Wokewashing: Ethical conundrum for brands

Brands, at the end of the day, want to make money. In this pursuit of business, making a sound brand statement is imperative in terms of consumer retention and acquisition. For this, brands often try to make a statement by ‘riding the wave’. Woke liberal wave has grappled social media recently, and has produced mixed results. Here we look at two ads that garnered unnecessary controversy for ‘trying too hard’!

Tanishq Jwellery ad

This infamous ad featured a Muslim family celebrating baby shower of a Hindu daughter-in-law. While we understand that the brand wanted to make a value statement on inter-faith harmony, ‘trying too hard’ by showing a Hindu women marrying a Muslim man with a very woke and tolerant parents-in-laws drew flak online and had to be taken off. Why? While the messaging seems to be good the optic of a Hindu woman living peacefully in a Muslim family did not go well with the religiously sentimental Indian audience.

Pepsi ad featuring Kendal Jenner

With an intention to promote unity and peace in the aftermath of growing divide in America following multiple news of police brutality, Pepsi launched an ad featuring Kendal Jenner. The plot of the ad was a pure fantasy- a supermodel offering a Pepsi to a police office while protestors watch on. Pepsi clearly tried too hard in trying to affirm its brand as an ambassador of peace and unity. In a county plagued with multiple killings and instances of police brutality, especially African Americans, the ad was criticized for trivializing what is a triggering racial flashpoint in contemporary America.

Solution to the conundrum

So why do companies engage in wokewashing when backlash to such ads is a common occurrence? Well, a simple answer to this is that it is a case of classic catch-22. While the consumers do not trust the brands for being really committed to woke issues, they demand brands to make a definitive position on socio-political issues. Today’s generation of consumers are more or less ‘belief based’ buyers. Boycotting, cancelling have become common occurrences. So, brands have no option but to continue to create wokewashing ads.

One way brands can mitigate this catch-22 conundrum is by not ‘trying too hard’. Brands often build an image around its story as well as its beliefs. Brands should be selective on what issues it aligns itself with. Simply ‘riding the wave’ can be counter-productive. For example, it will make zero sense for Nike to stand for labor rights, when it clearly exploits cheap labor from countries like Bangladesh and Phillipines. Also, it might serve well for brands to deconstruct the flaws in this recent phenomenon of cancel culture and ultra-wokeness instead of landing itself in hot waters by making a pressured attempt to placate the woke population.

Have a look at 2 other controversial ads we have covered here!