Is Brand Activism BS?
“If you take a political or social stand, you’re not just dipping your toe, but diving headfirst into something that could take a life of its own and many brands today just don’t want to take that risk.” — Adam Kleinberg, CEO of San Francisco-based agency Traction
In today’s politically-driven society, more and more brands are deciding to align themselves with political issues to increase their popularity among customers. However, companies like Pepsi and Starbucks jumping on the political activism bandwagon and concerning themselves with issues that don’t relate to their companies’ values and mission statements, is where the future for brand activism becomes a worry.
As 9/10 Generation Z consumers believe companies have a responsibility to address political and social issues, the brand activism trend is becoming more and more common. Brand Activism consists of a business’s effort to promote, impede, or direct social, political, economic, and/or environmental reform or stasis with the desire to promote or impede improvements in society. But when brands jump on the political activism craze for the wrong reasons, people’s BS detectors start ringing and is when brands receive tonnes of backlash.
One example is the Pepsi ad featuring Kendall Jenner handing a can of Pepsi to a police officer during a protest.
This ad failed miserably at attempting to maintain Pepsi’s cultural relevance and resonate with younger consumers. The ad received a storm of backlash on social media, with critics saying it trivialised institutional racism and appropriated Black Lives Matter.
This is a prime example of how a brand with no intention of facilitating change in society just jumped on the political activism bandwagon for their own profits. And this is why consumers now are becoming sceptical and, as a result, desensitised to brand activism. Consumers now just assume brands are jumping on this trend for their own gain, rather than actually wanting to facilitate change.
Another classic example of a brand with no real reason other than jumping on the bandwagon was Starbucks and their ‘Want to Talk about Race’ campaign.
Basically, the whole premise of this was for Starbucks employees to write on people’s coffee cups “Race Together,” and as a result, the customer would ask what it meant and a discussion about race would ensue. However, Starbucks didn’t really understand what their brand was at its bottom line. Sure, talking about race is important, but people go to Starbucks to get a coffee and go about their day, they don’t have the time to talk about such topics. People’s reactions on social media included;
With a recent CMO Survey, it found that 67.5% of marketers thought that brand activism would have a negative effect on the company’s ability to attract and retain customers and partners. Given this consensus, you would think that brands like Pepsi and Starbucks would do a bit more research when it comes to their own values and what political issues to align themselves with in order to promote change.
With all of these clear examples of brands jumping on the trend for their own personal gain, it doesn’t look good. More and more brands failing to align themselves with these political issues just adds to the scepticism around brand activism. The tricky thing with brand activism is having to balance a certain political standpoint on an issue with meaningful activity. For example, Pepsi and Starbucks were all talk and no action, they didn’t back up their statement with any form of activity. They were both poor attempts to jump on to relevant political issues in order for good press coverage rather than actually wanting to create change. For future companies wanting to align themselves with political issues and to avoid coming off as an opportunist just playing a situation for good press coverage, businesses need to back up their beliefs with cold, hard action. However, with brand activism increasing with popularity, there are often more failures than successes.
As brands today have enormous followings and ultimately have the power to change society, consumer scepticism could be the difference in changing attitudes toward certain topics for the greater good of society. And with Pepsi and Starbucks not committing whole-heartedly to their social causes, the perceived legitimacy of future brand activism is in great danger.
