Motrin’s recent run-in with online moms illustrates the kind of feedback that social media enables. But more important than the technology itself is the lesson about the people behind the technology; about what can happen when the beliefs of an important and active stakeholder group are not understood. Social Media is not the cause of diversity of desires and beliefs amongst a brand’s consumers; that diversity has always existed, social media is simply making this diversity visible, and dangerous to ignore.

Marketing campaigns are usually targeted to particular “stakeholders” and their values based on market research and investment in campaign design. In the mass media world of one-way communications, a sample of audience sentiment was pretty safe, but in the new environment of instant feedback, samples are not good enough, as they may miss small but influential stakeholder pockets.

To understand what communications will appeal to specific stakeholders, we must understand their beliefs. Our beliefs about the world can be understood as the source of order in each of our worlds. Beliefs are simply structures that we use to bring rational and emotional structure to the world we perceive and move through. Beliefs create emotional safety, as they resolve uncertainties about our past, our present and our future; uncertainties that would otherwise create anxiety. Because their greatest value comes from bringing order to the perception of our world, beliefs become most unstable when risks arise and the sense of order is threatened.

Beliefs are a driver of behavior – we like to respond rationally to perceptions, evaluating our perceptions to choose appropriate responses rather than simply reacting to perceptions. We like to have and know the rationale and beliefs that support our actions, and we like to act on our beliefs. And as we act, we seek confirmation that our actions are based on sound judgment (i.e. are understood as legitimate) thus seeking confirmation of our beliefs from others. Belief systems are feedback systems, with individual beliefs influenced by culture, and with culture shaped by individual beliefs.

Marketing and communications strive to associate their brand with the beliefs of the audience that bring order from chaos, the beliefs that create sense of things and let the audience feel grounded, comfortable and safe with their world. Motrin clearly achieved the opposite amongst a highly active stakeholder group in its effort to appeal to the too-broad audience category of “moms”. Because it did not give thought to the broad and diverse scope of deeply-held beliefs about the values of being “mom”, Motrin activated beliefs to generate behavior, just not in the way they’d hoped.