Brand Activism: Reflection and Reset

A 3×3 Formula for Brand Activism Communications.

Quick summary:

• AI Is Cutting Manufacturers Out of the Buyer Conversation Why? Because buyers aren't Googling suppliers anymore. They're asking AI.
  

• AI doesn't return a list of links. It returns a shortlist of answers. If your company isn't in those answers, you may not be in the conversation at all.

• 94% of B2B buyers now use AI during purchasing decisions; 60% of searches end without a website visit. (Gartner) The fix: publish practical content, put your people on LinkedIn, and show up in trade media consistently

We’ve been watching 20-plus years of fluctuating brand activism, with its historical and anecdotal highs, lows, overcorrections and backpedals.

We’ve learned that it can be expensive to live by your values. Costly to speak up. Financially and reputationally. But we have found a 3×3 formula for knowing when and how to say your piece in a world where your statements can amplify your brand or create backlash against it.

Before we talk about the formula, let’s talk about how we got here. The context is more than background. It’s the reason the formula works.

Anyone have anything to say? Anyone?

At the start of the Iraq war in 2003, I only remember one company saying anything about it. French’s® Mustard.

It wasn’t because they had a take on the war. It was because Americans, united in patriotism against nations opposed to the war––like France––wanted to boycott French’s Mustard.

There was just one problem. French’s wasn’t French. They were an American company named after their founder. French’s made a wartime statement to clear up a simple misunderstanding. No worries. Emotions were running high. It’s all good.

It’s not like Twitter was around back then to fan the flames.

More than 20 years later, we have another war in the Middle East. And companies are staying quiet as well. The American people are less united. France isn’t actively joining the effort, but we have no calls for “Freedom Fries” or boycotts against French’s Mustard.

Yet in the time between the two wars, things changed.

Brands developed a taste for social activism, fueled by social media that enabled more people to know your business. Values became visible and consequential. Speaking out and standing for something became a way to appeal to younger generations, attract talent and communicate values to customers. Marriage equality. DEI. COVID. George Floyd's murder. Black Lives Matter. Silence wasn’t exactly golden.

Is it golden now? And for B2B brands and manufacturers that tend to focus more on customers and less on the cultural moments and movements, what is the best way to speak up on events that impact business––yours and your customers’––without talking your way out of the conversation?

We're getting to the answer.

But first, a look back.

2020: Activism Accelerated

Prior to 2020, few brands championed Black Lives Matter (BLM). And those that did were large. Nike. Proctor & Gamble. Gucci.

Then George Floyd was murdered and the dam broke. In the weeks that followed, nearly 100 organizations showed first-time public support for BLM.

Yet these shows of support weren’t always so evident. On average, just 9% of people were aware of the statements companies shared, and only 6% were aware of concrete actions. Brands were talking to a near empty room. But the few who heard rewarded them with an average 8.4-point jump in reputation score.

But Kantar research showed that deeds didn’t match statements, with 41% of marketing leaders saying no actions were taken by their organizations in response to BLM protests. That’s not activism. That’s posturing. And people can sense posturing.

Quickly Is How We React Emotionally. Emotionally Is How We React Quickly.

When the Supreme Court affirmed same-sex marriage in 2015, brands came out in fuller force to show support, applying rainbow colors to their logos and applauding the decision. The fight for marriage equality had been long enough that a consensus formed, and a safety-in-numbers vibe took effect. It was a safer moment to take a stand.

But it also revealed that the response window for brands is really a sliding glass door. Say nothing and your silence becomes the story. Wait too long and you’re seen as playing it safe and formulated. Move too fast and your statement can look reflexive, flippant and lacking rationale, putting you on the front line of backlash.

The brands that threaded the needle weren’t faster. They were just more prepared. And that preparation mattered more as stakes got bigger.

Taking a Stand Loses Its Footing

The powder keg events of 2020 brought people to the streets, put keyboard warriors in front of screens, and sparked brands to action. And put those actions under a microscope. Social media algorithms amplified the loudest and emotional and diminished the rationale.

The once-per-century pandemic layered in more conflict––masks, vaccines, closures. Now any sort of activism inevitably had the veneer of anger to it. We reached guaranteed alienation. Say something, face backlash for your words. Stay quiet, face backlash for being silent. You can’t please everyone. Everyone has a microphone. No one gives the benefit of the doubt.

For a while, brands managed by anchoring to causes with broad support. DEI. Allyship. Inclusion. People applauded those important enough to be worthwhile and included on brand websites. The COVID vaccine reopened normalcy again. Even despite unprecedented events––the Jan. 6 Capitol riot––it was feeling like a post-controversy world.

But that didn’t last.

Rocks, Hard Places and the DEI Retreat

Simmering resentment against DEI programs became an underpinning of the 2024 election. The new administration went in with both feet. Woke was put to sleep. No more DEI programs at the federal level signified to the private sector that they better follow suit. Or else.

Brands that made DEI commitments faced a test. Hold the line and risk regulatory and political blowback, or roll those programs back and reveal your commitments weren’t real in the first place.

Target chose retreat out of the gate. And the backlash was just as swift. A boycott ensued, and foot traffic declined by 9.5%. in the first month, and the stock price went from $142 to $94 a share. They alienated DEI supporters, and DEI opponents unsurprisingly didn’t fill the gap. The optics were devastating: the Target emperor had no clothes. Other brands, knowing eyeballs were on them, watched and, hoping people wouldn’t notice, removed DEI programs more quietly.

Meanwhile, Bud Light showed what being more DEI-supportive would do. A single influencer promotion during March Madness® 2023 featured trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. The partnership triggered a massive boycott, causing sales to plummet by over 20%, and a $1.4 billion sales loss to go with a $27 billion drop in market value for Anheuser-Busch.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

But dammit, there might be another way.

A New Club: The Brands That Listened First Got It Right

Costco took advantage of Target’s situation, kind of like how your younger child compliments you when the older kid gets in trouble. “I actually REALLY like your meat loaf, Mom.” Costco double downed on a commitment to DEI they’d already made and actually meant. It wasn’t an added page on their website. It was as fundamental as their $1.50 hot dog.

Costco didn’t just react to their customer base. They applied proper action because they’d already done three things:

• Listened: to customers, their workforce, the market and the world their business lived in. They understood their audience because they knew where their customers stood. Filling the Target vacuum was a perfectly timed opportunity.

• Judged: whether the conversation was the one to join. It was. Costco understood their risk was less risky, judging that in the long run they’d be on the right side of history. Their customer base, workforce and values all aligned.

• Assessed: what the moment required. To speak? To go further and act? To be intentionally silent? Costco spoke and acted. Not with a hedged statement but with a full commitment where voice matched action. No half measures.

Risk Aversion Is a Diversion.

Costco took a risk. Hindsight shows it worked. So why didn’t more brands do what Costco did?

Because taking risks is the advice of people who survived doing so. “Stay hungry, stay foolish,” is iconic because Steve Jobs said it. If the CEO of Blockbuster Video or Quibi–-do we remember them today?––said “Stay hungry, stay foolish,” it comes across as awkward and embarrassing. Today a bias toward a brand surviving shapes the conversation around bold behavior. And silence feels like the rational response.

In the current climate—with war in the Middle East underway once more—brands are defaulting to safe zones. Wave a subdued “support our troops” flag and move on.

Here’s the rub. The war isn’t a political story for B2B manufacturers. It’s a supply chain story. A workforce story. A story on energy costs. All of it is affecting your business and that of your customers right now. Staying silent may feel safe. But it’s not prudent. It’s a gap in leadership and communications.

The data backs this up. B2B buyers are actually more values-driven than before and are 8X more likely to pay a premium for comparable products or services when personal value is present. Yet 68% of those same buyers say most brands they encounter sound the same. By fulfilling a “speak-out obligation” rather than conviction, they blend into the noise and reveal they didn’t listen.

The brands that speak with clarity and conviction, grounded in who they truly are, stand out and win.

A 3 by 3 Formula: It’s Pre-work, Not a Crisis Checklist

Watching 20 years of brands succeed and fail has shown us there are three kinds of brands in any breaking moment.

• Reflexive reactor: Responds quickly, sounds genuine, tends to regret it later

• Silent calculator: Feels safe by saying nothing, watches the silence stack up

• Prepared brand: Responds confidently with measured speed because they know what they want to say

The third group knows to:

Have a position so you know how to react. Don’t react your way into a position.

They’re not lucky. They did the work and followed the formula. You can too. Here's how:

The First 3: Act Wisely

It starts with listening, which threads through each step.

• Listen: What are your customers, workforce, the market actually saying? Are they trying to articulate but struggling? Where are they uncertain? What clarity can you deliver that no one else can?

• Judge: Is this the conversation to join? Speaking on a war that is disrupting your supply chain—to the point customers are concerned about delivery times—is not political commentary. It’s your job. Say something.

• Assess: What does your position require here? To speak? To act? To be intentionally silent because it’s not your arena? Any of the above can be right. None should be a default.

The next 3: Know Thyself

• Know your world: What are the forces that affect your business and your customers, such as supply chains, workforce, fuel costs, inflation, trade policy? What is the magnitude of their impacts?

• Know your values: This isn’t a platitude for a break room poster, but more a decision filter you’ve tested and can back up if someone pushes back.

• Know your voice: When you speak, it should sound like you and not like a committee or a “prepared statement.” Sound different even if the point and substance are the same for others.

The Final 3: Make Your Choice

We go back to where the formula started. And while it seems obvious to choose C, it’s still worth understanding the choices themselves.

• Reflexively react: This is the fast response, and it’s likely the most genuine in the moment since it hasn’t gone through a filter or rewrite (just being yourself), but it also has the most risk (i.e., you may regret it).

• The silence calculation: Silence is golden, right? Sometimes. If you say nothing, no one can accuse you of being wrong for taking a side. It feels safe. But sometimes too much silence accumulates. And when you finally say something, it may sound louder than you like.

• Being the prepared brand: These are the times you respond with measured speed because you already know their answer/statement and have confidence in it. You own it. You’re not making statements. You’re declaring values.

Activate the Closing Statement

The next big event is coming. You won’t know what it is exactly, but it will arrive fast, and it will demand something of you.

Twenty years of brand activism––or the lack thereof–– from French’s to Costco and rainbow logos to DEI initiatives have taught us something very important: The brands that navigate these moments well aren't faster or bolder than those that stumble. They're more prepared. They've done the listening before the moment arrived. They know their world, their values, and their voice well enough that when the ground shifts, they don't have to find their footing.

They already know where they stand.

It’s not a communications strategy. It’s a brand foundation. Knowing who you are and being ready and unafraid to say so.

Want to learn more? We’re ready to walk you through it. Check the form below or email me!