(upbeat music)
- (Helen) What’s up guys? Helen here. Today, I want to talk about that weird feeling I
get in the pit of my stomach when Hulu feeds me an ad like this:
- (Narrator) Bullying, the #MeToo movement, toxic masculinity.
- (Helen) That’s right: Advertising, but make it woke. Woke advertising has become
an increasingly omnipresent phenomenon in our media landscape. It’s not enough to
sell a hamburger, you gotta sell a mental health revolution
Now I’m not saying I prefer the gross advertisements
of yesteryear or even any ads at all. However, if you’re cynical like us, you probably
feel a little weird about your bath soap being imbued with progressive new ideas about womanhood.
In the interest of maintaining a healthy skepticism towards anyone who’s ultimately trying to
sell me more stuff, I’ve been wondering: why does every advertisement lately seem to
come furnished with a political message? And what does it mean for us?
Welcome to this Wisecrack Edition on How Advertising Got Woke.
- (Helen) We have to start by asking: what
exactly IS a woke ad? Is it when Spaghetti O’s tweets about Pearl Harbor? Or is it
more when IKEA decides to feature a gay couple in 1994? Or is it when Nike pays Colin Kaepernick
to be a spokesperson precisely because of his activism? We’d argue that woke advertising
is defined by its invocation of social causes and social movements of a given moment - especially
those affiliated with progress and social change. So sorry Spaghetti Os, you’re not
woke. That’s not to say conservative brands don’t also try to capitalize on the politics
of their consumers. But nobody would call that woke. Especially these days, woke ads
typically focus on identity-based issues surrounding race, gender, sexuality, disabilities and
so forth. In this way, the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad is “woke” because it INTENDED
to align itself with Black Lives Matter, it just failed hilariously. Under this definition,
the Secret deodorant ad in the 1970s “strong enough for a man, made for a woman” was
probably somewhat woke for the feminist movement at the time, but the same ethos in a CoverGirl
ad in 2020? Probably not. There’s also the question of whether, say, showing a female
executive in an ad is some “woke” affirmation of girlbosses or just you know, what professional
life is like today.
Now, a lot of you might be screaming “all
advertising is self-interested, you big dumb-dumb!” - companies are just trying to sell stuff
to as many people as possible, regardless of skin color, sexual orientation or gender.
They’re just getting with the times, and targeting their customers accordingly - whether
that’s two dudes putting their relationship through the gauntlet of building Ikea furniture
together or just this guy who needs an energy drink for gamers. Or whoever needs this pink
gamer chair. But, economic reasons aside - what if it’s just really bad for society?
Advertisements, like any form of visual or
literary storytelling, have ALWAYS been laden with values. They are reflections of our culture
- and if our culture wants you to move to the burbs and raise a family - that’s what
they’re gonna reflect. Or, if society wants you to get rich and hot, ads will also
reflect that. But as values change, ads naturally do too. As a result, and contrary to popular
belief, “woke advertising” is not at all a new phenomenon. It’s pretty old.
Historically, most woke advertising,, appealed to women overwhelmingly white, by reflecting
various stages of the feminist movement, as explained by Andi Zeisler, author of “We
Were Feminists Once.” In the late 19th and early 20th century, when some younger women
were feeling stifled by Victorian notions of idealized womanhood, advertisers piggybacked
off the existing feminist notion of the emancipated “New Woman,” by frequently depicting young
independent galz who bucked against Victorian norms and even served on juries! The New Woman
was, according to Zeisler, essentially a watered-down, more palatable suffragette who - surprise
- liked buying things.
This conflict, - between the advertiser-friendly New Woman and the ruckus-raising, hunger-striking
suffragette - is at the heart of the problem with woke advertising. And it is maybe best
illustrated by the “Torches of Freedom” campaign, which very publicly debuted during
a parade in 1929. It was masterminded by one Edward Bernays, the creator of modern public
relations, and Sigmund Freud’s nephew. Bernays believed that people bought things not based
on what they needed, but based on the FEELINGS a given commodity inspired. So he organized
a stunt to sell cigarettes to women” who were typically looked down upon if they smoked
outside of their homes. He paid a group of debutantes to light up during New York’s
Easter Day Parade, and made sure the event was both captured by the press and interpreted
as a protest for women’s rights. Cigarettes were no longer just for men, they were “Torches
of Freedom” symbolizing female emancipation. Fittingly, the cigarette industry would adapt
its ads for the next phase of the women’s movement, 40 years later, when Virginia Slims
told women “you’ve come a long way baby” as they sold them cancer sticks.
That 1968 tagline was in itself a response
to a growing threat for advertisers: feminists no longer interested in traditional beauty
standards, housework and so on might end up buying less lipstick and clorox!
So some savvy brands, like Charlie perfume, made like advertisers of yore and incorporated
elements of the feminist movement - depicting a liberated, bold woman who held down a job
and looked good while doing it - without explicitly using “controversial” feminist language.
In all of these examples, we can see one of the first dangers of “woke” advertising:
It dilutes the political message of a movement. Women, who were LITERALLY NOT ALLOWED TO
APPLY FOR A CREDIT CARD without a male undersigner - were asked to redirect their attention to
buying the feminist perfume or the emancipatory cigarette. Why march at all when you can consume?
Fittingly, a similar phenomenon happened to black Americans. Before the Civil Rights Movement
and the rise of the black middle class in the 1950s, advertising to people of color
was virtually non-existent. Advertisers had simply always targeted white Americans. Viewed
in that framework, mainstream ads showing black people at all was, at face value, sadly
kind of progressive. Some of the first companies to even advertise in black-run newspapers
were .. you guessed it, cigarette companies.
The reason they did it is pretty instructive. Internal documents for tobacco company Brown
& Williamson report that, in the case of black and Hispanic communities, the “relatively
small and often tightly knit [minority] community can work to B&W’s marketing advantage, if
exploited properly.” And just like with the feminist movement, as the burgeoning civil
rights movement made headway, ads began co-opting imagery associated with Black Power, none
more bluntly than this 1970 JC Penney Ad that reads “Slack Power”. As historian Stuart
Ewen put it at the time, “the advertising industry, seeking markets, has generated a
mass culture which reflects the spirits but not the cutting edge of this resistance.”
But by the 1980s, our contemporary brand of woke advertising was really coming into its
own - again aimed primarily at white women, in what Zeisler calls “empowertising.”
This was a time when consumer choices exploded and consumption “became elevated as a measure
of liberation.” As cultural historian and media critic Susan J. Douglas put it: “ elitism
and narcissism merged in a perfect appeal to forget the political already, and get back
to the personal, which you might be able to do something about.” Specifically, by buying
those designer eyeglasses, you could change your small corner of the world. Ads would
continue to capitalize off of feminist critiques of mass consumer culture, as seen in this
Nike ad campaign in the early 90s. What’s so interesting about this ad is the way it
specifically invokes the pain of women living in a world that judges them overwhelmingly
by their appearance. Rather than being judged by “curves,” it reads, a woman should
be judged “by who she is and who she is trying to become.” This leads us to another
serious problem with woke advertising: If all advertising sells dreams, woke ads tend
to sell the dream of respect and equality. Reading this ad stirs real emotions, literally
making Oprah cry on air. Ads sell solutions - whether it’s for your leaky whatever or
your untoned arms. The solution Nike is selling, in this case, is the solution to sexism. You’re
not buying a running shoe made in a sweatshop, you’re buying equality and respect. The
guiding principle: Shopping but make it feminist. It’s also worth noting that the “feminism”
of nike was anything but. As a coalition of women’s groups said at the time: 'While
the women who wear Nike shoes in the United States are encouraged to perform their personal
best, the Indonesian, Vietnamese and Chinese women making the shoes often suffer from inadequate
wages, corporal punishment, forced overtime and/or sexual harassment.'
Women weren’t the only group being targeted
by woke advertising at the turn of the century, though. The aforementioned IKEA ad was only
the first of many active campaigns by corporations to court so-called “queer dollars.” As
author Alexandra Chasin explains in her book “Selling Out”, such courting of the queer
“market” was said to signal an end to homophobia. This can most visibly be seen
in the rise of everything “rainbow” in recent decades, an effective co-opting of
the rainbow flag designed by gay activist Gilbert Baker in the late 70s. Everything
from rainbow underwear to rainbow Instagram images to rainbow Chipotle burritos purport
to celebrate queerness, while really elevating the simple act of buying shit. Guac is, and
will always be, extra. As Chasin put it when describing rainbow clothes, “the reduction
of politics to style implies that consumption can amount to political change.”
Attempts to imbue advertising with woke messaging became increasingly more explicit throughout
the 2000s, best exemplified by the ubiquity of “This is what a feminist looks like”
shirts, which literalize the notion that buying the right thing signals your commitment to
the cause of women’s rights.
And in the past 5 years, as feminism has become increasingly less taboo, advertising that
co-opts feminist language has become all but ubiquitous. That’s not surprising: Woke
advertising generally supports the status quo, with risk-averse corporations typically
choosing to piggyback off of existing social change rather than furthering it. In this
lens, it's no surprise that Beyonce’s 2014 “feminist” VMAs moment was followed by
an EXPLOSION of brands invoking feminism. Queen Bee made it safe, and advertising followed.
What’s really interesting about these ads is that they have nothing to do with the product
- and everything to do with exploring the pain and oppression women and girls face.
Dubbed #femvertising for their purportedly feminist messaging, these ads almost guaranteed
to tug at the heartstrings. This is already a reason to be wary - remember Edward Bernays
- it’s not about the product, it’s about the way the product makes you FEEL, and if
these sanitary napkins make you feel sad for the way your 12 year old self was pigeonholed,
you’re more likely to buy them.
Perhaps after seeing the rampant success of femvertising, corporations have in recent
years begun to explicitly draw on black activism for “inspiration.” A Proctor and Gamble
ad from 2017 shows several black parents talking to their children about the racism they will
inevitably encounter. It concludes by imagining a world where such conversations are not necessary.
As with women’s ads, these ads draw on real pain, while offering wish fulfillment by imagining
a less racist future. Sound a little manipulative? Never is this more apparent than in that widely
panned Pepsi ad, in which Kendall Jenner dissolves tensions between the police and protestors
with a can of soda. Ironically, this ad functions like a much less subtle version
of 1971’s “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.” Aired in the midst of the Vietnam
War and massive social upheaval, it simply implied that if everyone chilled out with
a carbonated beverage - wars and stuff wouldn’t happen.
- (Crowd, singing) I'd like to buy the world a Coke / And keep it company!
- (Helen) It went on to receive countless accolades, inspired fan mail, and as a song
even charted in several countries. But the Jenner Pepsi ad somehow crossed a threshold
of believability by making all too obvious the implication: that a Pepsi could end racism...
On the other hand, brands are also eager to exploit the credibility earned by activists
to sell more stuff.
Advertisers today are dealing with similar
issues that they faced from social issues of the last century. But maybe a little more
so. Millennial and Gen Z consumers overwhelmingly say that they prefer to buy from brands that
share their values or “have a higher” purpose. That is, we want to know that our
coffee is helping some farmer in Nicaragua send their kids to school or that our beans
do or don’t support the right presidential candidate. But there’s another force pushing
this change. Today, products are increasingly disappearing from advertisements, which instead
promote the more nebulous “brand.” Scholar Nicki Lisa Cole ties this transformation to
the increased outsourcing of production, leaving corporations progressively more detached from
the actual products they made. As Cole puts it: “companies used to stand on a product.
That was your name, the product you made. But when you don’t actually make the product,
you have to come up with something else to sell to people” That thing, of course, is
a brand, and in many cases, a hashtag-woke brand.
As a result, brands are doing another new
thing, something we’ve mentioned in previous videos mentioned in our last advertising video:
they’re becoming people. “Woke” people. The rise of social media has enabled a host
of new, usually painful, ways for brands to interact with potential consumers. And interact
they do, especially if it means making themselves look noble: Brands increasingly are placing
themselves in the center of flashpoint cultural issues. A Bloomberg analysis found that, within
three weeks of the murder of George Floyd, 76 of the world’s “Top 100” brands had
posted at least one corporate statement about racial justice. In this Instagram post, Visa
managed to incorporate two phrases iconic to its advertising -- turning its slogan “everywhere
you want to be” into “where we want to be” and slyly including part of their messaging:
“accepted everywhere.” Meanwhile, Zara, the fast fashion company made infamous in
2016 for profiting off of child labor, posted a black square that mostly yielded impatient
comments from customers complaining about late shipping. This queasy moment encapsulates
the uneasy relationship between commerce and social justice. While some saw the quote unquote
blackout as great for PR, many criticized it as co-opting a campaign conceived by black
musicians and activists, who were drowned out amidst a sea of corporate-sponsored and
performative black squares. When the CEO of JP Morgan Chase “took a knee” to invoke
Colin Kaepernick, diversity consultant Y-Vonne Hutchinson responded by telling the Washington
Post that: “There’s a lot of performative allyship going around. Nobody’s asking for
a CEO to take a knee. You take the knee after you change your policies.” And of course,
as with feminism, it’s not a coincidence that this outpouring of corporate support
comes at a time when calls and support for ending police brutality is at an all time
high. In other words, they’ll support Black Lives Matter when it's least controversial,
most convenient and financially safe to do so.
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