Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: Antagonizing Your Customers for the Win?

There is a relatively new trend that suggests your business can gain a larger following by antagonizing your customers. I guess I am too square, old, or numb to understand, but I have been reading about this trend for a couple of years. It’s exemplified by this quote from Sally Hogshead’s book, Fascinate:

“If you’re not eliciting a negative response from someone, then you’re probably not very compelling to anyone.”

As someone who grew up at a time when Burger King was telling me to “have it your way,” and that the customer (especially if it’s me) is always right, now comes this new trend in marketing called “antagonizing.” Yes, you heard that right; Some companies are literally antagonizing some customers to create a greater loyalty base.

How would you define antagonizing? For me, I’d use words like alienate, estrange, anger, annoy, provoke, vex, irritate, and offend. How can a practice like this actually be good for some businesses?

Instead of trying to fix weaknesses, the business doubles down on them and makes them part of their culture. I can almost see you shaking your head and wondering, “What the heck is this guy talking about?” Let me give you some examples.

The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema: The policy of this movie house is, “If you talk or text during the movie, we kick you out.” And they really do it. They are deadly serious. When one customer complained profusely in a voicemail, the cinema marketers broadcast it all over their social media. It was heard by millions and was even featured on CNN’s program with Anderson Cooper. This was all to the delight of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema management, who answered simply, “Thanks for not coming back to Alamo, texter!”

In-N-Out Burger: They have a special secret menu for people who give a darn enough to follow it on their website. It makes the customer feel part of the “In” crowd, but it also makes half the population feel like they are on the outs. Maybe that’s the real story behind their name? And, by the way if you want to get sneered at, just ask for mayonnaise on your burger.

Five Guys: Now let’s provide equal time to their competitor, Five Guys, which doesn’t care about people with peanut allergies. If you have ever been there, you know that the place is loaded with peanuts; they’re everywhere. They spend millions of dollars a year on giving away free peanuts and it doesn’t appear they’re going to stop; it’s part of their brand.

Progressive: They know that people hate Flo; they really want to beat her up. Her commercials appear on every list of the most disliked advertisements in the country. There are even “I hate Flo” groups all over the country including one called “No Mo Flo.”

Dick’s Last Resort Restaurants: They train their servers to be obnoxious. They failed at being a fine dining restaurant, so they went in the opposite direction. For example, they don’t even have napkins on the table. If a customer wants one, they throw it at them.

Starbucks: This is the champion of creating inner cults with their insistence that we all talk in their stupid pretentious language.

And remember these golden oldies we all hated with an equal passion?

Mr. Whipple told us, “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin.”

And what about those “ring around the collar” Wisk commercials? You remember those, right? Now that I think about it, maybe this is not an exactly new trend, but actually has been around for years.

So why do companies do this? Why would they possibly want customers to get angry at them? The answer is simple: recognition. I am sure that you recognized just about all of the companies and products I’ve mentioned. The sad truth is that when it comes to the public, being obnoxious sells. People remember the company name. Flo from Progressive, for example, is the best-known spokesperson in the country at this time.

Years ago, product research revealed that more kids knew Joe Camel than they did Mickey Mouse and that was in the post-TV cigarette commercial age.

So, what am I telling you here? You can see that I’m having a little fun, and those of you in business-to-business probably shouldn’t try this at home (er, in the office?) with your B2B customers. The real takeaway for us is that we need to be memorable. We need to find good, positive ways to stand out from the crowd, to be remembered for the good things that we do. We need to be known for being head and shoulders over our competition. We have to be known for the exceptional things that we do.

The best way to do this is to define your brand. Discover what you are best known for and then continuously burnish that brand in all your messaging. Come up with examples, success stories, references, endorsements, and ad messaging that consistently and repeatedly pushes your messaging to as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible. You want to be referred to as “the on-time guy,” “the flex company,” or the company “that goes where no other company can go” when it comes to customer service.

And look, if your customer wants mayo with her order, give it to her.

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.