'Go woke, go broke’, goes a catchphrase beloved by below-the-line internet commenters when a company adopts a controversially progressive stance. And like so many clichés, its origins have some truth behind them.
When Bud Light partnered a transgender influencer in 2023, it cost its brewer roughly a 28% drop in profits and itself its position as the US’s best-selling beer.
American retail giant Target’s share price took a 10% hit when it launched some controversial Pride-month merchandise in the same year.
Saying you really love a cause when not everybody feels the same way carries corporate risk. And it works both ways: there are protests or boycotts against non-progressive company stances too, of course, whether perceived or otherwise; pushback against corporate ethics that people think are particularly nasty.
Basically, if someone shouts particularly loudly about an issue they say really matters to them, I don’t suppose it should be a surprise when people shout back.
Although it can be: Jaguar said it didn’t mean to send any particular messages, take any stance or alienate anyone with its ‘copy nothing’ advert last year, but that didn’t stop it being perceived that way.
Given that the company doesn’t have any new cars to sell at the moment, it has time to work it out and perhaps, even if it has been wrongly understood, it will inadvertently end up on the right side of things. Because I wonder if the sands are shifting a bit.
Here we must talk about Elon Musk, whose positions as de facto head of the US government’s new Department of Government Efficiency and agitator for right-wing politics and mocker of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on social media bin fire X haven’t been doing his car company any huge favours in recent weeks.
Tesla’s shares are down and, depending on where you look, its sales are too. As the Financial Times titled it last month: “Tesla stock is falling because Elon Musk’s stock is falling.”
Join the debate
Add your comment
Why do car companies spend money on advertising that does not simply explain the merits of the vehicle but seek to create an emotional response to an inanimate object? We buy cars on the basis of feelings as much as on specifications. Image/brand matters. To drive a Tesla five years ago was a stament about who you are, confident that other people whould interpret that statement has you intended. Green, caring, dynamic, socially responsible. To drive a Tesla today? Now that brand is charged with a political dimension that it is out of your control and quite different from one that many consumers would not want to identify with.
Perhaps Tesla will be added to the list of brands that people use begrudgingly, including Ryanair, Sports Direct and Amazon.