(Full disclosure: Yes, I’m a ball-busting, man-hating, bra-burning, hairy-legged feminist. I’m sure you’re shocked.)
(Clarification, because I know some folks will need it: I’m not actually all of those things. These are the jokes, people.)
For some brands, social involvement just makes sense. Patagonia is fighting for public lands? Of course they are. Ben and Jerry’s have been a bunch of Vermont hippies from the start. Dove’s personal-care brand flows nicely into a campaign encouraging women to love themselves. It lines up.
Sometimes, though, a brand decides to capitalize on wokeness and whiffs in a truly spectacular way. The Pepsi ad suggesting that the solution to racial strife is to share a nice, cold soda? Nope. Starbucks trying to solve racial misunderstanding with coffee cups? Hyundai demonstrating their lack of emissions by showing a man… I’m not even going to say, because it could be intensely triggering, but seriously, Hyundai? Seriously? There are plenty of ways to get it wrong — not thoroughly understanding the issue you’re jumping into, not listening to diverse voices, or even just not having the brand equity to back up your abrupt wokeitude. Socially aware advertising is a tightrope.
Some campaigns actually do get there, though — for all that it caused a lot of… let’s say impassioned conversation, Nike’s campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick was an overall success, and Always’ #LikeAGirl campaign generated tons of engagement, positive sentiment, and heartwarming imagery and messaging.
And some campaigns just about get there. They meant well, they tried hard, and only one or two little trip-ups kept them from raging success. Here are three campaigns that got pretty darn close, along with minor tweaks that could take them over the finish line.
Reebok, #BeMoreHuman
First launched in 2015 and revived in 2018, Reebok’s #BeMoreHuman campaign is a celebration of women who make a difference. Featured are women like WWB founder Reese Scott, Women’s Strength Coalition founder Shannon Kim Wagner, Movemeant Foundation founder and CEO Jenny Gaither, and Camel Assembly founder Yelda Ali, along with a number of female athletes and celebrities. The campaign includes traditional media as well as video interviews letting each woman tell her story. #BeMoreHuman encourages women to be the best version of themselves they can be.
The problem came, as it so frequently does, with having to boil complex messaging down to a simple, striking headline. Amid a collection of great executions, Reebok fumbled with an ad featuring actress, activist, and writer Danai Gurira with the copy, “We have to make our shoulders strong enough for somebody else to stand on.”
The inclusion of Gurira was widely — and rightly — praised. Between her writing, her activism, and (of course) her turn as Okoye, leader of the Dora Milaje, in the Black Panther movies, she is the very personification of strength. And the ad copy conveys a lovely sentiment, encouraging us to make ourselves strong so we can help others.
Juxtaposed with this particular photo, though, it has been criticized as a perpetuation of the “strong black woman” image, wherein black women have, since time immemorial, been expected to carry the weight and shoulder the blame for so many of society’s problems, taking the lead in family, work, politics, and activism whether they want to or not. Said writer Tanya Hayles in an article about the campaign that you really should read, “Black women have not been allowed to be their whole selves; we can’t express a full range of human emotions — lest we become the ‘Angry Black Woman.’ There’s no opportunity to relish in our strength. We are constantly asked to build up and help others, usually without reciprocation, recognition or even gratitude.”
What they could have done
Had someone in the creative department empowered to raise a hand and say, “You know, maybe we should shuffle some things around so we don’t have an ad specifically inviting people to step on a black woman.” It’s one of many reasons diversity is crucial in our industry — different perspectives make our work richer and help us pick up on inadvisable messaging we might otherwise miss. Put that same headline on an ad with Jenny Gaither instead of Danai Guirira, and now you have an ad encouraging women to use their strength to help others be strong, not encouraging black women to get good and fit so we can walk on them.
Heineken, Worlds Apart
A lot of people disagree with me on this, and the campaign was widely lauded for its woke-ness. And I do agree that it’s got good bones. The idea of putting people together and encouraging them to have conversations despite their differences is a good one. I think it would be great if more people could put aside their preconceptions and their superficial differences in the interest of true communication.
Where the Worlds Apart campaign falls short is the fact that not all differences are superficial, and they aren’t always something that can be put aside. Two people disagree on climate change? Well, I mean, besides the fact that it’s settled freaking science, at least it’s an area where debate can be had. Disagree on whether women need to remember that we’re born to be baby-makers? It’s tough, but there’s room for enlightenment.
Disagree on whether trans women are women? Now you’re sitting a trans woman down across the table from a person who basically denies her existence and asking her to defend her personhood. And even after they come together for a drink, there’s still a question of whether the man is thinking, “I’m going to have to rethink my feelings on this,” or, “I guess there’s at least one good one.”
What they could have done
Kept going. Shown that conflict. The significance of two unalike people coming together isn’t the coming together but the changes that happen because of it. When the two parties come together for a beer, what are the conversations like? ‘Cause there’s no way that one woman is sitting down for a Heineken with her new antifeminist buddy and saying, “You think I’m a man-hating baby factory, but let’s talk about sports” (and even if she isn’t not-saying it, she’s definitely not-thinking it).
I actually think the general framework of the ad is smart — pair people up, give them an icebreaking task to collaborate on, give them some prompts to get them talking on a personal level, get them working together again, and then reveal the true depths of their differences and give them an opportunity to accept each other. But it’s missing a step: the one where, now that the two people have this new and very important information about each other, they reexamine their positions together and see what that might mean for the future.
To accomplish that, this video really needs to be split into three parts, providing more time to watch each pair interact and continue the conversation over a beer. No, that doesn’t sell a nice, frosty Heineken as a solution to global strife, but it also doesn’t sell a nice, frosty Heineken as a solution to global strife.
I’d also leave out the pairing with the trans woman entirely. There’s no “meeting of the minds” there — any point at which he says, “Maybe trans women are women after all,” and she says, “Yes, but I totally understand why you might think otherwise. ‘Nother beer?” Trans people’s rights are an important issue, but a beer brand is kind of punching outside its weight class on that one.
Gillette (no relation), We Believe: The Best Men Can Be
Yeah, I know, this is a controversial one. Am I glad brands, companies, and individuals are becoming more and more aware of the harms of toxic masculinity? You bet I am. It’s awesome. Do I love that Gillette brought this up as an extension of their “the best a man can get” brand? I do! Do I think this video was the right way to handle it? No, not really.
Was it really, really, really, really close? Yes, it absolutely was.
The thing about toxic masculinity is that while, as a concept, it’s valid and important, as a term, it can be confusing to some people. “Toxic masculinity” refers to a particular subtype of masculinity that is, in contrast to the rest of masculinity, harmful to society. It doesn’t refer to all masculinity — it’s like the difference between toxic and nontoxic markers. (#NotAllMarkers.) But for people who aren’t familiar with the term, it can come across as a condemnation of all masculinity, saying that masculinity — and men in general — is, in and of itself, toxic.
To be effective, the ad needed to better make that distinction to avoid the semantic noise that put a lot of people on the defensive. The barrage of examples of toxic masculinity in the first 45 seconds really does make it look like men are terrible, violent, misogynistic monsters, and not like it’s ingrained behaviors and social norms that are at the heart of the problem. Even though the rest of the ad specifically (and rightly) addresses those behaviors and social norms, viewers were already primed to get their back up. When they ask, “Is this the best a man can get?” it’s easy to hear it as, “Good lord, men, why don’t you suck less?”
What they could have done
Pepper that first section with examples of men who aren’t bullying, harassing, overpowering, and handwaving. Have a dad be the one comforting his bullied son. Have one or two dudes at the grill who are visibly at odds with the “boys will be boys” mentality around them. Have one of the men looking at himself in the mirror look down to his adoring son standing next to him, as if thinking, Am I doing right by this kid? Show that even within an often toxic environment, men can be, and are, good. And then carry those positive behaviors forward into the more uplifting part of the video to illustrate that it’s not about burning traditional conceptions of masculinity to the ground and starting over — it’s about recognizing where we can do better and then doing that.
The video itself illustrated so many important points — #MeToo, gendered insults, sexism in the workplace, handwaving violent aggression as “boys being boys,” even just telling a woman to smile, which might seem innocuous but OH MY GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA. It was very, very good, and the reason it got so much positive attention from so many circles is that so many people can identify with the problems being portrayed and the solution being proposed. Unfortunately, that valuable messaging was kind of betrayed by the first 45 seconds of the video, and the conversation became more about man-hating than humanity-improving.
Woke or broke?
There’s a bottom line to it, though, and that’s… the bottom line. Brands aren’t charities (except, obviously, for the ones that are), and no matter how sincere they are in their social-justice alignments, they’re also out to make money. That’s one reason for the recent increase in such advertising, whether they’re truly socially aware or just straight-up woke washing.
We’re seeing, though, that done right, “woke” advertising can raise profits along with awareness. That controversial ad with Colin Kaepernick earned $6 billion for Nike — and that’s even after the avowed boycotts and people theatrically burning Nike gear on Facebook (which, like, y’all, you already paid for them. All you’ve accomplished here is destroyed your sneakers). Dove saw an increase of $1.5 billion in the first decade of its Campaign for Real Beauty. If you have a message that resonates with your audience and a cause that aligns with your brand, you can make a difference while also making money.
Just make sure your cause really does align with your brand, your campaign is executed thoughtfully, and you have the right people at every stage of the process to make sure you aren’t accidentally shooting yourself in the foot by stepping into an issue you didn’t know you didn’t understand. Saving the world starts in your creative department.
How about you? Any other campaigns that hit, missed, or just about hit the mark with socially aware advertising? Any causes that should be avoided at all cost? Let me know in comments.