The highs and lows of corporate social equality
This week, high profile brands will once again wave the equality flag at Pride in London Festival — continuing the global trend of Pride Festivals embracing corporate sponsorship. Barclays, its headline sponsor, will be joined by Tesco, Starbucks, PwC, Virgin Atlantic and a full roster of global brands. They’ll provide much-needed funding, along with an element of commercialism which some feel doesn’t fit right with Pride’s roots as a political and social movement.
But Pride is not the only cause that brands are associating themselves with, to be assimilated with social justice and equality. Only recently, Pepsi and Heineken made headlines for their campaigns, which suggested their products can not only quench your thirst, but could even be the answer to some of society’s greatest problems; a move which earned criticism of all kinds, to which Pepsi decided to pull the ad altogether.
From Always to Adidas, Nandos to Nike, brands are using their wide-reaching influence to discuss serious issues around race, gender, sexuality, religion and disability. But, despite a long history of brands and discrimination co-existing side-by-side, for some it’s only recently that social equality has become so warmly and widely adopted into the marketing strategy.
There are various reasons why, and they all make business sense. Ethnic minorities and women, for example, now enjoy more purchasing power than ever before. Never has the LGBT community been so accepted, open and populated enough for it to be considered a target demographic.
Furthermore, it’s only now that the whole idea of being “woke” is so on-trend, that it’s gained an MTV-friendly colloquial adjective. From celebrity retweets of #blacklivesmatter and #oscarssowhite, to transgender representation on the front cover of Vanity Fair; discussions around prejudice and discrimination are becoming so widely embraced, that brands are realising, not only the moral responsibility of raising awareness of these issues, but also the business benefits of aligning their brand to them.
With this in mind, it’s easy to question the authenticity, let alone the consistency. But whatever their motives, brands’ widespread influence will have some impact, and engaging with such sensitive and complex issues could result in anything from “corporate appropriation”, offense and red-faced embarrassment, to causing genuine, positive and lasting change in society.
The ways in which brands can and do engage, range from their own internal operations, to their external communication and more. Here are three examples:
1. Staff representation and inclusion
Creating a diverse team of staff is neither easy, nor straightforward; particularly in industries which, for example, see statistically more of one sex choosing it as a career path, than the other (even if the lack of representation, it’s often argued, is a contributing factor to this). There are complications, where some will argue whether such measures are fair on those who don’t tick the required boxes.
But for companies like American Express, putting a focus on diversity in the workplace actually benefits the business overall. As one of the world’s leading companies for staff diversity and inclusion, AE claims that women comprise more than 50% of its global workforce and more than 30% of senior executives, while 43% of its senior management is diverse. Its Chief Diversity Officer (an increasingly common role within multinationals), claims that the company’s focus on diversity brings benefits in recruitment, brand loyalty and partnerships — adding to the business incentives of pushing such initiatives.
2. Advertising and brand messaging
Casting actors from diverse backgrounds, sexualities and religions can not only appeal to a more diverse audience, but — through a campaign’s mainstream reach — can also challenge and help to break down societal stereotypes; from Maltesers’ hugely successful disability campaign, to same sex couples in ads for Lloyds, H&M, Cheerios and Adidas.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, reactions to such campaigns are both mixed and prominent, giving brands the opportunity to normalise and use such campaigns to dilute stereotypes. In 2016, Unilever reacted to research showing the distinctly low numbers of women portrayed in adverts as intelligent, funny or in positions of power, with a strategy designed to remove all gender stereotypes from its campaigns; a huge move, considering Unilever’s advertising reach, across 400 brands in around 190 countries. More recently, the company has continued this push in unveiling the Unstereotype Alliance, alongside UN Women and the likes of Facebook, Google and Mars, aiming to banish gender stereotypes across all advertising and brand-led content.
But as Heineken and Pepsi have attempted, brands are going one step further than just representation, placing these issues at the core of their brand message and campaigns. In doing so, the content is as inspiring as some of the most influential product campaigns ever created; with companies like Nike portraying the message through celebrities, emotive narration, epic camerawork and Alicia Keys on vocals. It’s not just engaging — it’s aspirational. It has the potential to change attitudes and behaviour, as advertisers have been doing for years; only, in this instance, that change in attitude has the potential to go much further.
3. Direct contribution
Alongside video content and even LGBT-inspired product ranges, Nike is not only raising awareness, but funding and working closely with groups and charities actively working in these spaces. Its work with PeacePlayers International, which aims to unite divided communities through sport; and MENTOR, which provides youth mentoring in communities throughout America; is not only relevant to its youth culture brand, but authenticated through the diversity of its staff.
Barclays, headline sponsor of Pride in London for the fourth year running, places a big public focus on diversity as a high-profile part of its greater strategy. As part of the UN HeForShe campaign, a global activation designed to engage men and boys in gender equality, Barclays commits to increase representation of women in senior leadership, embed gender equality within the company culture, processes and policies and supports a number of projects around the world — offering financial inclusion programmes for women, sponsoring HeForShe events, and providing staff as volunteers for women’s charities.
These examples offer more than just aligning the brand with social issues, or taking responsibility for a company’s own internal staff diversity. It’s an active engagement with communities, using the brands’ widespread influence to directly contribute to social change.
Keeping it authentic
In any situation, the key to a brand’s success is its authenticity. From music to sport, if you don’t truly understand the emotions of the issues you’re dealing with and are not living it as part of your purpose, your audience will instantly call you out for it.
This is particularly important when it comes to issues around social equality, because — no matter what die-hard fans will tell you — the emotional connection, in this instance, runs deeper into people’s identity than any DJ or footballer ever could.
For those who disagree with the ethics, this could perhaps provide an opportunity to apply pressure on businesses to ensure they’re living the promise their campaigns are promoting, as well as other CSR commitments.
For brands themselves, success will be determined not only by the quality of the communication, but by the authenticity — not just ticking boxes, but creating genuinely open and inclusive working environments; keeping campaigns relevant and ensuring it truly understands the sensitivities and complexities of the issues for which it’s claiming to fight.
As Pepsi and Heineken have recently discovered, the results can vary. But if executed properly, brands’ engagement in social equality has the potential to not only benefit them as a business, but society as a whole.