On one hand, after backlash from making Dylan Mulvaney a brand ambassador, Bud Light is down to 14th place from 1st place in sales. On the other, Mike Lindell is selling factory equipment because his company got canceled so bad after backing Trump.
You know, I’m pretty OK if companies just get tf out of politics. I don’t want to have to think about what brand of pillow or running shoe or beer or whatever says about who I’d vote for in a general election. It’s hard enough choosing the best product for the best price without adding an entire arbitrary dimension on top of that.
It really reminds me of a comment from Fight club. What does your sofa say about you as a person? Except now it’s What does the brand of some fungible product say about you as a person?
True story here: the reason companies pretend to care about this stuff is that a 2015 study showed that 70% of millennials claimed they would be more likely to pay more for a brand that had supported causes, and in 2014, Pew research found that millennials were more liberal and less conservative – on social views, millennials were 60% to say their views became more liberal. Therefore, to court those buyers companies supported causes, and they supported liberal/left causes.
But you know what? 25 years ago the opposite was true, and the religious right was the dominant cultural force and they were the ones leaning on the scale to get companies to pretend they care about their causes.
But they’re companies. They don’t care about any political cause, it’s just a marketing gimmick. Whoever you are and whatever you support, they’ll use you until they think they can’t make more money off of you then they’ll dump you.
And this is exactly why I hate this manifesting in Disney Star Wars and other recent stuff which came out rotten.
Not because I’m against treating other humans with love, but because I don’t want a corporation spitting into my dish with their fake moralism on principles I already try to follow.
I mean, judging by what I’ve read (I was a baby then), 25 years ago when companies wanted to look modern and fresh and human they’d rather pretend to be futuristic, intelligent, just a bit 31337 and a bit libertarian, not conservative. Even IBM.
What’s worse, the companies which succeed most in this game are those you’d want the least to succeed.