Part 2: Can Wokeness Be Branded?
If you haven’t read Part 1 click here.
PROFIT OR AWARENESS
Although many are excited that large companies are promoting populist causes, two contrasting ideas reveal themselves: the marriage of profit/market share and awareness/advocacy. The former is a function of capitalism and the latter is the goal of actionable grassroots expressions with socialist tendencies. This is what the authors of Protest Inc. call the corporatization of activism. Many nonprofit activist and advocacy organizations operate in this sphere. To embrace these two ideas together is to say capitalism should have limits and that advocacy can be activated on behalf of market forces. But make no mistake: this is a moral position.
In the past, the U.S. Government took a similar position on capitalism using business regulation, tariffs and laws for the good of its citizens. But today’s unregulated global hypercapitalism has changed that. Where were the limits of capitalism when the Housing Bubble of 2008 caused people to lose their homes and their jobs? Where was morality activated in restraining the illegal activity of big banks that led to the Great Recession?
As activist nonprofits and NGOs acquiesce to market forces, it becomes easier to look the other way when companies make questionable decisions that negatively impact the American economy and the world. As a result, this begs the question: When a company embraces this mixture of profit and awareness, is it just a marketing ploy to appear progressive? There is a manipulative aspect in how brands stoke and harness public anger in the name of profit. We should be cautious about this because maybe we aren’t benefitting from their involvement as much as we should.
Here are three examples to help you think through this question:
- 50% of Gillette’s market is male. Since smaller razor makers have been gaining market share, did they speak on this issue to gain credibility with women? Did they properly evaluate the #MeToo Movement’s nuanced conversations with American society long enough to enter the discussion?
- In 2015, Starbucks waded into the polarizing racial climate with its #racetogether campaign. The goal was to jumpstart discussions around race and racism between employees and customers by putting a hashtag on their coffee cup order. Why did Starbucks assume that people would want to talk about an extremely volatile sensitive topic with their employees who are not trained to speak on this topic? Did they retreat from this campaign because it began to affect their profits?
- In 2011, Jay-Z announced that Rocawear would sell an ‘Occupy All Streets’ tee during the heyday of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. However, none of the proceeds were slated to go to the movement. Was Jay-Z’s vocal support of the movement just a smokescreen to make money with this tshirt?
THE NEED FOR AUTHENTICITY
The bottomline is that being seriously woke is an extreme risk. Kaepernick forfeited future profits and market share (brand endorsements) by showing his anger against police brutality in the NFL’s space. As a result, he most likely will never play in the league again and will receive few endorsements. DICK Sporting Goods showed their outrage by speaking out and supporting sensible gun laws. They halted the sale of adult-style rifles and raising the minimum age for purchasing a gun at all their stores. There are people who have decided not to buy from them anymore.
Making a statement about a populist cause is not a bad thing but it is silly to think that this makes us an activist. (People and companies on social media should remember that.) This is often where much of the ‘woke branding’ is used incorrectly. It feels like a sticker applied onto the company’s branding but doesn’t impact the purpose of the company. Demonstrative actions that can affect profit and market share send a message of authenticity to the rest of society that no branding campaign can simply manufacture. The Dove Real Beauty Campaign has done a good job of this over the years.
The people, companies and organizations that make a long term positive impact are those that have unchanging sacrificial convictions that benefit others, humility, know their sphere of influence and let their actions speak for themselves. That is what it means to be woke. This anchors their branding so that they don’t have to oversell their purpose. Those who use fear are the ones who must oversell themselves.
There are clear indications in King’s writings that he was growing increasingly angry and disillusioned. In his Letter from the Birmingham Jail written in 1963, one can hear his commitment to his people, his humility, his passion for the Christian faith informed by the Black struggle and his disappointment in moderate whites. MLK was one woke brother and he sacrificed it all for my benefit and yours. Yet education and political elites have recast him in their own image which means he presents very little challenge to us today, black and white. Right now, it looks like Gillette risked very little in their ad as they sought to tap into the anger brought to the surface by the #MeToo movement. It seems they mistook their brand relevance for action based on the negative reaction of many men. At some point, they may have to answer for that.
As authors Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte state in their book Brand Aid, campaigns can end up selling the suffering of others and marketing feelings of empathy rather than doing any good in a broad sense. When companies jump on the wokeness bandwagon without any notable convictions and action, it simply comes across as a cynical marketing campaign. The question is, are we woke enough to recognize it?
What do you think?