How brands are reacting to the politicization of COVID

Ad Age publishes a series of case studies and trend reports exclusively for Ad Age subscribers. To learn more about Ad Age membership levels and benefits, visit our Subscribe Page. Subscribers can instantly download the latest trend report, "Brands As Citizens," by Michael Applebaum, in our Member Content section, as well as access the entire library of exclusive Ad Age case studies and trend reports. Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that an internal document the newspaper obtained from the CDC finds that the Delta variant of COVID-19 "appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads as easily as chickenpox." According to the document, officials must "acknowledge the war has changed." Just as ominous, climate change appears to have arrived ahead of schedule, resulting in record-setting highs in temperature, continuously burning wildfires and drought throughout much of the western U.S. this summer, as well as extreme weather events all over the world. And yet, things could be worse. The year began with a full-fledged insurrection by supporters of former President Donald Trump who attacked the Capitol to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election in the middle of the deadliest pandemic in a century. But democracy prevailed, President Biden was inaugurated and the person Biden calls "the former guy" has largely been defanged after being banned from the biggest social media platforms. The successful development and rollout of COVID vaccines arrested the infection rate—and deaths—among the U.S. population, allowing the vaccinated to remove their masks, end quarantine and begin to pursue a post-pandemic life, including making travel and even back-to-school plans. Everything is political Despite the positive developments, the era of politics encroaching on every aspect of American life, including brand marketing, is here to stay. In this new, potentially perilous landscape, brands now often are compelled to take a political stance. In the view of younger, more diverse and more progressive consumers, remaining neutral or silent regarding existentially polarizing issues like maintaining democratic institutions, the right to vote, racism, sexism, homophobia and climate change is as bad as being on the wrong side of those issues. A majority of Americans expect companies to take a stance on critical issues when lawmakers lag behind. Some 62% of people in the U.S. say that corporations should act as leaders that cooperate with elected officials, as opposed to followers who listen to elected officials before taking a position or action, according to new research from Global Strategy Group. In April, Ad Age Studio 30 contributor Michael Applebaum's "Brand As Citizens" trend report took a deeper look at this new age of the purpose-led organization, in which advocacy and activism have come out of the shadows of corporate social responsibility and into the bright spotlight of brand marketing. Applebaum interviewed a dozen industry experts including Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer at Procter & Gamble; Christina Bauer-Plank, global brand VP for Hellmann’s at Unilever; Cory Bayers, VP of global marketing at Patagonia; Christian Sarkar, co-author of the 2018 book “Brand Activism: From Purpose to Action"; Mark Beal, assistant professor at Rutgers University School of Communication and author of two books on marketing to Gen Z; Gonzalo Brujó, global president of Omnicom’s Interbrand Group; Jessica DeVlieger, global CEO of C Space, an Interbrand agency; Tanya Meck, partner and managing director at Global Strategy Group; Terry Young, CEO of Sparks & Honey; Mike Proulx, lead of Forrester's CMO research team; and Bob Passikoff, president of Brand Keys. “When government and the public sector aren’t doing the job, people expect companies and brands to step in and fill the void," Sarkar says. "There are those rare companies for whom activism stems from the personality of their founders, like Ben & Jerry’s or Patagonia, but more and more we’re seeing companies and brands either being acquired or started up that have purpose built into the brand from the get-go.” Corporate activism: 'a unified walk and talk' Earlier this year, Ben & Jerry’s CEO Matthew McCarthy published an open letter in Fortune in which he sharply criticized businesses that “tried to gently wade into the waters of racial justice without having done any of the work. That resulted in external statements in support of the Black Lives Matter movement that rang hollow. It’s better to focus on one issue than talking about several.” For years, experts have warned companies that try to paper over a lack of commitment to social responsibility through so-called purpose-washing techniques, which many have dubbed “the new green-washing.” McCarthy expanded on this idea in his letter: “Activism at a corporate level comes down to a unified walk and talk. Businesses must make transparent their values and take actions to address real social and/or environmental ills. If you’re not willing to act, there’s no sense in getting involved in the game because the people you serve are too smart, too savvy, and will call B.S. … What’s possibly most important for CEOs to hear is that they should not try to be Ben & Jerry’s. Ben & Jerry’s should not try to be Patagonia. Patagonia should not try to be Lush. Given that each organization is unique, leaders must decide what issues are right for them.” But the willingness to act according to a brand's values can be problematic—particularly when a brand and its corporate parent may not see eye to eye: Ben & Jerry's leaders recently decided the issue that is right for them at present is objecting to Israel's settlements in the Occupied Territories by announcing that they would no longer sell ice cream there. The move prompted the Israeli government to accuse Ben & Jerry's of being anti-Israel and to warn the ice cream maker's corporate parent Unilever (which acquired the brand in 2000) of "serious repercussions, legal and otherwise." Unilever's statement that Ben & Jerry's would continue to sell its products within Israel's pre-1967 borders irked the ice cream maker's semi-independent board. “I am saddened by the deceit of it,” Ben & Jerry's board chair Anuradha Mittal told NBC News. “This is not about Israel. It is about the violation of the acquisition agreement that maintained the soul of the company.” The politics of vaxxing What could possibly be more unforeseen than the prospect of a hippie-ish ice cream brand getting swept up in a Middle Eastern quagmire that goes back millennia? The dysfunction and dystopia of the Trump years have carried over into what should be the beginning of the post-COVID era. A cabal of QAnon-adjacent MAGA loyalists, Republican enablers and right-wing disinformation media has successfully disrupted the vaccine rollout. The combination of anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers with the potent Delta variant has led to increasing infections and deaths, particularly in the states that voted for Trump in 2020. Consequently, major brands including Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter are delaying their office-reopening plans. After the CDC recommended that even vaccinated individuals wear masks indoors, Apple decided to mandate masks for anyone inside Apple Stores. Google and Facebook are requiring all employees to be vaccinated. After President Biden chided social networks for allowing misinformation about COVID vaccines to be spread on their platforms—including offhandedly accusing Facebook of "killing people," which he later retracted—YouTube announced that it would start labeling health videos with information on how authoritative the source for each video is. Trolling the GOAT Partisan politics have now expanded to include the mental health of two of the most celebrated athletes of our time. When Gold Medal-winning U.S. gymnast Simone Biles, widely regarded as the greatest ever, shocked the world by pulling out of the team competition at the Tokyo Olympics, right-wing media pundits lambasted her as a "selfish" and "arrogant" "quitter" who had brought "shame on her country." Since Biles is the face of Team USA not just in gymnastics but for the entire contingent—not to mention NBCUniversal, which has already had to deal with missing advertiser expectations for the opening ceremony—multiple high-profile sponsors had a vested interest in her performance at the Games, But fortunately, Biles' sponsors Gap's Atleta line and Visa expressed their unambiguous support. Then, other brands, including Netflix, ESPN, Cartoon Network, ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," Calm and Barbie started posting encouraging messages for Biles and her fellow Olympian, tennis champion Naomi Osaka of Japan, who had pulled out of major tournaments prior to the Olympics, citing mental health reasons. Brands 1, trolls 0. Ad Age publishes a series of case studies and trend reports exclusively for Ad Age subscribers. To learn more about Ad Age membership levels and benefits, visit our Subscribe Page. Subscribers can instantly download the latest trend report in our Member Content section, as well as access the entire library of exclusive Ad Age case studies and trend reports, including "Downtime Opportunity," Ad Age Director of Analytics Bradley Johnson's comprehensive white paper about innovation in the worst of times, from the Great Depression to the Great COVID-19 Pandemic.

How brands are reacting to the politicization of COVID

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