Consumers see through ‘woke washing’ — but real change is possible for brands
‘Transformative branding’ is the way forward
Change from within
How then can brands legitimately shoulder responsibility to support or promote societal transformation?
Our researchintroduces the idea of “transformative branding”. This involves companies working with customers, communities, and even competitors to co-create brands that lead on both market and social fronts.
Transformative branding can be achieved by for-profit organizations, not-for-profits and social enterprises. The common factor is balancing business and societal goals to create change from within the market system.
Marketing concepts with a social edge have proliferated in the past 50 years, but finding actual solutions has been less successful. We ask how corporations can act to genuinely contribute to society and show how transformative branding can help brands shoulder that responsibility. Beyond making money
Transformative branding works via two main market-shaping elements: leadership and collaborative coupling. These enable companies to partner with stakeholders to change their business landscapes.
First, leadership involves building a vision for the transformation. This requires leaders to think flexibly and creatively, work to long time horizons and stay attuned to changing ideologies. This involves fundamentally re-imagining what branding can do – beyond making money.
Second, collaborative coupling involves implementing this vision across the different dimensions of the brand. The key to this is mobilizing stakeholders, including customers, employees, investors, suppliers, governments, communities, and competitors.
When the brand and its stakeholders collectively throw their weight behind the goal of transformation, it signals commitment, distributes expertise and resources, and establishes legitimacy.
Leadership and collaborative coupling work together to change the business environment. Our research shows this has ripple effects, creating opportunities for transforming economic, regulatory, socio-cultural, and political environments. Transformative branding in practice
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard is a good example of transformative branding at work, particularly in his candid admission that the notion of a fully sustainable business is “impossible”. Instead, Patagonia has reframed its priorities aroundresponsibility, with Chouinard re-imagining the brand as asolution to environmental degradation.
This vision is central to the brand’s iconic “demarketing” campaign, “Don’t buy this jacket”, which aims to shift the consumption ideology from purchase to repair.
More recently, Patagonia’s “Buy Less, Demand More” campaign and its “Worn Wear” scheme for used apparel has brought the notion of a circular economy into the company’s strategy to promote a culture of reuse rather than always buying new.
Dutch chocolate brand Tony’s Chocolonely demonstrates collaborative coupling in itscampaignto clean up production and supply chain practices in the chocolate manufacturing industry and to eliminate illegal child labor and modern slavery.
The company’s “open-chain platform” helps all industry players, including competitors, to foster equitable and transparent supply chains and ensure a living income is paid to cocoa farmers. The brand actively erodes its own potential competitive advantage in the process.
Staying skeptical
But transformative branding is complex and dynamic, and authenticity is paramount. For instance, earlier this year,Tony’s was removedfrom watchdog organizationSlave Free Chocolate’s ethical producers list over its partnership with a major chocolate producer being sued for allegedly using slave labor.
Tony’s responded by claiming it was important to educate and inspire business partners and competitors to adopt ethical principles and practices.
This complex and often slow process of negotiating what it means to be ethical is all part of transformative branding. It adapts to the differing goals and values of many stakeholders.
And while transformative branding offers a path towards a more sustainable and equitable future, we should continue to cast a critical eye on brands claiming to be a force for good, challenge them and hold them accountable where necessary.
Article byAmanda Spry, Lecturer of Marketing,RMIT University;Bernardo Figueiredo, Associate Professor of Marketing,RMIT University;Jessica Vredenburg, Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Marketing,Auckland University of Technology;Joya Kemper, Senior Lecturer in Marketing,University of Auckland, andLauren Gurrieri, Senior Lecturer in Marketing,RMIT University
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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