The global ad firm J. Walter Thompson recently conducted research into Americans’ attitudes toward commercial brands that take stances on political issues. In a cross-generational group of respondents, 88 percent agreed with the firm’s proposition that corporations have the power to influence social change; 78 percent of them agreed that companies “should take action to address the important issues facing society.” And Millennials were particularly pro-action. As Lucie Greene, the worldwide director of the Innovation Group at JWT, summed things up to me: “In these times, actually, it’s becoming more important for brands to take a point of view.” Not just because brands have the power to effect change, but because people want them—expect them—to use it.
It’s an insight on display in ads that conclude with entreaties to “open your heart to everyone”; it’s also on display in the spate of recent commercials that have functioned as overt (if also sometimes covert) political advocacy. During the 2017 Super Bowl, Airbnb aired a spot—and an accompanying hashtag—featuring a series of different faces flashing onscreen as a background to text that read: “No matter who you are … no matter where you’re from … who you love … or who you worship … we all belong. The world is more beautiful the more you accept.” That ad aired on TV around the same time as the Budweiser commercial that celebrates immigration. And the 84 Lumber ad that (maybe?) did the same. And the Audible ad that features Zachary Quinto reading a line from Nineteen Eighty-Four: “If he were allowed contact with foreigners … the sealed world in which he lives would be broken.” [...]
It’s notable, though, that morality-via-marketing is trending during a time that has also brought “fake news” and “alternative facts” and general epistemic panic to the minds of many Americans. Public faith in “the media” and its institutions is, at the moment, extremely low, in some part expressly because that media and its institutions have engaged in the kind of subtle sermonizing these ads are now engaging in. And companies, at the same time, are more powerful than ever: Facebook has more users than the most populous country in the world. Its CEO has recently been talking like a presidential contender. “It used to be that brands, by definition, tried to play it safe, or be apolitical,” JWT’s Lucie Greene told me. Now, she said, “we’re looking to brands to be some sort of port in the storm.”
No comments:
Post a Comment