No easy answers - Can branding save the world?
- Andrew Conroy
- Jun 10
- 3 min read
Branding really does seem to get everywhere. From the second our alarm jolts us into the new day, our senses are battling a rearguard action against the onslaught of logos, designs, jingles and slogans that are part of brands’ relentless mission to insinuate themselves into our affections. As Adam Arvidsson says, ‘For the big brands, the ideal is ubiquity: to make the brand part of the environment of life itself, no different from water and electricity.’
Although branding has a long history, the brandscape as we know it has more recent origins. In her seminal No Logo, Naomi Klein says:
The astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multi-national corporations can be traced back to a single, seemingly innocuous idea developed by management theorists in the mid-1980s: that successful corporations must produce brands, as opposed to products.
While eager to be seen as creative and at the cutting-edge of the zeitgeist, brands have historically been conservative and reluctant to take a position on divisive social and political issues. Not anymore: brands are falling over themselves to offer their hot takes on everything from the environment and war to gender politics and sexuality. Jessica Vredenburg et al call this ‘brand activism’, a ‘marketing tactic for brands seeking to stand out in a fragmented marketplace by taking public stances on social and political issues.’
In 2020, Ben and Jerry's offered a textbook example of brand activism, wading into an issue that cuts to the heart of a divided America:
Four years ago, we stated our support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Today, we want to be even more clear about the urgent need to take concrete steps to dismantle white supremacy in all its forms.
They’re not alone. In a rapidly expanding field, Gillette took on toxic masculinity, while Burger King’s ‘Proud Whopper’ - a rainbow-striped variant on the regular Whopper - lent its support to LGBTQ+ communities, declaring that ‘We are all the same inside.’
Given brands’ entanglement with the profit motive, it’s easy to regard this turn as a cynical, performative attempt to extract cash from consumers. As Marco Scalvini argues, ’brand activism also risks encouraging a superficial engagement with social causes.’ Henry Jenkins reads brand activism as self-interest born of existential necessity: ‘if brands aren’t keeping track of the diversity of the culture around them, they’re going to fail to communicate by the year 2060, probably by the year 2050.’ It also doesn’t take much to critique individual brands who broadcast their ethical credentials. Smirnoff’s Equalising Music campaign - ‘aimed at establishing gender parity across the music industry’ - may have been laudable, but it couldn’t erase the brand’s history of casual sexism. The Proud Whopper offered a message of LGBTQ+ solidarity but the campaign’s videos produced millions of those all-important views, even though the burger itself was only available from its San Francisco branch during Pride Week.
Nevertheless, culture is peculiar, often producing unintended consequences, and focusing solely on corporate production overlooks what people ‘do’ with brands. Once released, brand messages can be reinterpreted and woven into lived experience in ways that are often unpredictable. What initially looks like cynical marketing may, however subtly, contribute to a wider shift in what can be said, done, felt or imagined. Burger King profited enormously from the Proud Whopper but its intervention into LGBTQ+ discourse added to the wider field through which sexual identities are recognised and negotiated. Equally, for all its detractors, Gillette’s tackling of toxic masculinity gave visibility and symbolic weight to more ‘progressive’ notions of maleness that are resistant to ‘alpha’ politics. This doesn’t redeem branding, nor absolve corporations of their structural connections to profit and inequality, but it does underline how branding’s ‘effects’ can exceed the intentions of those charged with constructing brands.
In a time of uncertainty and confusion, when politicians struggle to convince voters that they can deliver meaningful change, brands are stepping into the spotlight, positioning themselves as arbiters of moral and social authority. Whether this signals a meaningful shift in the role of corporations in public life, or simply a more sophisticated mode of marketing that’s effective at leveraging tension and crisis to its advantage, is up for debate. What is clear, however, is that branding is no longer content to just sell products; it now wants to shape the terms through which the social world is understood.
Should we celebrate this?
Can branding save the world?
Can its activism resonate with audiences in meaningful ways?
Or does it take the logic of privatisation into new, worrying territories and potentially diminish the authority of public institutions?
Does brand activism reduce politics to ‘content’?
Is it extending branding’s power in ways that should invite serious criticism? Are corporations in a position to lecture the public on fairness and inclusion?
Come along to No Easy Answers at 6pm on Weds 17th June and let us know what you think.
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