For most of advertising history, “red” or “blue” indicated your taste for Coke or Pepsi rather than your identity as a Republican or Democrat as a partisan allegiance. Mass markets, by definition, must sell on both sides of the aisle.
Like so much else, Donald Trump’s presidency — built on a self-imagined human brand — has radically blown those rules.
After the 2016 election, one Adweek column lightning, “Brands can’t expect to play Switzerland as the rest of the world chooses a side.” As consumer culture suddenly became a vehicle for political expression, Madison Avenue gave voice to a myriad of causes. The staid “corporate social responsibility” morphed into a more muscular “brand purpose,” giving rise to passionate activism. Social justice has become “ongoing;” Politics, a means of signaling commercial “integrity”.
Today, just as during Trump’s presidency, contentious issues abound, protesters occupy public spaces and a divisive election ensues. The world is choosing sides — on abortion and Gaza and the Trump trial. And from brand-land? Basically, the sound of silence.
This is because, despite earlier pretensions, ads follow, not lead; This requires markets, not ethics. That silence, then, says a lot about our sociopolitical moment: as culture warriors find themselves on the defensive, brands wary of backlash against Bud Light’s use of trans influencers, no longer interested in advancing their causes.
Indeed, today’s primary “cause” – and, arguably, the issue of choice – is less on the hierarchy of needs: the cost of living. This creates a more practical, less symbolic battlefield for commercial content.
In 2024, no matter what else happens, the revolution will not be advertised.
During the Trump years, advertising evolved somewhat like journalism: it moved away from apparent objectivity and sold its product to satisfy partisan preferences across loyalties and niches. As society becomes polarized and fragmented and everything becomes politicized – the NFL, safety pin, Low flush toilets — Neutrality came across as an illusion.
This has fundamentally changed the logic and basis of consumer choice. Previously, we thought, “If I’m going to buy paper towels, are they useful? Are they cheap?” A marketing executive explained to me. By 2020, “social problems [had] Become a brand attribute in terms of product purchase. The question becomes: How are your paper towels “waking up”?
If the 2010 ads look like they’re talking to Trump, you’re not wrong. Like other domains of cultural production — journalism, popular arts, academia — brand-land leans. With so many such news topics being commercially invoked — race, guns, the environment — creative professionals couldn’t think of “two sides” to the story.
And the sheer variety of issues that brands have subsequently taken on can crowd K Street. Levi’s And Delta Demand gun control. Nike amplified Colin Kaepernick’s Black Lives Matter kneel, as some did $50 billion In Corporate Commitment to Racial Equality. Patagonia rejected Trump’s signature law — an “irresponsible tax cut,” its CEO charged — by giving $10 million in corporate windfalls to environmental groups.
The question becomes: How are your paper towels “waking up”?
In the wake of Trump’s border wall and “Muslim ban” proposals, the Super Bowl — the three hours each year that Americans are desperate to avoid advertising — featured Budweiser, Airbnb and others. All weights A moral obligation to welcome foreigners chasing dreams, not to cage them, after a difficult journey and Taking away their children.
“Every ad, like, literally every chewing gum brand was trying to say something about immigration, because you wanted to be relevant,” says one advertising strategy director. joke. Political ads shown during the Super Bowl allegedly quadrupled in the last decade.
That activism aimed to be highly authentic: true to the brand’s “self,” as naive as anthropomorphism. But it sometimes lands tangentially and randomly. Burger King the champion net neutrality; A frozen meat brand soliloquy About the dangers of propaganda on social media; January 6, Ax Body Spray announced Belief in “peaceful transfer of power”.
Not what you expect from consumer packaged goods.
Brand-land was arguably taking its cue from market demand: one the poll Nearly three-quarters of consumers want retail companies to stand up for their political beliefs other Two-thirds will switch from a brand if it doesn’t align with their own.
Many times those consumers take the initiative themselves. Much like today’s protestors demanding Israel’s expulsion, #GrabYourWallet boycotts of Trump-linked products and companies. went viral.
The personal, of course, has long been political, but under the 45th president, the citizen becomes business like never before. Then, as quickly as they hit the barricades, Madison Avenue abandoned them.
“There wasn’t necessarily one [brand] All of this is the playbook,” says Doug Zanger, longtime advertising industry watcher and founder of Indie Agency News. Zanger explained that the 2016 election rewrote many of the rules in that playbook, as did the 2020 election. Today, with Israel and Gaza, say, “I don’t really think these are really tough, real-life issues that brands need to take a stand against.”
“If I were a brand manager selling soap, I don’t know why I would bother,” he adds.
Even unintentional images carry risks. In December 2023, Zara facing Boycotts and protests when the posting of a model wrapped in a white cloth, against a backdrop of chaos, appears to callously incite Palestinian destruction.
This year in all those political disturbances Super Bowl commercials There was a holiday from history: pickleball-playing kids and apartment-needing aliens and human couch-potato farms. It’s natural, in terms of tradition, yet still a departure from Trump-era hostility.
Today, with Israel and Gaza, say, “I don’t really think these are really prickly, real-life issues that brands need to take a stand against.”
Again, commercial communication follows, not leads. The activist retreat from advertising reflects a reversal in public sentiment, perhaps post-pandemic fatigue. one the poll It found that only 20 percent of Americans are now interested in corporations taking positions on political issues or current events, and less than 30 percent. want Hear Brand’s views on international conflict.
Curiously, among the least supported issues (for brand engagement, at least) are many that have defined the commercial battlegrounds of the Trump year: police reform, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights and abortion.
More than 80 percent are marketing executives apparently This election year concerns how things will play out. So, Mark Pritchard, Procter & Gamble’s Chief Brand Officer, to say Kahn: “In today’s world, stepping outside your brand’s wheelhouse into advocacy territory is where things can backfire,” he warned. “The easiest way to think about it is to look at where people are now. In times of inflation, and probably in other times, people want to know about the performance of the brand. Is that a good value?”
Perhaps there’s another issue with Americans right now that retail companies can uniquely address because historically, that’s been their primary messaging domain: How much are we paying and for what? After all, rising prices are arguably the defining political issue of the Biden era. It doesn’t allow for sexy, flashy branding — or even the moral, culture war invocations of the Trump year — but it’s top of mind when you pay $15 for a sandwich or salad at lunch.
Instead, the assumed attention to value and utility treats the consumer as pragmatic rather than functional: one is more concerned with what a product is worth and how it might reflect their sociopolitical identity. It also suggests that price-signal shopping is a luxury less affordable in times of inflation.
Unexplained by Pritchard but definitely informing his warning is Bud Light’s Report Billion-dollar sales slide, blamed for transphobic boycott after a fleeting partnership with social media star Dylan Mulvaney in early 2023. When that reaction erupted, Anheuser-Busch’s CEO got defensive walk back Any pretense of activism: “We’ve never wanted to be part of a discussion that divides people.”
Brand politics has flopped before, of course. Awkwardly to Starbucks customers and baristas,”Race together” talks about police-acquitted killings of black men. Ditto Pepsi bored The entire Internet connected Soda with its semi-Black Lives Matter spot, visually and conceptually, to street protests in a way that is now unimaginable, given the campus unrest of recent months.
This suggests that price-marked shopping is a luxury less affordable in times of inflation
The Bad Light kerfuffle, however, had greater financial and cultural impact on the brand because it represented a real mismatch between the target audience and their perceived politics. Starbucks and Pepsi fans probably didn’t find the anti-racist causes wrong, just that the messaging was heavy-handed and poorly executed.
And post Mulvaney, dominant market – one approx The $20 billion-plus industry — is increasingly scrutinized for risky content that could be alienating in one way or another.
client allegedly Vets and flags are controversial – even deploying AI tools to track “every political word they say” – and exclude partners if they enter into an Israeli-Palestinian association. One such creator lost his job by calling for a truce Note that What a dramatic change this was from the post-George Floyd activism of the 2020s, when influencers were forced to post, at a minimum, a black square on Instagram.
“[Creators] Censoring themselves. They’re not posting anything they’d probably consider posting about war [in Gaza]Because they’re afraid they’re not going to be as desirable to brands — that brands will drop them or just not come knocking,” Edelman’s influencer marketing VP to say Advertising age. “Frankly, it’s not an unfounded fear.”
Much like other forms of pop culture, one can capture the social and political tone of American life through the advertisements that cover it. It doesn’t just sell products; It indirectly sells conventional wisdom about the world. Even when brands are up front like they’re “bold” or “brave,” it’s usually based on reading the room safely first.
Under Trump, brands have positioned themselves as vessels for progress, particularly on issues of cultural identity such as race, gender and immigration. In the years since, corporations have increasingly advocated “Switzerland” neutrality, reflecting a broader retreat from DEI ambitions across both legislation and regulation.
Circa 2020, a Chief Strategy Officer told me“[Consumers] Think and believe and hope that brands will be able to make a difference in the world that public institutions cannot.”
Such hopes were always misplaced. Believing in corporate symbolism for political ideology mistakes a company’s foremost loyal allegiance to the market. Shareholders never thought Levi’s could stop school shootings or help Budweiser achieve immigration reform. Commercialism treats politics as trend: de rigueur today, cringe tomorrow.
Whether a market for anti-Trump fervor will reopen this fall — as expressed through soda or deodorant or frozen meat products — remains an open question. Activism isn’t selling like it used to.
