Many Brits are shrouded in layers of sulphuric wit and cynicism. Hope&Glory’s Jack Hutchinson believes brands need to take the piss or suffer a miss. Ricky Gervais in the Office, many people's first exposure to British piss-taking / BBC We Brits are a cynical people in a cynical nation.
From what we eat to what we watch on TV to who we vote for, we approach almost anything with a healthy dose of distrust (just look at the multitude of Reddit and Quora threads with titles like ‘[Serious] Why do the British seem to be so cynical?’ if you don’t believe me). And, unfortunately for us marketing folks, this cynicism increasingly thrives on what we do. From a growing distrust of influencers to an increasing aversion to the bombardment of ads they face, consumers are getting savvier – and more cynical – day by day.
This means we have to try a lot harder to get through to them, but it doesn’t take a great manager like The Office’s David Brent to do so. “To beat a Brit, you need to think like a Brit” (should have been) a famous quote in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. In other words, rather than try and battle this cynicism head-on, it’s far better to feed it.
Play people at their own game. In Cynicism in British Post-War Culture , academic author Kieran Curran argues that cynicism should be considered a driving force for cultural production in Britain. Crucially (and uniquely to the UK), it can transcend the barriers between high and low culture, meaning its “omnip.
