Could it be child labor?
Unfair working conditions?
No. The reason for the conservatives' outrage over Nike, Gillette, and other brands stems from the recent advertisements these brands have been producing that take a political stance. For Nike, it was using the voice of Colin Kaepernick in their advertisement, Dream Crazy. For Gillette, it was implying that masculinity can be problematic and calling for men to raise boys to be better in their short film, "We Believe: The Best Men Can Be". The response to both of these advertisements has been incredible- news outlets wrote about them, college campuses had symposiums about them, and more importantly, the internet went wild for them.
However, Gillette's controversial advertisement didn't pay off financially as Nike's did. The company's stock largely remained the same after releasing its controversial advertisement a few months after Nike on January 13, 2019. Instead of a wave of positive reactions after the initial negative feedback like Nike experienced, Gillette's commercial kept raking in more and more angry men making reaction videos. Today, the video has over 1.4 million dislikes with a sparse 785,000 likes.
Still, Gillette's advertisement along with other brands' political stances can largely be seen as reactionary to the success that Nike's advertisement caused. While it's true that Nike's advertisement caused quite a few conservative groups to be outraged and try to boycott the brand, this feedback did nothing but encourage liberal groups to promote the advertisement and congratulate the company for taking a stand. Nike's advertisement has been viewed over 28 million times since September 2018, and in an age where many people consume media on computers with ad blocks, an advertisement that's seen that many times is phenomenal, so it's easy to imagine why other companies would find this sort of advertisement appealing.
However, Nike is not as progressive in actions as it is in words. The company still has sweatshops powered by child labor. Many of the workers aren't given a salary that they can live on, and the company has stopped workers from unionizing. This is a harsh reminder that while Nike might be saying progressive things, its main goal is still to make a profit, not to change the world for the better.
While it might not seem like a problem for companies to make these inspiring and progressive advertisements that spark debate, thinking of where this newfound power of "woke marketing" will lead us is necessary.
It's important to remember that these companies all share a common goal that comes first: making a profit. Nike still represses labor unions and uses child labor because they're profitable methods of producing goods.
If these companies are producing these political advertisements primarily for a profit and not for the betterment of society, where do they draw the line? In our already polarized political climate, it can be hard to relate or even be civil with people on opposite ends of the spectrum. Do we really need companies intentionally stirring people up and making them angry just so they can turn a profit? How far are companies willing to go to make money, and are they thinking of the implications their actions have on our political climate outside of their own financial interests?
All of these questions are important to keep in mind as we move forward and corporations continue to appeal to the political issues that divide us.
Works Cited:
Woke Washing: what happens when marketing communications don't match corporate practice. The Conversation. Dec. 5, 2018. Accessed April 7, 2019. https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10292/12164/Woke%20washing_%20what%20happens%20when%20marketing%20communications%20don't%20match%20corporate%20practice.pdf?sequence=2
Why Nike's Woke Ad Campaign Works and Gillette's Doesn't. Barro, Josh. Jan. 15, 2019. Accessed April 8, 2019.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/why-nikes-woke-ad-campaign-works-and-gillettes-doesnt.html
First off, this is an extremely well written post, great job! I started wondering about this while watching the Superbowl in 2016, when many of the advertisements were centered around tearjerking narratives of mothers and children making the journey to cross the Southern border or climate activism. But then I realized that both of those commercials were for lumber companies and I had to wonder if it was acceptable for companies to use moving and poignant social narratives to make a profit, especially if they show no evidence of actionable steps to remedy the problems they portray in their advertisements. While on the one hand a company using their advertising platform to represent people of color can be beautiful, there is a fine line between celebrating a culture and exploiting that same culture for profit. Pepsi certainly learned the hard way that "woke" advertising can go terribly wrong if you miss the mark. It will be interesting to see where this trend takes us!
ReplyDeleteThis really reminds me of a panel I went to on Gender and Society. One of the presenters discussed feminism it has become a commodity due to many reason, one of them being apparel. Through buying a shirt that says "feminist as fuck" it leads feminism to mean an identity that can be shown through buying something as opposed to an identity that can be shown through joining activists who create political change. And they can totally come together for some individuals and movements, but the speaker highlighted some famous people who never politically expressed their views on feminism, and often denied being a feminist, only to be photographed in a shirt that claims them as a feminist. Feminism has become a fashion statement and a commodity in some cases, and I can see the parallels between this and your blog post. Liberal/progressive ideology being perpetuated through a price tag over a movement.
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ReplyDeleteDear Nora,
ReplyDeleteThank you for helping us denormalize these ads. At first glance or view of these videos, I felt inspired, and I felt very hopeful. Like me, many others grew respect for Gillette and Nike’s corporations for their contribution to the current societal problems we face like toxic masculinity and police brutality towards Black people.
I agree with you, we need to look further than those progressive ideas, and question if these companies really have the moral authority to call on the public for awareness and action. The fact that Gillette and Nike have sweatshops around the world not only puts into question their treatment of humanity, but to the earth as a whole in the environmental realm and, in the end, takes away the gained respect from all of us.
This is the important thing, though. As students of Lewis and Clark College, we have learned to take advantage of the opportunities that ads like Gillette’s and Nike’s provide us with to explore and expand ideas and understanding of others in a compassionate way. If these ads were non-controversial or politically sensitive, we would not be engaging in the current de-normalization process we are having just now as I type. Yes, Gillette and Nike can be somehow hypocritical at releasing a campaign of “repaying for damage done” when in other areas they are failing big time. However, we do need to admit one thing: it is about time to start the conversation on topics that affect us all, and Gillette and Nike have helped us start it even if they benefitted or not by doing so. It does not matter how we do it, for now, what matters is that we are engaging in talks about hypermasculinity and race. For this, I thank both businesses. We understand that human matters are complex, and no measures to repair the damage will come the way we had envisioned it. Especially when other forces are also in place that intersects with the topics of manhood and race that Gillette and Nike brought to light in the media. They have the funding to project these ideas; a perfect work of art in pathos, and so let us take that for what it is. Many have been touched by this, some who we could not reach with our conversations and who were successfully persuaded with Gillette and Nike’s perfect campaign targeting pathos. As for the rest, we will be developing as we go.
As a mother, I have to say, I am glad my children will get to see messages like these because, whether we like it or not, media has a major influence in all of us, particularly our youth; therefore, our future generations are fully compromised. In the end, I’ll take what I can from this hypocritical movement to facilitate the so much needed conversation.
I agree with your criticism of these advertisements and your argument is very well laid out. It is hypocritical that these companies are still engaging in not so "progressive" practices outside of the United States. I am sure they would get more positive support if they followed their advertisements tone with more action in their employee's welfare.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do agree with the comment from Cambar. These advertisements are also a great way to start conversations on these topics. This is normally the role of Hollywood in the US (they also have some methods that wouldn't be considered progressive either *cough Harvey Weinstein) but these companies have decided to add their voice to the conversation. They have the power to influence people and I do appreciate them trying to influence people this way about discrimination.
My feelings about "woke" advertisements are somewhat conflicted, because one one hand, as some of the other comments have pointed out, they promote awareness and conversations about important political issues, but on the other hand, they treat progressive ideas as a commodity. As much as I support representation in the media, I do not think that advertisements are the same as other platforms; I am uncomfortable with social movements being co-opted as a method of selling products. Buying Nike's shoes because they have latched onto political movements does not help those movements, but part of the goal of these ad campaigns is to convince people that buying their product is the same as caring about the issues they use to promote their products, or to make consumers feel like the corporation is on their side. Little is being done to dismantle the systems that contribute to inequality, and the financial success of these companies is often built on these inequalities (as you mentioned, through paying low wages, repressing unions, and using child labor). Also, the conversations that begin in response to these ads tend to be polarizing - not thoughtful debates, but internet flame wars in which both sides dig in their heels and refuse to listen to other opinions. Exploiting political issues for economic benefit is not the kind of representation that helps.
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