A Critique on ‘Woke’ Advertising
We live in a curious age, marked by corporate brands making a departure from their classic utilitarian intention to create and mediate value and edging instead into the business of ethical stands, social causes, and becoming one of those enlightened, golden-child companies-with-a-conscience. And what a rollercoaster ride this has been!
Few will have escaped the media splashes that some companies trying their luck in the ethical-stance arena have made in recent years: recall the infamous Gillette ad that bizarrely abandoned its key product in favor of treating its target audience to some harsh scolding. Or the widely-decried Pepsi ad whose perilous error was adopting too thin a disguise of its intentions to capitalize on a social movement.
There’s a simplistic analysis swirling around that woke advertising is some kind of sophisticated innovation, that companies converging towards a norm of social consciousness are emblematic of “human progress”. To that I say, hmm. . . don’t think so. In reality, the origin story of woke advertising is a lot more fascinating and twisty than a straightforward case of corporations “growing-up” and and attaining some of that do-good maturity.
A story of woke advertising is necessarily a story of investment in image, complicated maneuvers towards brand “authenticity,” and the disgust-sensitivity of the…
