Woke Brand

Until relatively recently, people wanted to buy high quality cameras, low maintenance, reliable, safe cars, and comfortable, soft, and durable shoes and active wear. In 2022, we want to buy a camera (to capture scenes of social injustice), shoes (that weren’t made using child labour) and cars (that emit minimal carbon and are safe for the environment). Likewise, we purchase ‘animal-friendly’ vegan handbags (that are not associated with animal cruelty) and use ride-sharing services (that promise not to exploit their drivers). Even if it means accepting a suboptimal or pricey product or service (in short term), we are increasingly happy to make personal sacrifices to help create a better world.

That’s why the commercial world is moving toward broadcasting its humane values and higher purpose and competing on virtue rather than price or quality. We all have seen many examples of brands becoming social justice warriors and attempting to solve some of humanity’s most intractable and deepest social and political issues overnight.
You might have started wondering if the commercial world is moving too fast. You’ve almost certainly begun wondering what the right thing to do is and what the role of a commercial brand is regarding addressing sociopolitical, environmental and legal issues. Should a brand get engaged in those issues at all? If so, when and why should they engage? How far they should go? And whose interests should take precedence – members of historically oppressed groups or loyal customers or employees or shareholders? What is the right balance? if it is even possible to balance these interests effectively?
Then there is the most important question of all, at least for brand and marketing managers – what is the risk of damaging the brand by trying too hard to change the status quo? Won’t the brand be considered desperate and opportunistic? That often leads to another perplexing question – what was so wrong with corporate social responsibility (CSR)? Why do growing numbers of businesses and brands now feel the need to become woke.
You keep wondering about all those questions and then you hear that a brand like Ben & Jerry’s has announced it will stop selling ice cream in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. You may be incredulous at the thought of an ice-cream brand sanctioning its customers and parachuting into a hugely divisive political and religious conflict. Surely, that’s risky?
If you’re a brand manager, you realise you’ve been thinking about a range of possibilities for your next marketing and branding move and that none of them was about, for instance, improving the quality of offerings, or launching an innovative new product or service, or removing a pain point in customer experience.
You sense that maybe you should leapfrog all of this and find a non-functional focus for your next campaign. You intuit that functional offerings are dated and no one will fall in love with your brand if you try to just sell functionality.
You start looking around, searching for the best recent examples. You soon notice most campaigns are now aspirational and motivational. Lots of them are also controversial! It becomes apparent to you that people aren’t just buying products or services anymore. Instead, they’re buying inspiring quotes and emotionally arousing messages.
You continue thinking about creative ideas for your next branding move. You keep going back to not promoting product features but rather championing humane values. You realise consumers are no longer interested in a shampoo that makes their hair shinier, they want one that is inclusive, and will help end racism or help prevent global warming.
Congratulations! Your thoughts are officially starting to become woke.
Woke branding has become the new wave that brand and marketing managers can no longer avoid. Avoid going woke, and your brand risks irrelevancy, especially with younger consumers. Go woke, and you’re likely to experience a backlash.
In getting woke, fighting discrimination, and questioning the status quo, there are questions to ask, steps to follow and considerations to take note of. This book unpacks the dynamics of woke branding, identifies the ingredients of wokeness, and offers a roadmap for those wanting to walk into the uncertain world of wokeness with minimal risk.
This book is the outcome of three years of active listening and monitoring of the public conversation. I’ve analysed hundreds of thousands of comments left on social media, and many online debates about woke (or woke-ish) branding moves.
This book is neither a pro-woke nor an anti-woke polemic. Instead, with the appropriate critical distance, it presents a range of different views about wokeness.
There are several characters, ranging from the woke to the indifferent to the decidedly non-woke. You may find yourself resonating more closely with one of the following four characters more than others.
• Non-believer Opposer
• Die-hard Supporter
• Interpreter
• Care-less

Wherever you fall on this woke to anti-woke persona, I hope this book will provide you with practical insights into topics such as the difference between CSR, purpose, and woke, woke authenticity, woke sacrifice and many other concepts.
If you’re weighing the risks of engaging in woke moves and aren’t sure about the dynamics of consumer response and the steps to take, then this book is for you.