Explainer: What is the bandwagon effect, and why do brands fall prey to it?

In tackling social issues, some brands take a patient approach while others adopt an impatient approach that is built on current and trendy social issues. 

Brands like Chobani remain steadfastly committed to a higher purpose – better food for more people and investing in social entrepreneurship – regardless of which hashtags are trending on social media. Chobani takes a slow-cooked, patient approach to fixing social issues. 

In contrast, some campaigns are based on topical issues with the goal of making rapid and dramatic social change. That’s where the main criticism is rooted: they are bandwagoning.

What is bandwagoning? 

Bandwagon bias heuristic theory is defined as thinking an attitude or object – such as an idea, issue, or a story – is good because others think it is. 

Bandwagoning and its effect on consumer perceptions can also be explained by neo-institutional theory, which suggests brands choosing trendy sociopolitical issues are motivated to be perceived as legitimate entities by their audience. 

Firms seeking legitimacy aim to offer acceptable corporate behaviour that addresses questions posed by institutional actors, in this case, stakeholders such as customers, shareholders, investors, and partners like social media influencers.

Companies often engage in legitimacy-seeking behaviour to secure the organisation’s future survival. Thus, we can say that gone are the days where brands could make decisions by solely focusing on profitability and competitiveness. 

External actors and forces, such as shareholders, and in particular customers and brand users, are gaining an unbalanced power, mostly thanks to social media platforms, enabling individuals interested in brands’ practices to express their feelings and emotions. 

With the new empowered category of consumers, brands tend to tune in to listen to consumers, and to seek legitimacy from them, more than any other actor.

In a competitive market, it is this legitimacy seeking need that has always kept brand public (those interested in the brand, regardless of if they are brand users or not users) in power.

There are two broad ways in which brands try to gain legitimacy from their audience: 

1. Competitive isomorphism

Brands try to gain legitimacy through offering competitive quality products and services.

In this approach, brands aim at winning consumers by signalling competence.

2. Institutional isomorphism

Brands try to gain legitimacy through political and social moves. In this approach, brands aim at winning consumers by signalling warmth.

For many years, brands have been focusing heavily on competitive isomorphism, improving the quality of offering, and customer experience. However, in recent years, we’re seeing brands deviating from competitive isomorphism and moving to institutional isomorphism, gaining legitimacy through virtue signalling.

But when does it become bandwagoning?

When legitimacy-seeking presents itself as conforming to the cultural expectations of society (coercive), or when it is perceived as an act of copying other organisations (mimetic), it triggers the perception of bandwagoning.

Coercive and mimetic legitimacy-seeking moves are passive approaches in addressing pressure and meeting expectations. In particular, mimetic legitimacy-seeking happens when brands feel uncertain about the situation, and unsure about the best response. 

In situations in which a clear course of action is unavailable, organisational leaders may decide that the best response is to mimic a peer that they perceive to be successful.

Over the past few years, coercive and mimetic responses from brands, have significantly contributed to bandwagoning perceptions, where brands felt it was satisfactory to tick the box of diversity and inclusion, posting cookie-cutter social media posts about issues like racism, and inequality. 

However, audiences had greater expectations, and thus, became critical of brands’ practices, labelling such moves as bandwagoning. Light and surface-level moves associated with major grassroots movements, such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, have been the target of criticism from those sceptical of brands’ true motivations and intentions.

How can brands avoid bandwagoning?

Do not wait for the next social movement.

While it is convenient for brands to only express their support when there is a topical issue and movement, this approach drives the perceptions that brands are being opportunistic and inauthentic. 

Championing #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, or other social movements, suggests that brands are only trying to stay relevant and appeal to a key target audience, unless they have – and can demonstrate – a history of practice and commitment. 

Instead, brands keen on signalling that they are ‘woke’ must constantly seek sources of activism. They should identify societal issues to address in their marketing and branding campaigns, even if those issues have not (yet) led to a broader movement and call for change.

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