Franchise CEOs Should Start Reading Mean Tweets About Their Companies

There are certain unicorns all franchises are forever chasing, regardless of the brand. In recent years, the most popular mythical creature companies have been clamoring for is the Millenial, that dark and mysterious consumer who always has his or her nose in a smartphone while listening to their hippity hop music.

However, just as important to most franchises is projecting an image that people can relate to. If anything, this is a key part of appealing to Generation Y. Being able to relate to a company means being able to like it, which translates to trust, and, hopefully, continued support in the form of dollars over the years.

But how does a brand accomplish this? To bastardize a line from “Soylent Green,” brands isn’t people!

Well, how does anyone get other people to relate to them? In my experience, a little self-deprecation goes a long way. After all, who doesn’t instinctively like a person who is willing to make fun of themselves?

With that said, maybe now’s the time for companies to take a page out of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! playbook and turn negative attention into a positive.

Let me paint a picture: Imagine a billion-dollar franchise with locations all around the world. More customers means more opinions, some of them less than complimentary. Now imagine the CEO of that company creating a YouTube video where they collect some of the meanest, funniest tweets about themselves and read them out loud, staring into the camera with a humorous deadpan expression or sending a lightly insulting volley of their own back.

That would do a hell of a lot more to make me like said CEO than some slick commercial that comes off like a campaign ad.