Brands in Britain: We Don't Need Another Hero

At TMW, we’ve long been tracking the nation, taking a fortnightly read of how people are feeling and behaving. But, in all honestly, you don’t need reams of data from our Human Understanding Lab to get a feel for the current vibe. The headline for how the country feels at the start of 2025 won’t surprise anyone. Things are a bit bleak.

Polarisation, inflation, economic stagnation, the climate crisis, rundown public services and international war. To use some classic British understatement: we’ve got a lot on. Permacrisis, polycrisis, omnishambles, clusterf… call it what you want, but all of us are experiencing it. We’re getting stresses coming from all angles on an individual, national and global scale.

The pressures are high, our mood is low, and it’s hard to know what to believe in and who we should trust to fix it. Our faith in institutions is deteriorating to a negligible level. But there is some hope. People are increasingly taking it upon themselves to make things better, with more than half the country (55 per cent) believing society will only improve if people like them step in to make positive change.

Individuals and communities stepping up more and more presents an interesting question for brands. On the one hand, fragmenting trust in institutions creates a vacuum for them to fill. On the other, brands are also not exempt from our increasing scepticism. And perhaps they only have themselves to blame.

Like lots of us, brands love to play the hero. In many ways, it’s Brand Strategy 101. Whether it’s selling consumers dreams of self-actualisation or, more recently, presenting themselves as social activists swooping in to save society, brands often position themselves as the ones to save the day, no matter the odds.

People are getting tired of this hero complex. 65 per cent of us say we’re tired of ‘purpose-washing’, with consumers increasingly likely to see strategies that involve social causes as disingenuous and self-serving.

This archetype is so entrenched in brands’ thinking that it can border on pathological. In the worst instances, brands have even been guilty of constructing drama or crises purely so they can take credit for solving them. This overinflated sense of importance fails to reflect a fundamental truth: that brands need people more than people need brands.

Bonnie Tyler might be holding out for a hero, but the rest of us generally aren't – and we’re tired of being treated like damsels in distress. There’s a big difference between facilitating solutions to problems and swooping in to save the day. Instead of trying to fix everything, brands should be looking to enable people power, adding value where they can, not just selling a lofty dream.

I think it's time for an intervention. Brands need to stop trying to wave their magic wands and instead shift to a mindset of meeting their audiences where they already are. People are in the driving seat and already trying to effect change – brands just need to get behind them. 

Here are three ways brands can rethink their hero complex and embrace people power in 2025:

Elevate existing behaviours

Brands often try to encourage, even force, people into adopting new behaviours as the pathway to growth. But it’s time to move on from this classic hero behaviour by instead focusing on a customer’s existing relationship with your brand and the (sometimes unexpected) behaviours they exhibit.

Embrace radical transparency

With increasing cynicism around campaigns that try to shoehorn themselves into social issues, the heroic era of the polished and perfect brand feels like it’s crying out for an update. A shift needs to take place, where the artificial, heroic brand makes way for an authentic and (dare I say it) flawed, human one.

Empower communities

Brands aren’t the heroes of communities. They don’t create or lead them. Too often, we’ve seen brands disingenuously jump on communities’ bandwagons and, in the worst instances, imply they are the heroic driving force behind them. What people prefer is for their communities to be seen, heard, and given the platform and tools to advance their own cause.

Dan Bowers is the chief strategy officer at TMW (part of Accenture Song)