Bailey Bellingy is a behavioural analyst at Canvas8. After completing a BSc in social sciences, she joined the world of cultural insights. Throughout her degree, Bailey gained experience across social research methods, focusing on sociology, gender, and race studies. With experience on a range of qualitative projects, her practice focuses on incorporating diverse narratives. Outside of Canvas8, she can be found stocking up on Glossier or browsing Jane’s Patisserie for recipes.


People are operating with a heightened perception of value

Critical Spenders

People are drawn to honesty and integrity in the post-truth era

Radical Transparency 

People expect brands to rise to society’s challenges

Shared Values

As the Russo-Ukrainian War and conflict in the Middle East continue, scrutiny of brand sensitivity has skyrocketed. With companies like 

 and M&S facing backlash for insensitive campaigns and clumsy apologies, consumers are demonstrating a readiness to boycott brands at any hint of wrongdoing or oversight. 

These controversies come against a backdrop of Google slashing its DE&I programs amid broader tech layoffs and rollbacks across industries. 

Forbes

CNBC

With more people going to the polls in 2024 than in any previous year and right-wing populist parties expanding their share of votes in Europe, pressure on brands is set to ramp up yet again. 

Bloomberg

Pew Research Center

With 55% of UK consumers disagreeing that businesses can avoid being political, people are demanding that companies take a stand on candidates and proposed policies. 

Edelman

While we tend to focus on the brands that move first and shout the loudest in these spaces, the ‘activism adjacent’ brands can appeal to consumers disaffected by what they see as ‘woke washing’. Despite 88% of US Gen Zers agreeing that companies have a responsibility to address major social issues, consumers are unlikely to trust these commitments without evidence. 

APCO Worldwide

For example, only 23% of Britons take businesses' eco policies at face value. 

Sensu

 In 2023, conversation and controversy arose surrounding the moves of brands such as M&M’s and 

 and their efforts to promote diversity. 

Marketing Dive

 With backlash coming from all sides of the political spectrum, both companies revoked their moves, which reified perceptions of inauthenticity. This is not a new formula; brands have long attempted activism and long failed to get it right. But as consumers increasingly demand they take a stance amid widening polarisation, a year of contentious elections and political change requires that brands prepare well and understand the sentiments of their core audiences.

To understand how brands can engage with activism while maintaining credibility, Dr. Abas Mirzaei, a senior lecturer in marketing at Macquarie Business School, and his colleagues, Dr. Dean Wilkie (Adelaide Business School) and Dr. Helen Siuki (Macquarie Business School), conducted a research study into the science of ‘woke’ brand activism authenticity. They published their findings in the 

under the title ‘Woke brand activism authenticity or the lack of it’. Canvas8 spoke to Mirzaei to determine what measures make brand activism sing for consumers.

Why is this topic important to understand?

Companies have two options to seek legitimacy; one is to go down the path of better quality products and experiences, satisfying the functional needs of their consumers – or the competence path. The other is to signal we also care for society – or the warmth path. The balance in the past few decades has been mostly leaning towards competence. But now we see more companies offering a better balance, moving towards warmth to seek legitimacy. At the same time, certain parts of society have been struggling and suffering from centuries-old challenges, and there has been a growing consciousness towards, 'Hey, don't just sell a product to me; tell me where it comes from and what the process was'.

This tension has been around for many centuries, but society reached a tipping point. The tipping point to connect the dots of consumer consciousness, society's ongoing tensions, and companies' responsibilities was the killing of George Floyd in 2020. It initiated a new era in marketing, branding, and social responsibility. All of a sudden, society's expectations were significantly heightened, and the message in all of that was, enough is enough. Words won't cut it anymore. Walk the talk; no hypocrisy. When it comes to wokeness and high-tension social issues with different perspectives charged by political ideologies towards DE&I, it becomes totally different to CSR or brand purpose. Whatever you know about authenticity and its dimensions is technically irrelevant to the context of 'woke'.

How did you go about conducting this study?

This paper on woke authenticity was exploratory research – when you go in with no biases and no pre-assumptions. It was more like an inductive approach. You want to learn by reading and then come up with themes of conversation. I was really thirsty to see what broad things people were having conversations about, so I read comments manually and then used software to analyse around 80,000 comments, coming up with broad themes of discussion.

I wanted to know what was happening. In 2018, Nike's 'Dream Crazy' campaign was launched, and a few months later, Gillette launched its 'The Best a Man Can Be' campaign, but the latter didn't land. The main difference was that Gillette's campaign didn't have any element of social relevance or social currency, while Nike's campaign incorporated the likes of BLM. Then, a few months later, Gillette came back, injecting a social movement into its campaign – the #MeToo movement. It was trying to focus on toxic masculinity but went too far – I wanted to know what happened. If this message is very appealing to half of the population, what happens to the other half?

We landed on six dimensions of authenticity: social currency, practice, fit, motivation, sacrifice, and neutrality. Social currency is how likely you are to be perceived as opportunistic. This dimension was linked to bandwagoning, and that leads people to question your motivation. Then you have practice, which is that desire for proof. Maybe at an abstract level, the idea is good but executed by a brand that doesn't have any history of practising the care they're indicating. The next element was fit. While it's so simple, most companies fail to understand – if all of a sudden a company embraces new values, audiences cannot migrate from their existing understanding of the brand to a new version that is being portrayed. Then there's the issue of motivation.

Commercial companies, in their DNA, are profit-focused, and that's the major barrier to them moving into social issues. Sacrifice was the solution. You need to demonstrate that you really care for society. Lots of companies have made attempts at inclusion and received backlash, and you're left wondering what went wrong. You are excluding some people by including others, leaving some people feeling betrayed. Neutrality is a solution to that. Often, you are trying to sideline some of your main customer base to celebrate another community, which is fantastic, but it shouldn't be costly for another group of consumers.

If a brand realises that the major driver of consumer support for their brand is warmth, they need to offer solutions on important issues, and authenticity becomes crucial. Other brands, where consumers haven't seen any arena to demonstrate diversity and inclusion, might be less at risk. For a company where purchase is driven by functionality, the solution is to take baby steps and go for subtle integration. If you're a brand that tries to celebrate and support progressive values, and then your consumers with progressive values are ridiculing you, you're going too far. With the right balance, these moves can be long-term helpful for society and beneficial to the brand.

For the everyday consumer, not all brands serve the same purpose. While some brands are imbued with social meaning and emotional significance, others lean more towards serving a function in their daily lives. 

International Journal of Information Management Data Insights

This means that a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing social issues won’t work across brands. Opinions vary between the belief that brands should be doing more for social good to opinions on brands making a statement. While stats vary based on identity and beliefs, half of US consumers agree brands should be doing more for society, while 41% say they should take a public stance. 

Hubspot

Marketing-Interactive

Bandt

 by the brands they support, meaning it’s key to be aware of who your core demographic is and what their needs are. Efforts to serve another community, especially a marginalised one, are important to diversifying and ensuring representation. However, if clumsily executed, these efforts run the risk of a brand being rejected by its existing consumer base. Bud Light launched its campaign starring trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney with a stated goal of shifting its key demographic, looking to move away from its “fratty, kind of out-of-touch” approach to marketing and attract a new audience of young women. The initial reaction played out in this way; despite a Republican backlash that caused a $5 billion drop in the brand's value, it resonated with a new audience. 

The Drum

Campaign Asia

Bud Light’s approach alienated both its existing consumer base and its new one by taking back its support. Indeed, consumers are twice as likely to withdraw their support from a brand that suspends its LGBTQ+ support after receiving backlash. 

Consumers are increasingly critical and discerning of companies' claims. With 75% of US adults reporting that they don't believe companies have followed through on their DE&I proposals, consumers need to see transparency and commitment to trust a brand's statements. 

Agility

 Instead of simply making a statement about a social issue or creating a campaign signalling commitment, companies need to demonstrate actioned and tangible change. Brands such as 

 have gone above and beyond their remit to deliver actual contributions to combating the social movements they support.

Beyond social commitment and representation in advertising, consumers are increasingly paying attention to diversity behind the scenes. For example, backlash has boiled up against companies like 

 for demonstrating an acute lack of internal diversity. Brands are known to frequently make missteps, from 

 – a poorly thought-out strategy can lead to claims of tone deafness. While it may not be possible to perform perfectly all of the time, a wider variety of talent is one way to mitigate these outcomes and ensure commitment to equality beyond advertising. The impacts of a well-executed DE&I strategy on business outcomes are well documented, with 75% of organisations classed as leaders in DE&I reporting a very positive impact on their business's competitive position and 63% attesting that DE&I efforts have positively impacted their agility and innovation. 

 of Britons disagree that businesses can avoid being political

 of US Gen Zers agree companies have a responsibility to address major social issues

 of US adults don’t believe that companies have followed through on their DEI statements

To engage with social issues without being viewed as opportunistic and inauthentic, brands must consider their existing values and history of engagement with activism

Consumers are naturally sceptical of businesses due to their profit-driven nature, attitudes that can be neutralised with selfless community care and financial sacrifice

When championing a new or underserved community, a sustained commitment to core consumers is important to avoid backlash and audience erosion

Dr. Abas Mirzaei is a senior lecturer in marketing at Macquarie Business School, Sydney, with expertise in branding, ‘woke’ marketing, and brand activism. His work has been published across academic journals and his woke branding work has appeared in multiple publications such as the 

, BBC, ABC, SMH, NITV, Inside Retail, and CMO. He's the author of 

Woke Brand: From Selling Products to Fixing Society’s Deep Issues.

Global

Behavioural Sciences

Communications

Consumers expect brands to be activists, yet many attempts fall short or are perceived as opportunistic ‘woke washing’. How can brands participate in activism while maintaining authenticity? Canvas8 spoke to Dr. Abas Mirzaei about the key dimensions of brand activism authenticity.