Reclaiming a Brand: Should Black Lives Matter Take Back its Slogan?

Black Lives Matter (BLM) can claim tremendous victories in the social, cultural and political spheres of influence. Their activism has forced politicians, local police departments, municipalities and the Dept. of Justice to pay attention to them. This is no small feat considering there are older advocacy organizations that have historically occupied the social justice spotlight. A whole generation knows what BLM represents but doesn’t know what the NAACP represents. High visibility and good visual branding is part of the reason for this. But this success has also brought criticism from the media, law enforcement agencies and pundits. 

Branding is one way that consumers understand a company’s image. Marketing is the main vehicle of communicating brand values. So, is an advocacy network like Black Lives Matter a brand? I would argue that BLM is becoming a brand.

One year ago, I wrote a commentary about the branding success around the student protests organized by Concerned Student 1950. A University of Missouri campus group, they aggressively called for a response from the school community to alleged racist acts that happened on campus in 2014. Other UM campus groups joined them in protests while the football team decided to boycott the season. This ultimately lead to the resignation of their college president and chancellor. It has been two years and UM still has not recovered from this media nightmare. The school’s enrollment declined 6.2% this past Fall.

It cannot be denied that BLM’s earlier success provided the blueprint for campus groups. Although colleges and universities are not strangers to student protests, the effective use of visual and performance arts combined with social media allowed their brand messaging to travel farther than traditional mainstream media. Seeing a group of brave young Black people with protest signs and t-shirt images conveying solidarity and community is powerful. It is a stark reminder that the spirit of Black protest and culture which, was very prominent in the 1960s, has not died. The difference is that today’s youth have bypassed traditional mainstream media as the primary conduit of information to the masses. They have a global platform without it via the internet and social media. The mainstream media now gets some of its news from social media.

Part 1: Branding Expectations

Fast Company published an insightful article about the Black Lives Matter’s brand and how it has rapidly grown and changed. BLM’s earlier beginnings was as a Twitter hashtag. The article cites Alicia Garza, co-founder of BLM, who responded to the George Zimmerman ‘not guilty’ verdict with a Facebook post: “Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter.” Patrisse Cullors, another co-founder, created the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Although not trademarked, BLM’s slogan (which has become its name) functions as what is called a suggestive mark. According to bitlaw.com, suggestive marks are words that evoke or suggest some characteristic or attribute of the product/service but does not describe it. It requires some imagination to associate the mark with the underlying product. For example, The Red Cross is a type of suggestive mark. Because of the distinctiveness of BLM’s name, it would probably qualify as a trademark. 

The hashtag leaped from the virtual world into the real world and has taken on a life of its own. As the article rightly points out, ‘Black Lives Matter’ is not a slogan anymore. It is a full blown social justice movement. Josh Warren-White is a self taught graphic designer who works for the Design Action Collective, the company that designed BLM’s logo and helped brand them. 

But since Black Lives Matter has not trademarked its name/slogan to protect how it is used, brand appropriation can sow confusion especially if there appears to be no brand expectations. To date, I cannot find BLM brand identity guidelines on the internet. This does not mean it does not exist but it is clear based on news reports that their name has been used regularly by others appropriately and inappropriately inside and outside their network. For example, the BLM Toronto chapter is listed on their website. However, there have been BLM protests in London, England as well and they are not listed. So, when UK BLM’s actions are reported in the media, does this reflect on the official network? In August 2015, the St. Paul, MN branch of BLM staged a march at the state fair chanting ‘pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.’ Although Garza disassociated Black Lives Matter from this message, some police departments and organizations have labeled them as a terrorist group. 

Part 2: Branding Autonomy 

BLM’s decentralized egalitarian approach to leadership gives its 37 chapters a high degree of autonomy. This allows them to choose how to communicate and stage events, set their own membership rules and policies. This network infrastructure allows chapters to respond more organically and faster to local situations without the official BLM co-founders approval. However, this has not been the norm for older social justice and advocacy chapters in other organizations who look for direction from a centralized infrastructure.

BLM chapters use whatever digital platform they deem necessary to communicate their message. A few have websites but most are on Facebook and micro-blogging platforms. Very few of the chapters visually look like the official BLM website beyond the name. Because of their progressive approach to leadership, any chapter or BLM individual/affiliate with a Facebook page and/or Twitter presence can put out an immediate call to action. But because this is also a movement, anyone not affiliated with the network can also do the same or simply hijack their slogan or event. The people behind #Blue Lives Matter and #All Lives Matter have already been accused of appropriating BLM’s message. This is where the real world also has a way of seeping into the virtual world. The liberal use of the slogan impacts how people see this movement even online. If the messages from those involved in BLM and those appropriating their name begin to conflict, misperceptions grow.

Crisis and growth will eventually test the strength of a network infrastructure. For example, Ella Baker started the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960 which evolved out of Martin Luther King Jr’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This student-led organization played a significant role in the sit-in protests and freedom rides. But the SNCC believed that too much centralized leadership led to movement paralysis. The SNCC HQ only provided support and literature to the chapters. Leadership and strategy was totally up to each chapter. But eventually, the students began to question their own methods. The group splintered and some continued with their nonviolent approach while others gravitated toward radical Black Power organizations. The SNCC lasted about 4 years before it eventually disbanded. 

Brand building with a strong autonomous chapters and a decentralized center has rarely led to long term success. Strict brand identity guidelines would not be able to survive in this type of network. Most effective advocacy groups eventually borrow their brand development approach from the corporate sector which practices hierarchical top-down governance. It is no surprise that movements who don’t have authoritative leadership develop slower, die faster or are infiltrated very easily. The Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS) collapsed under the weight of misperceptions. To digital natives who are accustomed to expressing activism through a like and share, OWS looked easy, cool, techy and community minded. But with no charismatic leaders to keep participants focused, the reality of activism came to the surface.

“During Occupy, we experienced it: things started to look better on social networks than in real life. Then people started to focus on social media and to feel more comfortable posting on Twitter and Facebook than going to an Occupy event. This to me is the biggest risk: to become spectators of our own protests.” –Micah White, co-creator, Occupy Wall St. Movement

But let’s not forget that OWS was successful in making income inequality and student debt a part of the national conversation. These issues were adopted by Bernie Sanders and eventually Hillary Clinton.

Without hierarchical leadership, brand messaging and brand identity guidelines are at the mercy of the localized expressions inside and outside the network. On paper, this sounds good but as someone who has managed the brand identity guidelines for a nonprofit with network offices around the world, its harder than it looks. 

Part 3: Branding Perception

Black Lives Matter developed organically first from a hashtag. Their consistent demands, messaging and activism streamed through the internet and social media eventually became the foundation for their logo and visual platforms. As a result of their singular focus on police brutality and masterfully using nontraditional media to bring attention to it, their name/slogan has acquired tremendous brand equity in a very short period of time. This is every new organization’s dream.

Although BLM is experiencing growing pains, their messaging has expanded (list of demands) legitimizing their cause and providing like-minded activists with a reference point. However, critics have suggested that there is a perception gap between what they demand and what they have been doing.

So, will their egalitarian approach to brand building dilute the salience of their message as they seek to be a major player within the social justice movement? The Black Lives Matter co-founders have already pushed back by speaking out against the co-option of their name and brand. In this way, they are attempting to impact the perception that any organization can use their name or some variation of it. From a social standpoint, they have sent a clear message. But from a intellectual property perspective, they cannot legally demand this because their name/slogan is not trademarked.

As competition from funding and media attention rises, the need to exercise more control over how their name/slogan is used will become very real. This may not force Black Lives Matter to become like MLK’s Civil Rights Movement but they may have to rethink their approach to brand development and leadership. The perception gap will get wider unless they educate more people consistently about who they are and what partners/chapters can and cannot do with their brand.

If branding expectations are not clear and branding autonomy is normative for them, then branding perceptions will be all over the place. Managing an organization’s image and keeping the brand values intact are hallmarks of sustainable nonprofits. Will the Black Lives Matter network reclaim its slogan/name? One alternative is that their brand will continue to be appropriated in the public and virtual domain and lose its value over time since it is not trademarked. But, another alternative is they will create a new way of doing branding in the advocacy sector that has never been done before. We will see.

Update: An April 10, 2018 article on theroot.com brought up the issue of fraudulent BLM Facebook accounts. BLM released an official statement:

Since its inception, the Black Lives Matter Global Network has regularly dealt with the misappropriation of our name and likeness, which has compromised the integrity of our local, national, and global work. We live in a digital world, and it’s extremely important that platforms like Facebook and Twitter do their due diligence with users so that supporters of our movement, and movements like ours, aren’t misled and that resources aren’t misappropriated.

We regret that so many people were deceived by the recent high profile scam into believing that their gifts and donations benefitted us.

For months after noting the fraudulent profiles, the Black Lives Matter Global Network and many of our allies reached out to both Twitter and Facebook to request the fake profiles be deactivated and taken down. Unfortunately, our requests received no adequate response and many supporters continued to be misled. We are relieved that the fraudulent profiles have ultimately been removed and hope that the social media platforms will soon adopt protocols to stop this from happening again.