I Feel Your Pain
Empathy as Brand Identity
Some of us easily recall a young, southern governor uttering the phrase, “I feel your pain” during the 1992 US Presidential town hall debate. The saxophone-playing, boxer- (not briefs) wearing, touchy-feely candidate Bill Clinton would go on to win the White House twice, even amid a flurry of scandal.
But that phrase — seemingly previously unuttered by a mainline political candidate previosuly — stuck. And it became a punch line for late-night talk show hosts and stand up comedians everywhere. Why? Because it seemed too good to be true.
Fast forward to 2022, and you don’t have to look beyond the home pages of any news site or front page of any newspaper to see that all of America is responding to what we feel these days- not just what we know.
In this past Sunday’s New York Times, actress-turned- beauty-buiness-mogul Selena Gomez took out a full page ad to (basically) tell her Rare Beauty work force that she appreciated them, and expressed her concern for their well-being and health.
That could have been an email. An internal email to her team. And it would have been read, and appreciated. And possibly even shared.
Instead, she took an ad in one of the most widely-read publications in the world. And, in my suburban Chicago home on a Sunday morning, I read it.
Did it take a global pandemic to awaken us to the fact that we all have feelings? Did it take the blaring spotlight of global (and local) social injustice to remind us that there we are all tied to an emotional center?
Perhaps more likely is the reality that we have suppressed the desire to express ourselves fully in all aspects of life. Sharing our deepest care and concerns is usually relegated to those with whom we are closest: our spouses, or our friends and families. And it used to only happen at home.
So when businesses shut down, and send employees to work from home, there’s no escaping the emotional ties we experience- even while working from the corner desk in the dining room.
And just like the unexpected wandering child into the Zoom meeting, our emotions are now entirely present while we press our nose to the collective grindstone.
“It’s all a stunt!”
The cynic in me assumed that some marketing genius convinced Selena Gomez to craft that letter so they could boost their sales. And, that may be so. But it doesn’t change the fact that she was willing to make herself vulnerable, to help connect to her employees. And she did so on a grand scale. I know almost nothign about Selena Gomez. But- I like her now. I like that she did this. I know more about her as a business leader because she took this bold step.
Maybe it does matter that our leaders have feelings.
I am not necessarily running out to snag some of the Rare Beauty products for myself, but I kind of love that Selena was attempting to send a clear message. She was proud of her employees, cared about them, and wanted everyone to know it.
All the feels.
