The Culture War: Brands as Collateral Damage

There’s a cul­ture war raging for our minds.

It’s the social justice war­ri­ors versus the pop­u­list­ic tra­di­tion­al­ists. They con­sume much more than their fair share of the online agenda.

Where does this leave the rest of us?
Where does this leave reg­u­lar businesses?

Let’s dive right into it:

The Just War Theory

Today’s cul­ture war is a jus bel­lum justum (a just war) for our mor­al values.

The just war the­ory dic­tates that “[… ] war, while ter­rible (but less so with the right con­duct), is not always the worst option. Important respons­ib­il­it­ies, undesir­able out­comes, or pre­vent­able atro­cit­ies may jus­ti­fy war.” ¹Just war the­ory. (2023, November 14). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​J​u​s​t​_​w​a​r​_​t​h​e​ory

And this cul­ture war is spelling dev­ast­at­ing con­sequences for busi­nesses world­wide. Wokeness. Populism. De-plat­form­ing. Cancel cul­ture. Political cor­rect­ness. Bot attacks. Free speech infringe­ments. Coördinated troll attacks. Reputation destruction. 

Businesses are try­ing to rise to the chal­lenge, but how?

To start, we need to under­stand this polar­ised media landscape.

The Publics of the Culture War

So, how should your busi­ness nav­ig­ate this inflam­mat­ory cul­ture war? 

We can identi­fy three crit­ic­al online pub­lics based on how they com­mu­nic­ate their under­ly­ing mor­al philo­sophy. And they use the inter­net as their primary tool for organ­ising them­selves and exert­ing mor­al extortion.

Social Justice Warriors will not accept any per­ceived “injustice.” They regard them­selves as mor­ally super­i­or and see all oppon­ents as imme­di­ate threats to their con­vic­tions. According to this pub­lic, online aggres­sion is an appro­pri­ate polit­ic­al expres­sion (if per­pet­rated by them­selves).

Read also: Cancel Culture — A Serious PR Problem

Populistic Traditionalists see “com­mon sense” derived from gen­er­a­tions of empir­ic­al mor­al insights to trump all oth­er forms of dis­cern­ment. They cel­eb­rate homo­gen­eity and pat­ri­ot­ism and are often reli­gious. According to this pub­lic, online aggres­sion is a prop­er polit­ic­al expres­sion (if per­pet­rated by them­selves).

Read also: How To Fight Populism

The Silent Majority are mod­er­ately inves­ted in mor­al philo­sophy; they are more focused on mak­ing ends meet in their per­son­al lives. They avoid tak­ing any such aggress­ive stands — at least pub­licly. However, they con­tinu­ally “vote” online by click­ing, watch­ing, read­ing, and listen­ing.

Read also: The Spiral of Silence

How should a brand nav­ig­ate this cul­ture war?
Either pick a side and stick with it — or steer clear?

The Art of Online Grandstanding

For any brand strug­gling with envir­on­ment­al, social, and gov­ernance (ESG) issues, it’s tempt­ing to try and score quick points with short-lived pub­lic “out­rages.”

Businesses that pose as beacons for mor­al mod­el­ling could gain trac­tion with the chosen minority.

But does grand­stand­ing make busi­ness sense?

From a pub­lic rela­tions per­spect­ive, con­flicts such as these could fuel media atten­tion, but it’s far from evid­ent that these brands will increase their mar­ket shares; the share-of-voice for the loudest agit­at­ors is rarely pro­por­tion­al to their actu­al numbers. 

Gillette: The Toxic-Masculinity Misfire

A recent example would be Gillette’s cam­paign, which attacked its cus­tom­er base with accus­a­tions of not being account­able enough for tox­ic masculinity.

Of course, it back­fired.
Perhaps also affect­ing stock prices immediately.

“That raises the ques­tion of wheth­er Gillette’s fin­an­cial res­ults are suf­fer­ing because of its tox­ic-mas­culin­ity mis­fire. On Tuesday, Procter & Gamble (PG) beat earn­ings and rev­en­ue fore­casts, but the stock fell 3% on a day the S&P 500 closed at a new high.”
—Don’t Blame My Toxic Masculinity for Gillette’s Woes by Jack Hough, Barron’s

In short:

Most brands will likely do bet­ter if they real­ise that it’s not their core busi­ness to teach grown-ups about what con­sti­tutes mor­al behaviour.

Few ordin­ary busi­nesses are suited to serve as mouth­pieces for hun­dreds — or even thou­sands — of cowork­ers. Or cus­tom­ers, some­times in their millions.

Like me, you prob­ably have your mor­al con­vic­tions, but these con­vic­tions aren’t neces­sar­ily the right baseline for all cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions activities.

Moral Conformity and HR

Brands must stand for some­thing and be brave enough to see these fights through. A brand must find its core mes­sage, which must res­on­ate with own­ers, lead­ers, cowork­ers, and customers.

But the cul­ture war isn’t just a PR chal­lenge; the found­a­tion for long-term stra­tegic suc­cess in man­aging the organ­isa­tion­al cul­ture befalls HR, too. 

HR is being encour­aged to hire and fire with diversity in mind. But when it comes to mor­al con­vic­tions, diversity of thought sud­denly becomes the num­ber one enemy of the HR department.

Today, HR must decide wheth­er to hire or fire based on con­flict­ing mor­al stand­ards. You must look dif­fer­ent, but sim­ul­tan­eously lack the trait of think­ing differently.

Finding cowork­ers that fit mor­al double stand­ards — while being a com­pet­ent, inde­pend­ent thinker at the same time — is an impossible HR strategy.

How To Navigate Cancel Culture

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Cancel Culture and Social Media

“Cancel cul­ture on social media is a form of pub­lic sham­ing that aims to dif­fuse pub­lic dis­course and pro­mote tol­er­ance, but can also be viewed as a form of intol­er­ance against oppos­ing views.”
Source: Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities ²Velasco, J. (2020). You are Cancelled: Virtual Collective Consciousness and the Emergence of Cancel Culture as Ideological Purging. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 12. … Continue read­ing

Cancel cul­ture, de-plat­form­ing, and woke journ­al­ism are becom­ing chal­len­ging PR problems:

“Cancel cul­ture or call-out cul­ture is a phrase con­tem­por­ary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostra­cism in which someone is thrust out of social or pro­fes­sion­al circles — wheth­er it be online, on social media, or in per­son. Those sub­ject to this ostra­cism are said to have been ‘can­celled’.”
Source: Wikipedia ³Cancel cul­ture. (2023, January 4). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​C​a​n​c​e​l​_​c​u​l​t​ure

Public opin­ion often forces brands to de-plat­form indi­vidu­als, part­ner organ­isa­tions, advert­isers, col­lab­or­at­ors, etc.

“Deplatforming, also known as no-plat­form­ing, has been defined as an ‘attempt to boy­cott a group or indi­vidu­al through remov­ing the plat­forms (such as speak­ing ven­ues or web­sites) used to share inform­a­tion or ideas, or ‘the action or prac­tice of pre­vent­ing someone hold­ing views regarded as unac­cept­able or offens­ive from con­trib­ut­ing to a for­um or debate, espe­cially by block­ing them on a par­tic­u­lar web­site’.”
Source: Wikipedia ⁴Deplatforming. (2023, January 8). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​D​e​p​l​a​t​f​o​r​m​ing

Here’s how to nav­ig­ate the mor­al war as a business:

• Avoid breezy grand­stand­ing. CSR- and ESG activ­it­ies should be laser-focused, clearly defined, and business-relevant.
• Internally, cel­eb­rate the diversity of thought. Having cowork­ers who think dif­fer­ently is an asset to any busi­ness culture.
• Don’t let the can­cel cul­ture intim­id­ate you. Protesters are loud and noisy, primar­ily online, but they don’t have the num­bers to match.
• Direct your resources towards your brand com­munity. Most of your cus­tom­er base will be in the silent major­ity, not in the extremes.

Learn more: How To Navigate Cancel Culture

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PR Resource: The High Road Tonality

The Stoic Tonality

An organ­isa­tion is the poly­phon­ic sum of all its cowork­ers. Imagine extract­ing each cowork­er­’s most vir­tu­ous and mature traits and com­bin­ing them into one voice — the Stoic tonality.

Stoic Tonality Examples

“Why does­n’t your brand speak out against indus­tri­al over­fish­ing killing our oceans?”

“As a com­pany that sells fish­ing gear, we want our oceans — and all anim­als and plants liv­ing in them! — to be healthy and plen­ti­ful. We, too, were dis­turbed by the recent news of over­fish­ing. How could any­one not be? We now ask ourselves, how can our com­pany make more of a dif­fer­ence? Honestly, we’re dis­cuss­ing our strategy for sus­tain­ab­il­ity every day. I can­not say how or when we might take spe­cif­ic action regard­ing this latest news, but rest assured that we’re tak­ing the gen­er­al issue of sav­ing our oceans seriously.”

“Why does­n’t your brand engage in Black Lives Matter?”

“As for right now, we’re listen­ing. We’re listen­ing to the stor­ies being told. We’re listen­ing to under­stand bet­ter how we can learn and grow as a com­pany. As for inclus­ive­ness and human rights in gen­er­al, we think we’re doing a great job, and part of that is to stay open and care­fully listen to people’s stor­ies. We might take spe­cif­ic actions, but we’re listen­ing and learning.”

“Why does­n’t your brand join our protests against tox­ic mas­culin­ity and the pat­ri­archy?”

“Honestly, we’re a product com­pany. We make products for any­one who likes them. And I dare say that we’re experts in mak­ing these products. However, we’re not experts on ideo­lo­gies or soci­et­al struc­tures. So, for now, we listen. And we con­tin­ue to focus on mak­ing the best products that we can. For every­one. We believe that’s our best way of con­trib­ut­ing at this point.”

“Why does­n’t your brand sign our peti­tion to boy­cott all com­pan­ies on our Environmental Black List?”

“As a com­pany, we oper­ate dif­fer­ently. Instead of sign­ing peti­tions or par­ti­cip­at­ing in oth­er pub­lic demon­stra­tions, we take action with­in our sphere of influ­ence. And I dare say that our many envir­on­ment­al ini­ti­at­ives are mak­ing a lot of dif­fer­ence world­wide rel­at­ive to our size and reach. If we were to sign your peti­tion, we would first have to use our resources to research the legit­im­acy of its cre­at­ors and then make sure that none of the com­pan­ies on that list is being wrong­fully accused. While it would be pos­sible, we’ve decided that we can do more good by dir­ect­ing our resources to where we can make the most difference.”

“Why does­n’t your com­pany act against your female employ­ees who take time off for abor­tions?”

“All our employ­ees are grown-ups, and what they do on their own time is frankly none of our busi­ness. We’re a large com­pany, and we have employ­ees who are pro-life and pro-choice. We believe we have a work­place where people can have dif­fer­ent opin­ions but still respect each oth­er and work well together.”

“Why has­n’t your com­pany offered your thoughts and pray­ers for the vic­tims and their fam­il­ies of the school shoot­ing?”

“The vic­tims and their fam­il­ies have our empath­ies, of course. I speak for every­one work­ing at our com­pany when I say we were dev­ast­ated by the news as every­one else. But you’re right that we haven’t pos­ted any status updates about the shoot­ing on our Facebook page. It’s not that we don’t care (we do!), it’s just that we focus our updates on our products and ser­vices and how they make a pos­it­ive dif­fer­ence in the world.”

Learn more: The Stoic Tonality: Rise Above With Integrity