You May Hate This Post — Tardigrade Media

You May Hate This Post—And That’s Okay

I hope all of you enjoyed a happy and harmonious Thanksgiving with friends and family. Now that you’ve had time to digest your feast and rekindle important personal bonds, allow me to share a couple of things that may make you a bit uncomfortable. Don’t worry, there’s a useful marketing and copywriting lesson for you in this—a secret to making your work life happier while letting you engage more effectively with your audience.

Uncomfortable Thing 1: This Year’s Cranberry Sauce

For most families, the choice of cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving dinner is as invariable as a coat of arms—whether your family tradition is a home-cooked compote of cranberries you picked yourself or a jiggly purple cylinder from Publix, it’s sacred and inviolable.

Except for me. Here’s what I made this year (and I apologize in advance for my poor photography skills):

Longtime listeners to NPR News may recognize the ominous pink hue of this concoction. Yes, after years of hearing this oddly repelling recipe recited sadistically every Thanksgiving during my rush-hour commute, I finally broke down and made Susan Stamberg’s mom’s infamous cranberry relish.

What makes it so odd? It starts with a normal cranberry sauce base of fruit and sugar. Then there’s sour cream (which explains its color). And minced onion. And to top it off, horseradish.

By now, you’re having one of the following reactions:

1. Ooh yeah, bring it on!

2. What, WHAT??

3. Excuse me, I need to throw up.

And this is exactly why the program managers at NPR—who are probably as ratings-obsessed as media planners anywhere—torment their listeners annually with this recipe. No, it’s not for everyone. But the stories behind it, and the reactions it triggers, are compelling. It’s a long-running inside joke that gets people talking and thinking—seriously, why not a somewhat savory cranberry sauce? Since when were cranberries actually sweet, anyhow?

Moreover, it’s totally on-brand for NPR—quirky, self-knowing, and unafraid of ruffling a few feathers. Yes, it may horrify and repulse listeners longing for a soothing Hallmark Channel version of Thanksgiving—but these aren’t their core listeners in any case.

Not everyone will like this NPR Thanksgiving tradition. But those who do, REALLY do. And that’s why it works.

(And the relish, by the way, is actually pretty tasty—just think of it as a savory relish or chutney rather than a sweet sauce, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. It makes a nice sandwich spread.)

And this leads us to another polarizing item that emerged around Thanksgiving:

Uncomfortable Thing 2: The Cybertruck

I admit to being a bit of a Tesla fangirl—I love the idea that sustainability and style can go hand in hand, and I like the sleek, low-key elegance of most of their (seemingly interchangeable) car designs.

But that “truck”…I honestly don’t know if I love it or hate it. I do know I was shocked when I first saw it. I also know for sure that I don’t see myself driving one.

Yet there is a certain mad genius to the design. It takes serious guts (or maybe a bit of insanity) to go into production with a model that’s been compared to a wedge of cheese, a doorstop, or a losing pinewood derby model. And Tesla CEO Elon Musk fully expected some blowback.

But he must have also predicted—correctly—that it would make people talk. It would burnish Tesla’s reputation as a future-facing company unafraid to take risks, flout conventional wisdom, and shame competitors into following their trajectory towards electrification, kicking and screaming if necessary. It would broadcast to the rest of the auto industry that another gauntlet has been thrown down—you may be laughing now, but just wait a few years! What are YOU doing to make pickups sustainable and sexy?

The Cybertruck works because it’s a hyper-distillation of Tesla’s brand values. No, it’s not for me. Nor, I suspect, is it for the prototypical pickup owner—I have a hard time picturing anyone loading hay bales or newborn calves into the back of that thing. But I respect the idea behind it.

And apparently, so do the 200,000 people who put down deposits for pre-orders.

Uncomfortable Thing 3: Not Everyone Will Like You

The moral behind these two tales is that both in life and in copywriting, it’s okay to leave people cold. Not everyone will like you, your vision, or your way of doing business.

But as my grad school adviser once told me, it’s better to be attacked than to be ignored. In an academic context, this means you know you’re onto an interesting idea when others feel it’s worth fighting for (or against). In a marketing context, a similar principle holds: If your public voice is true to your values and your aspirations, those who are inclined to like you will REALLY like you—if not downright love you. And without the stress of pulling yourself in conflicting directions or neutralizing your voice into bland mush to please a bunch of haters, you’ll be a lot happier too.

Of course, this is not a license to be obnoxious—you (and especially your online persona) need to be tactful and considerate of everyone, even those who may not be part of your tribe. At Thanksgiving, since I was a guest and not the host at the dinner, I actually made two kinds of cranberry sauce—a sweetly spiced traditional version and the “experimental” version I described above. Yes, I wanted to be authentic and true to my passion for culinary experimentation—but I also didn’t want to be murdered.

And interestingly, equal portions of both versions were eaten by the end of the meal, which suggests that maybe people are more open to the unusual and unexpected than I thought. In that sense, my risk paid off.

And yours can too. Just be yourself—what do you have to lose?