SPONSORED CONTENT
Maury Giles
Partner
Heart + Mind
mgiles@heartandmindstrategies.com
How can brands provide leadership in polarized times?
Months of sheltering in place. Fear of contracting COVID-19. Anxiety over the uncertainty.
These factors, by the end of May, fueled heated debates over the reopening of America. Just a month earlier most (54%) of Americans believed the pandemic was bringing us closer together. By May 21 this had dropped to only 40% with another 40% saying it was driving us further apart.
The division was obvious across the country, much of it along political party lines.
Then tragedy unfolded in Minneapolis on Memorial Day with the horrific death of George Floyd. The protests and social unrest that followed accelerated exposure of deep societal divisions we’ve yet to fully address as a people.
And these dynamics unfolded on the backdrop of another divisive presidential election cycle, cynicism and eroding trust in institutions.
This division impacts far more than politics and policy. It is shaping how people interact and engage with each other. And it is most certainly influencing market dynamics as well as attitudes and behaviors toward brands.
Navigating and mending this polarized reality requires leadership. It also requires innovative methods to genuinely engage people with diverse points of view. Brands can fill this leadership gap and help foster unity by finding shared values and building common frameworks.
Triadic Illumination is a specialized online approach to qualitative research developed for sensitive issues where traditional methods often prove unproductive due to social dynamics, political correctness, soundbites and safe stereotypes. And it is proving highly effective in the socially distant reality we are in during this pandemic.
The approach leverages a more personal experience of three-to-six-person groups where two opposing views are equally represented along with people who are unsure or undecided. Through a series of activities, we create an atmosphere of collaborative problem-solving for some of life’s most challenging issues.
The multi-day, online discussion is structured so that participants present, react to and defend differing points of view or stories and find where they are able to agree or recognize merit in each other’s views; this becomes the foundation of our resulting narrative. Multiple days with breaks give participants time to reflect and refine their arguments and point of view.
These sessions conclude with participants summarizing points of common ground between opposing sides. The result? We provide the team with a clear framework and language for building and fostering understanding and interactivity on divisive topics.
Brand leaders in today’s market will address, and even mend, societal divisions by taking a position on the issues that truly matter. To do so, they must engage people with opposing views and leverage civil dialogue and empathy to find common ground. Triadic Illumination is an innovative method to facilitate this market need today.