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Stigma Brands: From the Closet Into Mainstream Success
There are more stigma brands out there than you think, and not as narrowly defined as one might expect.
When you imagine stigma brands, you are most likely thinking of the ones associated with negative stereotypes or prejudices. Erectile dysfunction (ED), cannabis, mental health, and hearing loss have all traveled this rocky road. These are categories that are stigmatized from birth.
But the taint of stigma isn’t limited to categories like these. Brands can also become stigmatized based on what society and culture, in their ever-evolving norms, deem to be a "mark of disgrace,” and that changes decade to decade, year over year, even month to month. When that happens, brands that were never considered negatively suddenly find themselves in the shadow of stigma.
Today, sugar = obesity = soft drinks are bad for you.
Alcohol = toxic substance = depression + organ disease + cancer = “don’t drink any at all” is the new health recommendation—not even red wine (much to the dismay of the French).
Overnight, as social norms shift, established, iconic brands can topple and businesses crater. These are brands that come into a stigma in their adulthood.
So, as a marketer, what is the playbook when you’re tasked with hitting growth numbers despite the uphill challenge of dealing with a stigma category?
Having worked on true stigma brands from cannabis (Trulieve), hearing loss (Eargo), and bladder leakage (Poise), to the truly iconic Coca-Cola brand dealing with the obesity crisis, there are three foundational principles you have to put into play to ‘dynamite the category shame’ and clear the path to business growth.
And this is a totally different playbook from the ones that Challenger, Iconic, or Phoenix brands must play by. The goal is the same—mainstream acceptance and business success—but the way you get there is very different.
Reframe. Reframe. Reframe.
You’ve got to get your consumers looking at you through a completely different frame of reference compared with how they currently see you.
1. Reframe the Category. Not many marketers know this basic trick–essentially, you borrow cues from another socially accepted or lauded category, so its positive halo becomes the lens through which people view your brand.
- With Eargo hearing devices, we made a very conscious effort to reposition the Big 5 in the category as the Old Guard/Old Device and Eargo as the ‘Apple of Hearing Wellness design’ because its thumbnail-sized devices looked more like Apple’s earbuds (coincidentally designed by the same guy who’d designed the AirPods). The press and public ate that narrative up.
- For brand Coke, the big pivot vs obesity was to play in the celebration category vs. the soda category. Every packaging and design element leaned into occasions and holidays that signified big moments of celebration (and volume opportunities) like Summer or the Winter Holidays, with packaging cued appropriately (right down to a 1L Champagne bottle). Business swung from negative to positive growth over the 5 years of the plan being in play.
2. Reframe the Actual Condition Itself. The key here is to make the condition seem ‘exceptionally average’ (to borrow a saying from the founders of the Hims brand). Basically, you’re democratizing the condition: almost anyone can get it at any age, so it's ok.
- Viagra moved away from saying “male impotence,” which put the blame on the guy, to saying “ED,” something that’s no longer “your fault,” it’s a medical condition that can afflict anyone. Today, they talk about it as something you take to be ‘ready’ whenever the time calls for it. Young men now take Viagra to alleviate performance anxiety—a far cry from the days of a pill for old men.
- Poise went from bladder leakage associated with old age/menopause to a common condition caused in the 30s for women, caused by giving birth, work/life stress, etc.
- Cannabis did a similar shift from being about a pothead stalwart to get high to mental and physical well-being
3. Reframe the Product.
- We never called Eargo “hearing aids,” we positioned them as micro tech hearing devices—the association with a tech device conjured far more positive attributes amongst the younger 45-60 year-old audience we wanted to bring in.
- Brand Coke was never just a soda, but a drink for moments of celebration, big and small.
4. Reframe the User.
The easiest one to affect as you’re typically going from old to young. From stodgy to cool.
With cannabis, celebs within both entertainment and music made this ‘cool’. So it was never a pothead but a cool, accomplished person who partook. Snoop Dog led the way, and by the time his bestie Martha Stewart jumped in, the whole category had normalized and aged itself appropriately upwards.
Ditto with Eargo, we fought actively not to reinforce perceptions of ageism and senility but instead showcased younger people within the armed forces, veterans, and musician communities, as well as influencers who had occupation-related hearing loss. The ‘cool’ trickled down to the appropriate segments.
Become the Consumer’s Biggest Ally in Culture/Culture Acceptance of Issue
You must democratize and normalize the issue. If the stigma was created by society, then logic follows that that’s where you would go to nip it back in the bud.
The now-famous Bob Dole ad from Viagra showed an ex-Presidential candidate, recovering from prostate cancer, expound on ED and take a deeply stigmatized category out of the shadows. The fact that this was done in the 1980s, and at the height of TV’s powerful reach and impact, made it a water-cooler conversation. Viagra brilliantly followed up with a series of very humorous ads that further neutralized this issue until Fiat Motors used Viagra as a shorthand for being ready for action. Suddenly, it was ok to take the little blue pill.
Elsewhere, Michael Phelps and Simone Biles, two of the most decorated Olympic athletes, have significantly contributed to destigmatizing mental health by publicly sharing their struggles with conditions like depression and anxiety.
Simone Biles withdrew from several events at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to prioritize her mental health, citing the immense pressure of the games. Her decision sparked a global conversation about the importance of mental well-being and the need for athletes to prioritize their mental health.
Both athletes' stories made it okay for everyone to discuss their issues. If Phelps and Biles can experience it, then it's okay for the rest of us as well.
Project 84 by UK charity, CALM, featuring 84 statues of men across rooftops in London, forced an entire nation to stop, take notice, and more importantly, normalize conversations about mental health. Highlighting the fact that 84 men die by suicide each week in the UK, the marketing not only took over the media and city skyline, but it also resulted in the government appointing the world’s first ever Minister for Suicide Prevention.
And Do it by Proxy
Best practice is to not put the brand front and center at the beginning, but to use trusted external organizations, partnerships, and influencers who are credible voices of authority on this and who can help lower the cultural barriers to the stigma. You’re not selling at this point but educating to clear the way for the sale.
At Eargo, we used the World Health Organization and their study that the advent of streaming entertainment (gaming, music, movies) and the proliferation of headphones and earbuds meant that hearing loss was now going to hit the 27-35 year old segment within 10 years. That, plus the use of young influencers (veterans, musicians, and people with natural hearing loss), gave the stigma a far more acceptable face to the older, 45-and-over generation who were worried about being ridiculed and discriminated against.
Social communities have now become crucial in the effort to de-stigmatize conditions. That group ‘ok’ or the supportive ‘thumbs up’ that often go viral have helped people feel better and accepted faster than ever before.
Turn the Marketing Playbook Upside Down: Education Matters Just as Much as Emotion
Traditional marketing and brand building will tell you that emotion drives effectiveness above all else. But when it comes to stigma brands, research and rationality play an outsized part.
Think of it. You have an embarrassing issue. You search first—on Google, YouTube, or Reddit videos.
If you’ve done your marketing job right, your brand (or at least its content) shows up next, and you take on the conversation from there. You educate on the category issues and then present your products as a solution within that context.
One helpful way of thinking about this might be Hero, Hub, Hygiene, popularized by Google.
The Hero content is all Upper Funnel marketing done via external third party, white papers/videos, influencer marketing, and social communities. Cultural marketing when done here by the brand is at its best when it is intended to deeply change culture and shift society’s perspective on the subject at hand. When done with authenticity it can generate a lot of organic PR that does the heavy lifting of brand awareness for you.
The Hub is where your brand shows up as the authority on the subject matter and is mid-funnel. This is targeted TV, owned channels like dotcom, email marketing, etc.
Hygiene is mostly lower funnel content necessary to eliminate the final emotional and functional barriers to purchase. Telehealth and apps for complete privacy of communications and purchases come into play here.
Ultimately, any stigma brand marketing plan must accompany the audience every step of the way from early emotions to education. What most marketers get wrong is the emphasis on Hero with no Hub/Hygiene to seal the deal, or a mid to lower funnel focus on performance marketing (all Hub or Hygiene) with no Hero content to bring in new consumers at the top of the funnel to create long-term business growth.
The Wrap Up
From those created at birth or in adulthood, there are more stigma brands than you think. And with culture’s ever-changing lines of acceptability, you never know when your brand might find itself on the wrong side of stigma. But fear not, if you remember to reframe, be an ally in culture, and lead the conversation all the way from emotion to education, you might just find the only line that matters is the upward trajectory of your profit graph.
