BLM Has Sent Brands Into a Reviewing Frenzy
By: Aliyar Hussain
Tags: Branding, Business Strategy, Blm, Marketing, Racism

Logos Mars/ConAgra Foods/Pepsico

BLM Has Sent Brands Into a Reviewing Frenzy

But are they at risk of whitewashing history?

Many major brands are undertaking reviews of logos, packaging design, and marketing messages in the light of the Black Lives Matter protests and the broader debate over racial equality.

Big brands, such as Amazon, H&M, and McDonald's have all come out in support of Black Lives Matter.

And other businesses are renewing their brands to better reflect changing consumer demand. What they want, is to get rid of product names and packaging designs that seem racist and stereotypical.

Aunt Jemima has been under fire and Quaker Foods has promised to drop the name and logo as its “origins are based on a racial stereotype”.

Uncle Ben’s is also set for a rebrand after backlash over their packaging. Exactly what they’re going to do isn’t clear yet.

The use of the terms “aunt” and “uncle” hark back to how white southerners referred to older black people or African-American slaves rather than using courtesy titles like “Miss” or Mr”.

Mrs. Butterworth’s has also announced a complete brand and packaging review. “The Mrs. Butterworth’s brand, including its syrup packaging, is intended to evoke the images of a loving grandmother,” Conagra Brands said in a statement.

They admitted that their product design may be interpreted in a way that’s inconsistent with their values, as some have associated the shape of the brand’s syrup bottles with a stereotype for Black women.

And this shift is affecting place branding too. Rhode Island, a seaside state in New England, U.S, is now seeking to change its official name — The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations — because of slavery ties.

When we challenge branding, we’re challenging the narratives they represent. And they should represent where we are today, not where we were 130 years ago.

But these changes can only be symbolic

Because symbols and statues don’t create racism, they’re artifacts of it.

We need to steer clear of attacking the symptoms at the expense of curing the disease.

Precisely because the problem is structural, we need to make sure that the conversation stays focused on where real change is required: on a symbolic, emotional, as well as an organizational level.

That’s what makes this so challenging.

These brand and design choices are a result of creative industries that aren’t representative of society.

A 2018 Design Council report showed that only 12% of all design managers and business owners were from minority ethnic groups.

Companies need to overhaul how they work because you don’t get “diversity of thought” in a classic hierarchical structure.

Developing diverse networks within the industry also helps. Just because something isn’t a problem for you doesn’t mean it’s not a problem, and having access to these different viewpoints can make all the difference.

Do more than just correct the error

Issues around branding ultimately come down to business. If businesses aren’t updating their branding, they’re limiting their audience.

If they’re not speaking in a way that people want to hear, their business will die down.

Some brands are slower to respond while others try to anticipate how consumer sentiment is going change in the future.

The ones who try to think about what will be required of them in the future to stay relevant usually fare better than those who simply respond to public pressure.

The kind of expression and language that is acceptable is constantly changing. Just looking back 20, 30, 40 years, public perception of what’s acceptable has changed tremendously.

Parodies of ethnic or sexual minorities that were acceptable several decades ago have no place in public conversation today. It’s no longer acceptable for the general population to have a laugh at the expense of minorities or to appropriate cultural aspects for the sake of marketing.

How can brands proceed in an anti-racist manner?

The brands that come out of a crisis the strongest are the ones who act with agility and find a purpose.

And there is an opportunity for brands that are under fire now to come out of this stronger.

But we have to ask, why does Uncle Ben’s think removing a black man’s face from the brand is a big step in helping to put an end to racial injustices?

According to owner Mars, Uncle Ben was an African-American rice grower known for the quality of his rice. Gordon L. Harwell, an entrepreneur who had supplied rice to the armed forces in World War II, chose the name Uncle Ben’s as a means to expand his marketing efforts to the general public.

The accompanying image of an elderly African-American man is said to have been based on a Chicago maître d’ named Frank Brown and has been on Uncle Ben’s packaging since 1946.

And Aunt Jemima is based on a freed slave and activist, Nancy Green, who worked as a chef for a Kentucky family. She became the face of Aunt Jemima (who is a ‘Mammy’, a slave who acts as a housekeeper for white families) in a branding story that blurs the line between truth and marketing.

By completely reworking these brands, will they be rewriting history and erasing the historic significance of the people the brand designs are based on?

If anything, they now have a unique opportunity to retain these black symbols and ensure that they stand for something positive — these brands have enough money and power to enact meaningful change.

To do that, these brands need to have difficult conversations about what it means to be who they are. And it needs to become a part of their modus operandi to constantly do so.

The University of Yale is one example of a brand that has long grappled with its legacy

Named after Elihu Yale, who got rich plundering India and traded slaves before giving books to a cash-strapped university in Connecticut, Yale’s students and administrators have spent a lot of energy considering his legacy.

As a result, they have sequestered two or his portraits in a closet of shame and opted to display a third with curatorial stress on the enslaved Black child next to him.

Yale has no plans of changing its name to reckon with their benefactor’s crimes because they have long been divorced from the life of Elihu Yale.

“No one was venerating him; no one was trying to live up to his ideals. The name Yale does not belong to Elihu, but to the university, with its faults and virtues, not his.”

- Graeme Wood, Yale Doesn’t Need to Change Its Name

In chaos, there is always opportunity, and this is a chance for brands and big companies to put their values front and center by fully embracing their heritage and updating their marketing messages for the discerning audiences of the 2020s.

And it doesn’t mean hiding the ugly truth

Gen Z is more interested in truth and transparency than highly polished brand images and sleek corporate messages that hide exploitation and a blind pursuit for profit.

Raised to question fake news and to be suspicious of secrecy, sincerity is sacred to them.

This study found that a majority of Gen Zers are more skeptical about brands and want proof that brands align with their values.

The research from The Consumer Goods Forum and Futerra shows that 79 percent of Gen Z believe brands are never honest, or not honest enough, about environmental issues.