There follows a guest post by Chris Bullick, CEO of the Pull Agency, a creative branding agency and consultancy, on his recent survey, which found that the public are much less enthusiastic about brands supporting woke causes than the marketers pushing the agendas.
As a marketer who started my career at fast-moving consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble (Ariel, Fairy Liquid, Olay etc.) in the 80s, I have watched the saga around what is called ‘brand purpose’ unfold with weary amazement over the last decade or so. What I saw from the start were brand managers, typically just custodians of brands that others had built (they were standing on their predecessors’ shoulders) bringing their personal worldview, or even their politics to the brands they were advertising. This could never have happened back in the day, it would have been seen as laughably unprofessional. But in some major brand houses it has not only become the norm, but preached as best practice. What on earth has happened?
What is brand purpose? It used to simply mean what a brand was there for. You know: Hellmann’s Mayonnaise (Unilever), put on your salad; Gillette razors (P&G), give you a good shave. But then brand purpose got redefined. Mayonnaise? Fronting the war against food waste. Razors? Fronting the war against ‘toxic masculinity’ (no, don’t ask, women can’t be toxic).
The most notable proponent of brand purpose has been Alan Jope, who became CEO of Unilever in 2019. He has said that brands with ‘purpose’ increase sales twice as fast as those without. Jope capped his first year as CEO with a profit warning that wiped more than £8bn off Unilever’s market cap. Since then its market cap has fallen 25% while P&G, Nestle, and L’Oréal values have all increased around 50%.
Quick definition of ‘brand purpose’ to save time: Picking a woke, unrelated cause and using your brand’s marketing budget to promote it. Case in point: Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (yes you guessed it – Unilever). The causes it supports?
- LGBTQ+ equality
- Black Lives Matter
- Climate justice
- Refugees
- Female body confidence
Okay, you’ve probably got the idea.
Consumer research – ‘Is your brand too woke?’
It was this background of our own unease with the way marketers talked about ‘brand purpose’, the investing world’s attack on it, and marketers generally doubling down and defending the approach which made us think: Would it be possible to get a reading on what consumers think of brand purpose? Mindful of course that we were doubtful that real people – acting as ‘cognitive misers’ – actually thought about it at all.
As a consumer you may not have even noticed ‘brand purpose’ in action. But you might have noticed that ads are no longer funny, for instance. Research shows that over the last 10 years, the number of people who find ads ‘annoying’ has doubled to 50%. So what we wanted to know at the Pull Agency (a brand agency and consultancy) was: What do consumers think of ‘brand purpose’?
We decided to find out. But we instinctively knew that some of our marketing colleagues would be uneasy about us asking. So we ran the survey we had in mind past a few marketers.
“We advise strongly against it.”
“It could be seen as divisive – we’re not sure it’s a good idea.”
“It isn’t inclusive enough.” (No, we never understood this comment.)
The plan was to create a survey of what a fully representative panel of over 2,000 U.K. consumers thought about brands supporting ‘progressive’ causes. The survey itself didn’t actually use the W-word, and we had gone to great lengths to create a balanced range of answers to the questions. However, our fellow marketers thought we were on very dangerous ground which we were advised to stay off.
We went ahead with the consumer survey – and held our breath.
“Loved it.”
“Very good survey.”
“This has educational purpose.”
“It’s got me thinking.”
“Interesting topic and very relevant…”
“I am pleased to see this survey subject is being considered.”
Of all the agency and client research we have done, this research into consumer’s attitudes to brands that take a woke stance got the most free text comments: 20% of participants commented, and 25% of those comments were overtly positive feedback about the survey itself. Something strange was going on here. Marketers didn’t want us to ask the question, consumers said they were very happy we did.
In a sense I could stop there. This revealed perfectly the issue about brands and social purpose. As a guest panellist at our survey report launch event pointed out: marketers are WEIRD (from a Western, educated, industrial, rich and democratic elite) and consumers are not.
So in this article I will address, firstly, what did we find out about what consumers make of what marketers refer to as ‘brand purpose’? Secondly, why are today’s brand managers and their agencies playing with ‘purpose’ in this way?
Experienced researchers will warn you what to expect conducting surveys in a world of social media censoring, cancelling and rampant virtue signalling. More than ever before, consumers want to give the socially ‘correct’ answer, even in the anonymity of an online survey. Toby Young has written about this ‘pro-social bias’.
Andrew Tenzer (researcher for Reach Solutions, the U.K.’s largest news publisher) related at our survey launch event how he regularly asks for a show of hands for the question: “Given the choice, would you prefer to buy from sustainable suppliers?” Almost everyone puts their hands up. “How many have bought something from Amazon in the last month?” Almost everyone puts their hands up. Researchers face a massive challenge in that there is a huge (and I believe increasing) gap between what people say and what they do in respect to all the fashionable issues in particular.
Our consumer research into brand purpose – what did we learn?
68% of consumers are uneasy or unsure about brands supporting woke causes. This should give marketers pause for thought. But on the other hand, and I have to say I was shocked it was this high – it meant that 32% of respondents thought that brands should support as many of our offered list of causes as possible: climate change, BLM, LGBTQ+, equality, diversity and inclusion and female body confidence. At the other extreme, 8% said that they would actively avoid brands that support those causes. Of course, the question that is harder to answer is whether the 32% would go out of their way to purchase brands because of their support for social, woke or political causes. There is no evidence we know that suggests they would. Academic research suggests that the 8% are more likely to act on their sentiment than the 32%.
There are strong generational differences in attitude among sexes and generations. Women were nearly twice as much in favour of brands supporting social causes than men, and Gen Z were three times more in favour of it than Boomers. But again, we don’t know to what extent this translates to buying behaviour. It’s worth bearing in mind that many researchers like to suggest that younger generations have both a better moral framework than older people and are more likely to buy sustainable brands, without any evidence for either in terms of actual behaviour. However, you have to be careful about muddling generational effects with cohort effects. Young people have always been idealistic and cause-driven, but young people grow up.
Consumers’ trust in brands’ involvement with social causes is shaky. While on the one hand quite a high proportion of consumers say that they want brands to get involved with social (or woke) causes, 58% think that a lot of that involvement is insincere – woke-washing or green-washing. Demonstrating that perhaps it is easier to make enemies of consumers than friends through promoting social causes, 15% of consumers say they will avoid brands that they think are indulging in woke- or green- washing.
Consumers have had plenty of opportunity to say that they endorse brands supporting social causes in research over recent years, but to our knowledge this has never been tested against alternatives. Well, we did. Pro-social bias means that there is pressure on consumers to say they support fashionable causes. But what if they are given an alternative?
Then the picture changes quite rapidly. Can you imagine if Starbucks or Amazon or Ben & Jerry’s put these alternatives to their customers, what their answer might be?
58% of consumers would prefer that brands simply pay their taxes, treat people fairly and respect the environment – almost four times more than want brands to support woke causes.
We know marketers like supporting woke causes with ‘their’ brands; consumers appear far less enthusiastic.
60% of people don’t feel well represented in health & beauty ads; this percentage rises for white people and older men. 29% of people of BAME ethnicity described themselves as well-represented compared to only 19% of non-BAME. Contrary to a commonly expressed view within the marketing community that the industry needs to ‘do a lot more’ about diversity and inclusion, it looks as though it has in fact done enough (but perhaps clumsily) when it comes to representing ethnicity. Research in 2020 by the Creative Diversity Network based on 30,000 TV productions found that both ethnic and LBTQ+ minorities were represented at twice the population rate, and it was older people and the disabled that were the most under-represented.
Our research mirrored this finding. The unthinking addition of ethnic, and in particular mixed-race couples, is seen by consumers as an ‘easy win’ for lazy advertisers and contributing to the impression that advertising has ‘gone woke’. It was clear from our research and comments we received that people are simply looking for realistic representation of the reality of U.K. population diversity. Advertisers need to be more imaginative in dealing with this. The largest group in our research by far – 43% – chose the option that brands should simply “reflect the real users of the brand”.
The concept of ‘body positivity’ hasn’t been extended to men – 64% of men don’t feel personally well-represented in ads. It seems that the gender equality that so many brands want to be seen to support doesn’t work the other way round. The current practice of using imperfect female models in ads, according to many of our research participants, doesn’t yet seem to have been extended to men.
So what’s going on? From our findings you can deduce:
- Consumers want to ask questions about whether brands are too woke – marketers would rather no one did.
- Consumers are uneasy about brand support of woke causes – marketers aren’t.
- Consumers would prefer companies to pay their taxes, treat people fairly and respect the environment – marketers would prefer to tell you about their ‘brand purpose’.
- BAME consumers feel well represented, men and non-BAME consumers don’t. Marketers think that their industry ‘hasn’t done enough about diversity’.
- Consumers used to find ads entertaining. Marketers want to tell consumers how they should think.
Would it be fair to say that marketers are out of touch with the people they are marketing to? Yes. So let’s look at more of the evidence. Andrew Tenzer from Reach plc told our report launch event that marketers are WEIRD – that is from a Western, educated, industrial, rich and democratic elite. The idea of WEIRD was popularised by the leading social psychologist Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind. Andrew expands this idea in his paper The Empathy Delusion, showing that marketers tend to think they have advanced levels of empathy and a superior moral framework. Unfortunately, research has disproved the former and of course no research supports the latter.
In addition, research shows that modern marketers self-identify to the Left politically of the modern mainstream, are (for instance) less proud of their country’s history and more likely to believe that women and men have identical roles in society. Translated into the language of the modern mainstream – marketers are woke, the mainstream isn’t. As a result, brand purpose “is highly seductive to our industry on a personal level”, Andrew explains.
My beef with all this is that this brand purpose charade is bad marketing and undermines the profession and the concept of effectiveness in marketing. Even back in my days at P&G, the company would occasionally be berated as the U.K.’s largest advertiser (nowadays that of course is the Government) for such ‘profligacy’. The company defended its large advertising budgets with the logic that good advertising – especially for good brands – was the most efficient way of matching buyers with goods and services. It created efficiencies in the economy. Modern marketers seem uninterested in such commercial logic. They see themselves as on a much higher moral mission. The result is ‘brand purpose’, which in reality is therefore just virtue signalling and an indulgence that they feel they deserve – it’s all about them. With the likes of Unilever’s Alan Jope egging them on, no wonder they feel unconstrained by thoughts about whether it actually builds their brands or sells their product.
So next time you see a brand clambering onto the latest woke cause, spare a thought for the poor marketers and their agencies. They just can’t help themselves, the poor dears.
You can download the full research report here.
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And not just heart attacks.
Indeed. I have an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach about where this is going.
Nothing but dark clouds gathering and getting darker, as far as I can see.
Injecting a whole population with improperly tested spike proteins for vast profit, I mean what could go wrong?
They tried in 2009 with the Swine Flu ‘pandemic’. Back then the media was not entirely owned by the major corporations and so following the withdrawal of vaccines that had caused damage to a far smaller number than the Covid vaccines there was widely expressed and accepted outrage. This is from the International Business Times, 2009: “The government is expected to receive a bill of approximately £60 million, with each of the 60 victims expected to receive about £1 million each.
Peter Todd, a lawyer who represented many of the claimants, told the Sunday Times: “There has never been a case like this before. The victims of this vaccine have an incurable and lifelong condition and will require extensive medication.Following the swine flu outbreak of 2009, about 60 million people, most of them children, received the vaccine.
It was subsequently revealed that the vaccine, Pandemrix, can cause narcolepsy and cataplexy in about one in 16,000 people, and many more are expected to come forward with the symptoms.
Across Europe, more than 800 children are so far known to have been made ill by the vaccine.”
This incident was proclaimed the Scandal of the Century by John Snow in a Channel 4 news program and an enquiry was called into how the pharmaceutical industry had managed to have such influence over the WHO.
It was remembering this that made me very wary of this mRNA mass vaccination roll out, especially when they continually moved the goal posts as regards to the age groups recommended to received.
Why the silence in the media? Is it because the only people who might have learned from any enquiry that took place were those connected to big pharma and so set about buying up swathes of media outlets so as to widen their sphere of influence and control?
There are probably many of them who don’t want to admit that they made a mistake and took on an unnecessary risk – perhaps not even to themselves.
Actually they first tried this in the Swine Flu “epidemic” (it wasn’t swine flu) which maybe killed all of ONE person. See the Kennedy book on the evil Fauci and Gates. Fauci has been spinning up non-existent “epidemics” for 50 years, heedless of the effect on recipients. One of the great mass murderers of our time
It was clear that this important meeting would be swallowed by political drama such as Truss resigning – well not only was the morning news obsessed with Braverman’s resignation but now Truss has just announced her resignation too.
Thursday could be a red letter day provided enough MPs turn up and they are not hiding under their desks.
They won’t turn up!
The witch hunt of Aseem has already started in earnest!! Christopher Snowdon has done what I consider in my view is a paper thin, shabby, hit piece on this doctor, I have read it. Nothing in it! But global manslaughter and injury through coerced vaccine, well that there is a sub stack worth your time writing.
Those who may be proven wrong by this doctor are gunning for him. Their personal character reputations investments at stake. Guns cocked.
Good luck to this doctor!!
Christopher Snowdon is a turncoat “cafeteria libertarian” at best. He was against the first two lockdowns, until he switched sides and supported the third one, because reasons. So who got to him?
Don’t know who got to him?
but de
But definitely scraped the barrel.
Somebody said to me yesterday because you are not vaccinated you probably have killed someone. Incredible brainwashed. These turncoats are responsible for this.
As I say good luck to Aseem he is going to need a lot friends !
His written piece in Aseem scraping barrel but hopefully C Snowden will see there should be only one side, truth for people of which he is one!
I trust you gave the idiot that claimed you killed someone both barrels point blank.
Would you believe it was a vaccinated friend. She was saying that I was causing anti vax sentiment and people would less likely to have their children vaccinated with traditional ones because people like me were dangerous. I calmly and slowly explained it wasn’t a vaccine like those ones because they had been tested for at least ten years and that I had my children vaccinated with those. But she couldn’t see it and believed I would have a bigger covid viral load than the vaccinated and therefore pass it on more and that is when she said “you have probably killed people” I stayed calm because I can see she is convinced and frightened by the narrative and to be fair she will not know where else to find information and is very wary of going off piste from MSM. So I evidenced by explaining that there was staff with covid at work and I had not got it and last time I had it was a little cold and also that there are people injured and killed by the vaccine. Incredulously she had not seen any reports of that and would not look at anything I offered.
I am afraid people are clinging to this lie because the alternative is too scary for them. I just said calmly that it was all going to come out in the wash and that perhaps she could look out for it.
It was a very draining conversation, this is what Aseem is up against a wilful deafness. Best wishes
Any idea what is driving Chris Snowden? He has been highly supportive of the covid narrative throughout – dismissive of anti-lockdown comment and any questioning of the efficacy and safety of the injections. Is it simply that the IEA, for whom he works, has been bribed, or even simply that he has been bribed?
All I know is that brave people will swallow their pride and admit they are wrong especially when so much is at stake. Let’s hope and pray there is that strength of character still present as it once presented itself.
Let’s hope so but I fear there will be some other drama such as Truss resigning and all the MPs will flock to the main chamber. Most of them are entirely culpable and so the cover up will be perhaps the most powerful and extensive ever known.
resignation Thursday then. How convenient.
And lo it came to pass. Truss resignation just in.
Bloody Hell Maria, not the red letter day day I’d hoped for. Someone really doesn’t want the truth about the injections to become common knowledge. Do you have a tip for the 2.45 at Haydock Park? My money is on Clown Tyrant Returns.
The globalists and the remoaners will never forgive him and us for Brexit. Hence lockdown, loss of liberty and theft of money from the world populations siphoned off and realised as now REAL money in volts of the cabal. They have made a fortune!!!!so easy for them to ride out the storm they have created. And remember cabal member Fauci, said there would be a pandemic in the last year of Trump, he knew!! Their punishment of us who they consider the unwashed will continue unless more of us stand up for ourselves. My TIP therefore is If Boris returns he is being allowed to, which means he has sold his soul further to the globalists devils. And will rob US of more of our money to send to Zelensky, to be siphoned off to the cabal volts as Boris is hoping he will get his cut one day. Watch out for more green screen vogue photo shoots of the ‘love in’ that is Boris and Zelensky, que the earnest acting faces.
To conclude my biggest tip is for true conservative MPs to fight your corner like you have never done before. Or be cowards.
Things that make you go hmmm…
This weeked in Paris a 41-year old singer suffered cardiac arrest during his performance and died.
This weeked in Madrid a 46-year old magician suffered a heart attack during his performance and died later in hospital.
Looks like we’ve moved on from sportspeople to entertainment. Sure it could be coincidence, but it is a little bizarre, to say the least.
This week’s fun fact: The weekly death figures are published by the Dutch ONS, Statistics Netherlands, on Fridays. They should appear on the government corona dashboard the same day, but often don’t, usually when the number is trending high (hence the figure’s been posted late pretty much most of the summer).
Deaths have been elevated/excess since March (4th vaxx for over 60s started end of Feb 2022).
The number finally hit the ‘expected’ deaths in the week of 12 – 18 September (imo with some fiddling – public attention on excess deaths was quite high at that time, very convenient). In any event, in the subsequent 3 weeks deaths have been excess (not just elevated) again. Only a swivel-eyed, loony-tune, anti-vax conspiracy nut-job would point out that the newest jabathon started on Monday 19 September.
But yeah, sure, another coinky-dinky.
All I’d take from that is that media outlets have been told to stop reporting sportspeople having heart attacks, which leaves reports of other people such as entertainers.
Josephine Melville actor RIP
The narrative has collapsed faster than formerly healthy young athletes on the field after being jabbed.
It’s good that he’s apparently making progress with it all. Evidently, he’s focusing on his speciality – which is understandable, but is it not likely that there is a much broader spectrum of damages caused by the novel “vaccine”?
Delving into the links suggested, it appeared that this one is better than the Twitter one: https://rumble.com/v1ojedq-freeman-interviews-dr-aseem-malhotra.html
Thanks. That’s the full video of the conversation that came out during today I think.
Good luck to Dr Malhotra. Isn’t it odd to find so few medical folk sticking their heads above the parapet? Not really. They’ve been bag carriers/ yes men for the pharmafia for so long that suddenly objecting to the latest horrific tightening of the ratchet would expose their prior laxity and total lack of principles over decades.
I remember working in telesales in the 80s trying to get GPs to book a meeting with a drugs Pharma rep. A voucher for M&S was offered as an incentive. A significant % would always ask ‘How much is the voucher for?’ They weren’t interested in anything else. (It wasn’t a paltry amount)
Imagine what it’s like now and how many Doctors have literally sold their souls, voucher by voucher, conference trip by conference trip, bung by bung and other not so subtle bribes. They’re in too deep to say a word.
Pharmafia, I may have to use that one myself.
The brilliant Dr Peter McCullogh agrees…
Dr Peter McCullough: “Before the Covid jabs, 4 in a million Myocarditis cases, afterwards, 25,000 in a million….Myocarditis at this point in time is due to the Covid jabs until proven otherwise.”
..and if it’s good enough for him…….
Well done to Aseem Malhotra; a brave and decent man. If only there were more like him.
If the first goal is to stop these shots as fast as possible, this is a great development. Now it will take many more doctors who previously endorsed the jabs to say things like this, but every new convert willing to speak publicly helps the effort. When one comes forward, it might embolden others to come forward. Then again, once these people are attacked and have their licenses revoked, maybe we get the opposite effect? Still, we need a lot more whistleblowers to come forward. The right one – with the “right stuff” – could make all the difference.
Fat chance.
They have won and won’t forego their profits or face any liability.
They just achieved what they were always after and what was the sole reason for the poisoning of children. https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/acip-committee-will-likely-add-the
Does the same apply in other countries?
I know I shouldn’t but I still watch Match of the Day (I fast forward through Lineker & any kneeling). Last season during the Autumn there was invariably an ‘incident in the crowd’ at virtually every match. Trevor Sinclair got sacked for questioning in on Sky. This season I’ve not heard of a single incident.
Does anyone know if anyone has logged this information.
A lovely fellow dog walker friend of ours died of a sudden massive heart attack this week leaving a loving wife, daughter and dog. He’d had all his Covid jabs. My best friend’s best friend died out of the blue two weeks ago leaving 3 kids and a wife. He was a fit and healthy ‘boosted’ 51 year old. The list is becoming endless. People need to hang for this.
Just sent letter to my MP via email. Presume I’ll receive the usual brick wall reply if any. But at least I’ve made a nuisance of myself!
There is no point in my contacting my MP as she’s SNP, a brain tumour survivor and committed NHS lover. We have no idea what she does, where or when she does it and how often she attends Westminster. She got her seat by 145 votes but isn’t active in trying to keep it – at least not round where we live.
In my case, no family history of heart problems, triple vaxd in 2021, life saving pacemaker installed last Monday. Immuno suppressed and high risk? Yes, but I’m only 53 and my heart was ticking along quite happily until…
Sorry to hear your troubles in health since as you say. Best wishes.