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‘Go woke, go broke’ not true for brands, says global advertising study – Research shows ad campaigns that are more inclusive have a positive impact on profits, sales and brand worth

  • September 15, 2024



‘Go woke, go broke’ not true for brands, says global advertising study – Research shows ad campaigns that are more inclusive have a positive impact on profits, sales and brand worth

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/sep/15/go-woke-go-broke-not-true-for-brands-says-global-advertising-study

Posted by polymute

7 comments

  1. I’ve a sudden deja vu, some time ago I remember reading or watching something debunking about this and how the executive of various businesses was “tricked” to follow up on these trends. In a few words: correlation does not equate to causation, those studies showed correlation but failed to prove causation. All the business producing these “positive” ads are often also doing other things who could be contributing positively to sales.

    If I find what I read or watched I’ll edit this comment or if someone else knows what I may be talking about feel free to post it.

  2. If you’re appealing to a US market, diversity makes a lot of sense. You can’t walk around a city for a minute without seeing Asian, black, Hispanic, and white people. It’d be weird to advertise otherwise.

  3. I’m not sure if people understand that the mere fact that these risk benefit calculations are made show how disingenuous those brands are about the issue. The moment being a fascist becomes more profitable they’ll turn tide faster than you can say pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

  4. The words “ad campaign” infuriate me. As an American, we are in inundated with ads in everything we do. Can’t even pump gas without the gas pump screaming at you about buying something.

  5. This isn’t news.

    I mean it’s news to bigots and people who are upset that more of us find their hateful nature offensive and don’t want to put up with it in public.

    But this has been known in the business world for a while. It’s why instead of dropping ESG and DEI, many places are trying to salvage what they can or rebrand it. If it was wholely useless, they’d drop it.

  6. I think the slogan “go woke go broke” is more about virtue signalling from companies than really inclusivity. For example, what’s reproached to Disney company is more that do inclusivity just for the sake of showing off themselves as progressive without really caring about the ethnicity they are trying to put forward or the storyline of their work.

    For Snow White for example, they kept the same medieval Germanic atmosphere and put a latina talking and thinking like a 21th century woman in it. I won’t start again about the fact that Snow White name comes from the colour of her skin and that she’s a Germanic character originally, so it’s really unlikely that she’s supposed to be a latina. I think every point has been made about it.

    But it’s not the same problem with it : in the trailer has Snow White talking to dwarfs as if she was their boss while watching them working. This completely destroys the message of the fairytale with Snow White who is hardworking, shares work with the dwarves : they go to the mine, she keeps the house steady. Snow white is also the epitome of kindness in the fairytale and the original Disney anime. In the trailer, she appears bossy and almost treating the dwarves as slaves. Had they adapt their story either in our modern world or in another country, it would have been better and would have allowed way more inclusivity as they could have get inspired by other folklore or ethnicities.

    This is also what was reproached to Little Mermaid (although I think they did make an effort of adapting their story to put more inclusivity in it) for example. And the problems is that Disney has box office failures over box office failures because viewers are not stupid and understand when the storytelling is weak or when Disney does pandering and real inclusivity.

    Disney’s pictures like “Encanto” were not accused of going woke because they made real inclusivity trying to show other cultures, ideas, stories and so on.

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