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| (L-R) Sasha Boghosian, Ryan Colaianni |
For brands, the world has turned dark and unpredictable. The ability to plan or anticipate has evaporated. No one knows what to expect next. Stability and accepted norms have given way to a brutal, fast-moving and profoundly chaotic environment.
We call it the “No F***s Given” era.
Neutral ground has vanished. Stakeholders demand ideological alignment, not just product satisfaction. Brands aren't just selling goods, they are being dragged, often without warning, into the culture wars.
Look no further than the recent backlash faced by brands like Target and Bud Light, where hesitant, mid-crisis pivots ended up alienating both sides of the aisle. They tried to find a middle ground that no longer exists, proving that in a polarized world, "playing it safe" is the most dangerous move you can make.
If you are a brand manager, communications leader or C-suite executive, your hardest job is anticipating how each of your decisions will be translated through the public’s always-on lens of rage and tribalism.
This isn’t temporary. It is the new, chaotic baseline for the rest of your career.
The Old Playbook is Useless.
Most organizations are still operating from yesterday’s brand playbook. Their old tools are built for an era when control was possible, and when the public gave brands the benefit of the doubt. In today’s world, such assumptions are dangerous:
The Slow Response Cycle: The average shelf life of a major negative story is now measured in hours. An internal review process that takes a day to approve a polished and fully accurate statement will miss the opportunity to impact the narrative. The battle will end and your audience will have formed an impression… all before you arrive.
The Defensive Mentality: Brand managers once aimed to minimize attention until issues faded. Today, silence is instantly interpreted as contempt or admission of guilt. If you fail to engage, you’ve missed the chance to take charge of the narrative and signal confidence to your audiences.
The Urge to Control: The corporate instinct to hide, squash or issue minimal information worked for a long time, because in yesterday’s era, control was still possible. Today, it’s a pipe dream. Tactics aimed for control only amplify skepticism and push your audiences away from you.
Clinging to outdated approaches (and outdated thinking) isn’t just bad for brands trying to navigate the cultural chaos. It can be hazardous to their reputation.
The New Rules: Subvert the Moment.
To thrive in the uncertainty surrounding them, brands must make a profoundly counterintuitive shift: embrace the chaos.
They must stop running from the chaos. Stop looking for relief. It’s not coming. Instead, they must embrace each nonstop, fleeting moment that comes their way as an opportunity to participate. They must take advantage by subverting it and nudging the conversation toward the narrative they want to establish about their brand.
And each time they do it, they will add one more brush stroke to the picture they are painting of their brand.
Take the beverage brand Liquid Death, for example. They have essentially weaponized the “No F***s Given” era by leaning into publishing "hate mail" and aggressive, non-traditional aesthetics. By refusing to act like a traditional beverage corporation, they’ve built a $1.4 billion valuation on the very chaos that makes other CMOs tremble. They don't hide from the noise; they are the noise.
Given all of this, here are five principles for building your reputation in the “No F***s Given” era.
1. Know Your Audience
Identify the audiences you cannot live without. Obsessively learn their subliminal language, their beliefs, their tone. Then tailor your messages to them, on their terms. Remember, we are tribes, and the first thing we do is subliminally determine whether you’re "for me" or "against me.”
2. Enter the Chat
Your biggest risk is avoidance. To build resilience and turn bystanders into devotees, you must engage, not avoid. Find the right moments when you can influence the conversation or redirect it to serve your own purpose. This means strategically inserting your brand into a relevant cultural or societal moment to define your values in real time. This requires a willingness to shed the corporate, passive-voice crutch and talk like a person, even a brash person.
Duolingo has mastered this by abandoning the "corporate voice" entirely. During the recent Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud, Duolingo’s mascot, Duo, was active in the comments and social threads, using the same slang and "stan" energy as the fans. They didn't ask for permission. They simply entered the chat as a social user, not a product.
3. Be Fast, Not Precise
Cycles move lightning fast. If you’re going to engage, you need to move with the same speed. Otherwise, you’re entering the chat when everybody else has already left. This will feel uncomfortable. What if you don't get everything right? Your objective isn't to create a perfect, legally-ironclad message. It's to secure a seat at the table so you can steer the narrative. People have a high tolerance for missed details as long as the intention is clear, but they rarely forgive absence
4. Microdose Your Audience
People can't digest one big message. They form a complete understanding of you over time, through lots of small, bite-sized interactions. We call it microcomms. You are building your narrative cumulatively through reinforced signaling. To do this right, you must maximize every opportunity to nudge your audiences toward a cohesive narrative.
5. Know They’ll Move On
Even the most consequential conversation can become “yesterday’s news” before the hour is up. Know that just as quickly as you engage, your audience will move on to the next headline. Your objective is to capture them when they’re paying attention and to make micro-impressions that nudge them toward the narrative you want them to hold.
You Must Be Present to Win
Yesterday's rules are obsolete. Culture and people operate differently, and they demand a fundamentally different approach from brands. The path to securing brand reputation and building resilience requires a radical mindset shift: moving from avoidance to engagement, from control to calculated risk and from precision to velocity.
Embrace the chaos. It’s the only way to build a resilient, modern reputation that can withstand the new reality.
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Ryan Colaianni and Sasha Boghosian previously served in leadership roles at firms including Edelman, IPG, BPD and Revive. Over the course of their careers, they have personally advised thousands of C-suite executives through high-stakes challenges and reputational inflection points. They recently launched their new firm, Motio, a reputation consultancy.
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