Do Companies Capitalise on Social Movements?

Jeff Bezos is donating 10 billion dollars to help the fight against climate change,” said my boss in a hopeful tone. “About time” replied a colleague in sarcastic and exasperated rebuttal - a sentiment echoed by the hundreds of US Amazon workers who walked-out during the 2019 climate strike in an attempt to grab the attention of Amazon’s leadership. The brand themselves had been mostly silent on the monumentally negative impact their corporation has had on the climate until that point. 

One year, two offices, and half a world to separate them, but these feelings of frustration and hope, and frustration again, reflect the growing cyclical cynicism that surrounds large brands and their involvement in popular social movements. 

The pattern, as follows, is almost second nature to us now: 

A large, lucrative company operates with longstanding, negative practises - this could be their environmental impact, their worker’s conditions, their all-or mostly-all-white hiring record, their 99.9% cis-white-male board rooms, their company-culture of non-safe spaces for queer folx or women, etc. 

A social justice movement gains enough traction and momentum against these practices for brands to take notice - the climate strikes, the LBGTQI+ movement, the black lives matter movement, the #metoo movement, the rise of veganism, etc. 

A brand incorporates elements of the movement into its marketing to show ‘solidarity’ - the pride month logo-changes, adding a ‘green’ line to a clothing brand, adding one vegan product to menus, using BIPOC in advertising or HR documentation… I could go on.  

The problem with this pattern of events is that the minimal and performative style in which the brands often choose to get involved or show support to a movement is low-effort and, in many cases, low risk. It’s where we get terms like ‘greenwashing’ and ‘rainbow washing’ from. 

Now, there’s an argument to be made that any grass-roots movement should be happy for the exposure alone. These brands are widely established, with massive platforms - getting their support does get the word out far and wide, and reach people that some movements might never hope to. 

However, it’s a similar situation as when someone asks artists and creatives to provide work for free for the ‘exposure’. The people who simply share work or ideas that exist because of the hard work of others should not reap the rewards. In this case, brands who performatively present themselves as being socially-conscious often benefit from increased customer loyalty and revenue. If this revenue is not then funnelled back into the movements that garnered it, these companies are directly capitalising on the social movements that they seek to promote. 

In Reni Eddo Lodge’s groundbreaking book, she argues that to do ‘the work’ needed to fight against racism, white people need to support the voices of BIPOC, listen to them and elevate them because they are the voice of lived experience. They must lead to dismantle institutional injustices. I think this is where brands are going wrong in many areas of brand-sponsored cause-marketing, and not just the fight against racism, although it is a massive part of this issue. They aren’t listening and learning; they’re just working to elevate their own voice, their own products, their own brand image to ‘be part of the conversation’. When really, they should be working with activists, handing over their platforms to these experts and using their profits to ensure the continuity of the movement.  

A big part of this is deciding which cause is important to their brand rather than jumping on any, and all, bandwagons and ending up with embarrassing conflicts of interests. A poignant example comes from the sports brand, Adidas. The brand was rightly accused of capitalising on queer movements by selling ‘pride packs’ during Pride Month whilst continuing to sponsor events such as the World Cup in Russia. A country that is fervently against LGBTQI+ rights, with laws that even illegalise their existence. 

This brings me back to Mr Bezos, and that office watercooler conversation with my boss.

In 2019, Amazon admitted to producing 44 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide in a year - that’s about the same as a country like Denmark or Switzerland. In the same breath, they announced their climate pledge which promised to: 

●      Mobilise 100,000 electric delivery trucks to be operational by 2021

●      Have zero emissions by 2030

●      Stop offering custom cloud-computing services that help the oil and gas industry find and extract more fossil fuels

●      Stop giving campaign donations to politicians who deny climate change is happening 

It was fighting talk that carried on into 2020 and when they announced their first donation (of a total of $10 billion) from the Bezos Earth Fund to organisations like WWF and the Environmental Defense Fund, among others (16 to be exact). Bezos claimed that he had been “listening” to experts for months before the announcement. In the same month, the company also released their Christmas advert, and one may think it was prime (excuse the pun) for a repeat of Iceland’s palm oil Christmas appeal. And yet… the ad featured no mention of the corporation’s simultaneously occurring philanthropy. 

So, is this...genuine activism from a large corporation with no obvious marketing pleas or back-patting? Only time will tell, I suppose, and there are many out there who still scorn Amazon and rightfully see their attempt to ‘help’ as too little too late. 

One thing has to be said, however, for any large corporations that wish to follow suit: Put your money where your mouth is, and preferably shut the mouth of your marketing department while you’re at it. 


Written by Dominique Daly

Dominique is a Belfast born music-fanatic and stalker of neighbourhood cats. When she's not writing about technology and marketing for her day job as a Content Marketer, she can most likely be found somewhere comfortable drinking wine and moaning about politics.

OpinionJessica Blackwell