Vox Reports: For most of advertising history, “red” or “blue” as partisan loyalty signaled more your taste for Coke or Pepsi than your identity as Republican or Democrat. Mass markets, by definition, necessitated selling to both sides of the aisle.
As with so much else, the presidency of Donald Trump — built upon a self-conceived human brand — radically upended those norms.
Post-2016 election, one Adweek column thundered, “Brands cannot expect to play Switzerland as the rest of the world picks a side.” Consumer culture suddenly became the vehicle for political expression, with Madison Avenue giving voice to countless causes. The staid “corporate social responsibility” morphed into the more muscular “brand purpose,” which beget impassioned activism. Social justice became “trendy;” politics, the means to signal commercial “integrity.”
Today, just as during the Trump presidency, controversial issues abound, protesters convulse public spaces, and a divisive election looms. The world is picking sides — on abortion and Gaza and Trump’s trials. And from brand-land? By and large, the sound of silence.
That’s because, despite prior pretense, advertising follows, not leads; it needs markets, not morality. That silence, therefore, says much about our sociopolitical moment: As culture warriors find themselves on the defensive, brands, wary from the backlash against Bud Light’s use of a trans influencer, no longer show interest in advancing their causes.
Indeed, today’s primary “cause” — and, arguably, election issue — is lower on the hierarchy of needs: cost of living. That makes for a more practical, less symbolic battleground for commercial content.
Comments
notwokeshows
from the old Disqus comment system
Jun 4, 2024
Corporations have learned to backpedal to more of a Switzerland-like neutrality, reflecting a broader retreat from DEI ambitions across both law and norms. Companies are realizing that there never was a reward in wokness, but instead only ruin.