When we think back to the past few years, there are a few advertisements that really stand out. Two that we should examine more closely are the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad of 2017 and Colin Kaepernick Nike ad of 2018. In case anybody doesn’t remember, the ads played out as follows: Kendall Jenner is doing a photoshoot when a nondescript protest erupts. She decides to join and offers a policeman a pepsi. He accepts, a photographer gets the perfect shot, world peace. The Colin Kaepernick ad features a photo of the football player with the text “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”
Both of these advertisements relied on the same strategy. Coolhunters today have probably figure out the newest thing teens care about: political awareness or, as I’ll refer to it for the sake of brevity, wokeness. While, obviously, not all teens care about or even like wokeness, the fact is, it has become a widespread marketing tactic. From Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign to Ram’s “Built to Serve” campaign (where they used a MLK speech to sell cars), brands realized that the (liberal) consumer is ready to celebrate a company that acts woke.
If this is all so, why did the two ads mentioned earlier have such different levels of success? The main reason is authenticity. As we learned in “The Merchants of Cool”, kids don’t like it when they are advertised to and will resist it. Companies can’t dictate cool, teens do. Kaepernick really did begin a political movement by kneeling during the political anthem, he really did stand by the ideas that teens think are cool. Jenner, however, was never known as “woke”, so her joining a protest seemed even more disingenuous. Kaepernick's ad also referenced a specific problem and specific political movement while the Pepsi ad was vague and superficial in order to avoid controversy, which ultimately backfired. In general, the Nike ad seemed more honest since it was based n real life and featured a real person (some) teens already looked up to for standing up to social injustice, while Pepsi was overtly exploiting the movement. The Nike ad had authenticity, which is what really makes something cool.
There is a problem, however, with using wokeness in advertisements. It is like selling Che Guevara t-shirts, it goes against all that he stood for. Martin Luther King warned about the deception of advertising in the same speech that was used in the Ram ad. Companies are willing to take over social movements that are focused on people and rights to sell goods, as we can also see in the commercialization of pride. While there is nothing wrong with a company supporting the rights of marginalized people, when they used social movements and wokeness to advertise, that isn’t who they are doing. Brands focus not on helping people, but on making money. While Nike’s ad shows Kapernick, it send the message that it supports his kneeling in protest of police brutality against African Americans, while, in reality, it doesn’t. Nike has a contract for uniforms and apparel with the NFL. The same NFL that now punishes players like Kaepernick for kneeling during the anthem. That and the slew of other human rights abuses by Nike shows that they don’t actually care about the Black Lives Matter movement, they just care about the money it could bring.
It is truly remarkable how good brands have been at appealing to teens by appearing woke. Companies seem to have gotten better at appearing sincere, especially when they aren’t afraid of the backlash that conservatives may have to their “woke” ads. In truth, the only reason they stand by their point is that they can gain more liberal customers than lose conservative ones.
As we learned, however, trends die when advertisers get to them. While political awareness is unlikely to go away, teens will probably eventually realize just how insincere the corporations that act woke are and, when that happens, companies will find another way to appeal to teens.
https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/27/news/companies/nike-nfl-gear-contract/index.html https://www.thedailybeast.com/nfl-adopts-policy-punishing-teams-for-kneeling-during-anthem
I completely agree with you on this one! There is a complete difference between a genuine advertisement being backed for its merits as oppose to for its motive to sell products. However, I would say that Nike's choice in selling this ad, selling this campaign is to help sell his dream, a dream that really relates with their goal of "Just Do It." While Nike can be commended for taking a step in supporting Kaepernick, it would be foolish of us to ignore the substantial upside they receive from this campaign.
ReplyDeleteGreat article about this: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/09/nike-kaepernick/569371/
I agree with you as well! Authenticity and honesty in an advertisement can really help sell a product. However, as you said, no matter how a video tries to advocate for some organization or message, those videos are not public service campaigns - they are ads. The increasingly progressive messages used in ads is meant to entice the more liberal younger generation and as you put it, producers are trying to be more "woke."
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ReplyDeleteI think your connections between advertising and these companies, especially Nike, are very important to analyze. I think Nike's recent advertising campaign with Colin Kaepernick is genius. By using Kaepernick, a very well-known figure in today's world, Nike can directly engage audiences based off their interests. Similarly to what we have learned about Frank Lutz in the marketing documentaries we watched in class, Nike chooses words that emotionally appeal to audiences in attempt to convince people to buy their product. We can see the benefits of this type of advertising based off of Nike's stock trading at an all time high.
ReplyDeleteYour blog post about companies capitalizing on political awareness in their advertising campaigns reminded me of an Airbnb commercial titled "We Accept". This advertisement aired shortly after President Trump temporarily closed the U.S. borders to refugees, and it showed people of all different nationalities and the words "We believe no matter who you are, where you're from, who you love or who you worship, we all belong. The world is more beautiful the more you accept." Airbnb not only managed to advertise themselves through this commercial, but also managed to respond to President Trump's actions and spread their beliefs to a wide audience.
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