While we acknowledge that having a strong brand purpose is one of the driving factors of a successful brand today, brand authenticity is leading the pack in terms of consumer importance. Consumers are now more skeptical than ever of the brands surrounding them, as these brands play a significant role in their identities. Consequently, consumers strive to support genuinely authentic brands. However, what happens when consumers encounter brands that appear to be putting up a front? This is where the concept of woke-washing comes into play.
"Authenticity has overtaken quality as the prevailing purchasing criterion, just as quality overtook cost, and as cost overtook availability." (Gilmore & Pine, 2007)
As we can see, over the years, there has been a dramatic shift in consumer buying behavior, as price and quality are no longer as important as they once were. With the shift moving from product focus to brand value focus, it adds another level to branding today—one that is harder to execute.
What is Woke-Washing?
Brand activism, defined as taking a public stance towards sociopolitical issues (Thürridl & Thompson, 2023), is a marketing strategy commonly used today that aids in developing stronger relationships with a brand audience, and additionally, winning over new consumers. However, there is a difference between brand activism and authentic brand activism. Authentic brand activism can be defined as "the alignment of a brand’s explicit purpose and values with its activist marketing messaging and prosocial corporate practice" (Vredenburg, et al., 2020, p. 2) So, when a brand's activist messaging does not align with their established purpose and values, this is where they can be accused of inauthentic brand activism, or better put, woke-washing. Woke-washing can then lead to the potential of misleading customers, damaged brand equity, and damaged potential for social change. (Vredenburg, et al., 2020, p. 1)
It is easy to define woke-washing and authentic brand activism, but what matters the most is what consumers themselves think and feel about these brands and concepts. Taking a look at a video produced by Fast Company, we can gain more insight into consumer attitudes towards "woke" branding.
In this video, the interviewer asks a series of questions to various New Yorkers regarding their attitudes towards brands who actively speak out on social issues, and whether or not this makes a difference in the brands they support. Some individuals believe it does pay off to speak on social issues as large corporations are the ones with all the money, and can therefore influence policymakers. However, others believe brand activism utilizes wokeness to exploit consumers. Viewing this video, it is clear that consumers are smart and can see through brand activism and brand wokeness, making it all the more important to be authentic.
Once a brand decides to take a stand on a social or political issue, this opens them up to the possibility of extreme criticism. It allows consumers to dive deep into their existing values leading them to make their own decisions on whether or not the activism was used simply for capitalization, or if there was a deeper, more authentic reason.
"Brands with little or no established prosocial corporate practice, messaging, purpose, and values have the least appropriate reputation for a new activism campaign involving a sociopolitical cause to align with." (Vredenburg, et al., 2020, p. 10)
Woke-Washing Example
To explore this concept further, we can take a look at a real-life branding example that can be viewed as "woke-washing".
International Women's Day and Fast Fashion
When exploring the concept of woke-washing, and finding examples of such, we can start with industries or brands whose values have been made very clear. The fast fashion industry is one that has gained great traction over the past few years. Fast fashion can be defined as "low-cost, on-trend clothing that is marketed predominantly to young women" (Horton, et al., 2022). In past years, brands like Zara and Forever 21 were what consumers thought of when considering fast fashion. However, in today's market, fast fashion has been taken to the next level. The Chinese fashion brand SHEIN has become extremely popular, as they operate fully online and release roughly 10,000 new items per day (Selyukh, 2023). The items they release are strictly based on what is "on-trend" at that given moment, and their products can be found for as low as one dollar. They target predominantly young women, leading to all of their great success. With a focus on young women, who often have less disposable income, they are more willing to contribute to fast fashion.
Not only is SHEIN known for their low prices, but they are also widely known for their extreme exploitation of workers. In a recent documentary titled "Inside the Shein Machine: UNTOLD" reporter Iman Amrani and Channel 4 conduct an undercover investigation of the working conditions in their factories. During this investigation, it was discovered that factory workers were working up to 18 hours a day, throughout weekends, and being paid as little as 3 cents per item produced. (PA Media, 2022)
Aside from just Shein, many other fast fashion brands have been accused of similar working conditions. While approximately 80% of garment workers are women (according to the Clean Clothes Campaign), women are the individuals most significantly impacted by these working conditions.
So, what does this have to do with woke-washing?
As we know, woke-washing is defined as a misalignment between activist messaging and established purpose and values, so we can now analyze activist messaging by fast fashion brands, and compare those messages to other areas of the brand. A specific form of activist messaging among brands can be found surrounding International Women's Day, a holiday celebrated annually with a focus on women's rights and gender equality. Looking at SHEIN specifically, last year on International Women's Day, they made this Instagram post:
"We celebrate all women on International Women's Day and every day! #SHEinpower Take a moment to thank a strong and inspiring woman in your life today. Tell us why and share your story by using #SHEinpower on your feed."
This International Women's Day female empowerment messaging directly contradicts everything built into the structure of their company. Promoting the celebration of all women while paying women 3 cents an hour at the same time is a concrete example of woke-washing. Not only is SHEIN trying to promote this message, but they are also using it to plug a sale that they are having, putting a link to it in the caption of their post. Below is the current sale they are having to celebrate Women's History Month.
In the comments of this Instagram post, it is clear that consumers saw straight through their woke messaging.
In order for a brand to be considered an authentic brand activist, its brand purpose, values, activist marketing messaging, and prosocial corporate practice must be aligned. (Vredenburg, et al., 2020, p. 7) In this case, consumers quickly picked up on the fact that these factors were not aligned, and therefore, SHEIN was called out. However, while SHEIN has been called out countless amounts of times, they still see great success every day as their prices remain so low. At the end of the day, consumers are quick to call out brands who should be "canceled" but, there is still a gap between consumers who say they will stop supporting a brand and those who actually do.
So, besides getting called out, what effect does woke-washing actually have on brands today?
Negative Effects of Woke-Washing
Decrease in Customers
To make the negative effects of woke-washing easier to digest, Accenture conducted a global survey of 30,000 consumers from 35 different countries, exploring this issue. The results found that 62% of participants want companies to take a stand on current issues such as sustainability, transparency, and fair employment practices, 48% of participants who are disappointed by a brand's words or actions on a social issue will complain about it, 42% will walk away from the brand in frustration, and 21% will never come back. (Barton et al., 2018) So as we can see, this disappointment will cause consumers to walk away from a brand, and not just call them out.
Decrease in Customer Loyalty
Woke-washing is very easy to get caught in as the internet allows nearly every consumer to do the research and gain access to all the information they could need on a brand. The access to this information not only makes it easy to catch brands in their lies, but it also increases the consumer expectation of transparency, leading brand transparency to not only be a choice, but a necessity. (Goil, 2023) Being accused of woke-washing directly interferes with brand transparency, resulting in reduced consumer trust, further resulting in less customer loyalty. Not only does woke-washing jeopardize brand transparency, it also leads consumers to question the overall ethics of the brand as a whole. So as we can see, it is all tied together beginning with the importance of authentic purpose-driven branding (further discussed in my previous post which can be viewed here). Once the authenticity piece is missing, this is where everything else begins to fall.
Application of This Theory
Now that we understand the concept of authentic purpose-driven branding, along with its counter, woke-washing, this leads us to be able to extend these theories and frameworks to other aspects of branding. Another example of capitalizing on a social movement can be seen in the body positivity movement. Read my following blog posts to explore this concept.
References
Barton, R., Quiring, K., & Theofilou, B. (2018, December 5). The power of Brand Purpose. Accenture. https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/strategy/brand-purpose
Gilmore, J. H., & Joseph, P. I. B. (2015). Authenticity what consumers really want. Harvard Business Review Press.
Goil, D. (2023, April 10). Understanding brand transparency and its importance for next generation companies. Ecowiser. https://wiser.eco/brand-transparency-merits/#:~:text=Brand%20transparency%20is%20an%20important,for%20brands%20that%20prioritize%20it.
Guardian News and Media. (2022, December 5). Shein admits working hour breaches and pledges £12m to improve sites. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/05/shein-admits-working-hour-breaches-and-pledges-12m-to-improve-sites
Horton, K., Street, P., & O’Brien, E. (2022). When women owe women: Framing consumer responsibility in the context of fast fashion. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 11(2), 116–128. https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.2356
Selyukh, A. (2023). America can’t resist fast fashion. Shein, with all its issues, is tailored for it. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2023/10/13/1204983212/shein-america-fast-fashion-legal-issues#:~:text=Shein%20drops%20up%20to%2010%2C000,people%20start%20to%20buy%20them.
Thürridl, C., & Mattison Thompson, F. (2023). Making brand activism successful: How advice-giving can boost support behavior and reap benefits for the brand. Marketing Letters, 34(4), 685–696. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-023-09677-4
Vredenburg, J., Kapitan, S., Spry, A., & Kemper, J. A. (2020). Brands taking a stand: Authentic Brand Activism or woke washing? Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 39(4), 444–460. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743915620947359
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