While most brands these days try to advocate for positive social changes, there are only a handful of institutions that have the potential to actually create a difference. Mass media and large corporations perpetuate this activism in the name of being social drivers, but they often fall from grace in lieu of being woke.
Is ‘Wokeism’ a Public Relations tactic?
It is expected of consumer brands and media to express their outlook on socio-political issues. The consumers value the candor and appreciate it when their opinions are showcased on large-scale campaigns and popular brands which works as a bridge between them.
The highest potential for social change and the greatest increases in brand equity are created when brands align pro-public service messages with their values and purposes in their sociopolitical communications. This is what we refer to as Brand activism. However, brands dissociating social activism from their goals, principles, and actions are engaging in “woke washing” – a superficial manner of brand activism that may delude the consumers and be rather detrimental to the brand itself.
Social activism among media and brands is primarily a new marketing strategy to stand out to the consumers via publicly endorsing social and political causes.
The more such issues are discussed on a mass scale, they start tapping into that sentiment gives these companies a limelight. High returns also run high risks of backfiring due to lack of credibility and absence of proper intel.
Awake, Woke, Woke Washing
African-Americans coined the phrase “awake,” which is now used to denote social awareness. The term “woke washing” refers to companies that attempt to position themselves as being concerned with issues of inequality and social injustice despite having a hazy or unreliable history of social cause practices. The practice of “woke washing” is an example of superficial activism in which activism regarding sociopolitical issues is not in line with a company’s core values and thus cannot be compared with authentic brand activism.
Brand activists are not immune to criticism, especially when there is obvious brand hegemony invoked through their statements just to stay socially relevant.
Following the now-iconic 2018 Colin Kaepernick “Dream Crazy” campaign, brands like Nike increased their messaging in support of racial justice during the global 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. However, customers and critics pointed out an appalling lack of supportive values, purposes, and practices like having Black board members.
Customers are vocally reacting to brands standing up, from burning Nike running shoes and boycotting Gillette razors to canceling their Costco memberships.
In a 2019 viral video campaign, the razor brand Gillette from Procter & Gamble addressed toxic masculinity. However, with only 468,000 likes and 901,000 dislikes on YouTube in the first few weeks of the ad, many expressed alienation and attacked the activist tone, raising concerns about whether Gillette was essentially “virtue-signaling.”
Is Wokeism a youth demographic?
In addition to not having a history of brand activist messaging for other social causes, Pepsi does not have a brand mission, values, or a corresponding history of prosocial corporate conduct in support of Black Lives Matter. For its ensuing superficial take, the brand received almost universal criticism online.
Pepsi appealed to reality TV star Kendall Jenner and the Black Lives Matter socio political movement to appeal to a younger demographic. The ad was woke washing because it had a potent activist message, a huge platform, and a sizable audience, but the company lacked the values-driven, prosocial corporate practices to back up such a bold statement.
In an effort to highlight the fact that there are no Premier League players who are LGBTQIA+ out in the open, Irish gambling company Paddy Power performed a stunt in 2018 using an empty double-decker bus it dubbed “the official bus of homosexual professional footballers.” In an unwelcoming message perceived by many as pressing people to come out, it dispatched the bus to the Pride march in Brighton, United Kingdom, to urge gay players to identify themselves.
When anti-LGBT Russia scored at the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Paddy Power paired this effort with a donation to the Attitude Foundation, although the donation effort was crucial to the bookmaker’s profit line as a sports bettor. Due to its lack of values-driven content and considerable prosocial action backing, the pro-Pride messaging was also regarded as woke washing.
More often than not, to address contentious and divisive sociopolitical topics, such as sexual harassment, systemic racism, public health, LGBTQIA+ rights, reproductive rights, gun control, and immigration, brands and media now appear to feel comfortable alienating some consumers.
However, when businesses participate in sociopolitical activism, their motivations are more closely examined, and controversies are easier to develop, tampering the brand image. The importance of authenticity in brand activism and the risks of brands not “walking the talk” have been highlighted by marketing academics and practitioners, with a large amount of consumers indicating that too many brands now use societal issues primarily as a marketing ploy to sell more of their product.
Superficial brand activism can limit the possibility for social change as well as have negative brand equity implications through false signaling.
It can also involve making false, dishonest and misleading claims that arouse consumer mistrust. These malpractices are riskier for the brand as the stakes are incredibly high when it comes to social justice issues owing to the media convergence that rapidly influences consumers.
