Cannes Lions Makes A Point About Trump And Signals An Emerging Trend Of Activism In Consumer Ads

It is, perhaps, a sign of the times that most winners in the Cannes Lion Festival of Creativity which took place last week in France, were brands that took an overt activist approach in their advertising. The juries seemed to make a point about the creative community and Trump.

Nike was awarded for an ad featuring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick has been roundly criticized by conservatives since 2016, when he started kneeling in protest during the national anthem before NFL games to highlight anti-black police violence. Kaepernick has become a political lightning rod for conservatives – Trump called him “A son of a bitch” – and he became a persona non grata in the NFL. The idea that a major sports brand would feature him, despite the controversy, in an ad seemed implausible, but Nike took a calculated risk and included him in its campaign marking the 30th anniversary of its “Just Do It” slogan. 

The current New York Times campaign, “The Truth Is Worth It”, is depicting journalists and not athletes, as heroes, however the message of defiance is the same. The press, in general, is struggling to remain relevant in an environment in which, according to Gallup, only 30% of Americans say they trust the media. The Times is being accused by Trump as the “enemy of the people” and news items are labeled as “Fake news.” These ads are about the importance of the truth and the rigor that truthful reporting requires. It dramatically  chronicles individual stories about how important events were investigate by Times reporters. My guess is,that this campaign is as much a moral booster for a beleaguered internal audience as well.

Another winner at Cannes, is a PSA for a student organization formed after the Parkland High School shooting which makes a strong case for gun control, which Trump, siding with the NRA, opposes. The campaign points out that 95% of public schools engage in lockdown drills to prepare students for the proper course of action in the event of an active shooter. To highlight the issue, the ad features a young girl who survived a shooting, giving a talk to a shocked room of office coworkers as the group’s active shooter training coach. 

Reporters Without Borders in Germany used music streaming to spread the words of journalists from countries where information is repressed. They turned 10 articles that had previously been censored into the lyrics of pop songs. These songs were then uploaded onto freely available music streaming sites Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer under the hashtag #truthfindsaway.

A "fake news" newsstand was built in New York City by the Columbia Journalism Review as a physical representation of relying on just social media and dubious internet publications to stay informed. The stand hawked phony magazines and papers with headlines from popular Facebook posts such as: "Texas now recognized as Mexican state" and "Toddler fight club."

It is not that activist ads are without risk. Last year, Pepsi sparked controversy when it featured model Kendall Jenner in a Black Lives Matter type ad handing a soft drink to a police officer during a fictional political protest. Not only was the ad’s message unclear but critics also took issue with the fact that it centered a privileged white model not known for championing social causes.

The data shows that marketers are more concerned about the negatives that may be associated with activist ads. That’s too bad. Brands are critical to our cultural conversation and,taking a leadership role in shaping society is a natural step. A good strategy for political activism is to look at it from the perspective of issue-by-issue, conscience-led, and brand-aligned. The voice that the ads adopt must be true and authentic to the brand and make sense to consumers.

It is time for more brands to venture into that frontier. The 2018 Edelman Earned Brand Study Found that most consumers brand choice is influenced by belief: 65% say they will buy or boycott a brand solely because of its position on a social or political issue. And this is even higher, 70%, among millennials. Politics have moved in into the supermarket aisles in this hyper political, cable TV charged world.

However, marketers are reticent about entering this world. And,only 31% of them expressed willingness to explore activism, according to a recent CMO.com survey, and only 21% of ad agencies said they recommend it to their clients, in a 4A’s study.

Thus, the data suggest that activism is not just a matter of what’s right, but it’s also a matter of smart business. It has been proven that activist campaigns make sense – the Nike, for example, generated 31% increase in sales while the ad was running and an uptick of 5% in stock price.

Source: Forbes.com

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