THE WALK

Americana, she has that moment about LGBTQIA+ people. And that she’s gonna get for taking a it’s really good for your brand to brands were like Taylor Swift.”

Run for Something

Communities function best when consensus can be reached through independent enquiry – something that’s only possible with a shared worldview, through which discussions and eventually decisions can be framed. Fractured systems of thought lead to competing stances, which can birth healthy discussion and innovation on the one hand, disinformation and conspiracy theories on the other. Arguably, presenting a unifying and clear stance is the ultimate end game in communication, commercial or political: by articulating how an organisation sees society, comms can express its purpose in context.

With consistent application and coherent messaging, statements about specific causes on a shared cultural agenda feel natural rather than insincere. Crafted to deepen a brand’s story, contemporary campaigns have done an aboutface from the traditional marketing that sought to maintain neutrality at all costs. With this new status quo demanding a degree of outspokenness from businesses, it pays to be precise about who you’re addressing and why – but bandwagonjumpers, beware. Today’s consumer might expect their favourite brands to share their values, but insincerity is the gravest sin of all.

If that balance feels out of reach from business’s time-honoured starting line, that’s because it is: embodying progressive values without seeming performative is almost impossible in the traditional landscape of print ads and slick campaigns –luckily, the terrain is changing along with the currency. Demographic trends in news sourcing mean that younger audiences are best reached digitally; with influencers replacing traditional media for those cohorts, organisations who want to keep up are adapting to a new – less centralised, less rigid – educational landscape. In the online ecosystem, it’s easier than ever for consumers to hold brands to account, but it’s also never been easier for corporations to interact with their consumers about the things that matter to them.

“L’Oreal decided to fire Munroe Bergdorf because she spoke out against white supremacy. And then three years later, when the Black Lives Matter movement started to escalate, they decided to create a campaign which said, “speaking out is worth it”. There was this whole Twitter storm, and L’Oreal had to apologise to Munroe directly and bring her on board as a consultant. And I think that is literally the best microcosm for this issue in the comms industry – you have brands making blanket statements, without realising what their history is or making connections to the reality of what they’ve been doing for so many years.”

Answers