”Let’s protest the brands,” is a common war cry of sorts that I have continued to hear across radio, tv and internet air waves over the last several months. Consumers of all walks of life have rallied together to protest brands related to everything from President Trump to Bill O’Reily to Colin Kaepernick to the NFL to most recently yet another racially insensitive campaign released by Heineken in which the ad is shown of a beer being passed by African American attendees at a party and landing in the hand of a Caucasian consumer because ‘lighter is better’.
As you can see consumer activism has become the new way in recent years for consumers to show their disdain for a brand but is it really working? Maybe or maybe not.
According to a recent study by @Edelman it was revealed that most brands engage customers in a way that interest and involve them but fall short of getting them invested to the point where consumers would advocate on their behalf as ‘brand activists’.
On the flip side, consumer activism may temporarily impact a company’s bottom line but in the age of social media many consumers including consumer activists seem to have a short term memory and eventually forget why exactly they are protesting.
In addition, external protesting may be good for raising external awareness but most consumer concerns stem from campaigns and ideologies that are conceptualized on most occasions internally making many protests ineffective in the long term.
So what exactly can consumers do in light of campaigns such as the recent Heineken as oppose to protesting? Get a seat at the table.
It is estimated that despite the large sums of money spent by multicultural consumers that only 3% of advertising/marketing/pr dollars went to multicultural campaigns and that can in part be due to the idea that there are no representatives from these communities seated in positions of power in these agencies.
While I do believe systems can be impacted from the outside I am also a firm believer that most major change has to happen within and if consumers want to see a true impact of their activism it’s time they remove themselves from behind the computer and make sure their voices are amplified in the boardroom.
Want to learn more about how your company or brand can benefit from having more multicultural talent? Send me an email at stephanie@blackgirlgroup.net or visit our website at www.blackgirlgroup.com
126729 454496I like what you guys are up too. Such smart work and reporting! Carry on the superb works guys Ive incorporated you guys to my blogroll. I believe it will improve the value of my web site 515573
962955 659657Absolutely nothing greater than Bing obtaining us a good internet site related to what I was seeking for. 719205
741146 813936Fascinating post. Ill be sticking about to hear much a lot more from you guys. Thanks! 485758
488986 179144Id always want to be update on new blog posts on this web site , bookmarked ! . 21535
755601 241200Some really nice stuff on this internet site , I like it. 346548
351105 6030Hey there, I believe your blog may well be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your web site in Safari, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, superb blog! 120754
383950 124118I took a break to view your article. I found it very relaxing 634961
571567 690735There is noticeably a bundle to know about this. I assume you made certain good points in functions also. 640164
466573 549378I recognize there exists an excellent deal of spam on this weblog internet site. Do you need help cleaning them up? I can aid among courses! 678946