan disputes about truthfulness that have come to characterize today’s political environment are also affecting other aspects of American life, including attitudes about brands and core values. And there is hardly any form of cultural expression—whether songs, TV shows or ad campaigns—that isn’t being closely parsed for political meaning.These findings about the expanding divisions in the U.S. were among those from McCann Truth Central’s The Truth About America study unveiled today at the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ (4A’s) Transformation conference in Los Angeles. The new study is the second released jointly by the McCann Worldgroup intelligence unit and the 4A’s as an exploration of American trends influencing advertising, the last being The Truth About Advertising in 2013.”America’s increasingly pervasive polarization is creating a new kind of challenge for brand marketers. They have to decide how much to align with values favored or opposed by one constituency or another” said Steve Zaroff, Chief Strategy Officer at McCann North America. “But what we found in our Truth Central study is that there are also areas of common ground with regard to positively viewed values and institutions.” The Truth About America study found, as expected, that there is broad distrust of politicians. About 70% of Americans say that politicians today are less truthful compared to those 20 years ago. More surprising is that 42% of Americans also say that brands and companies are less truthful today than they were years before.”To be effective, advertising needs to be in tune with culture, the mood, and trends of the country. This research shows how critical it is for advertisers to get out and speak to consumers; data is not enough on its own” said Nancy Hill, President and CEO at the 4A’s. “While there is a divide—which we are all aware of—there are also shared viewpoints that can be uncovered and leveraged to reach target audiences.”
