Brands no longer have the choice to ignore social movements

Uncle Ben's is no longer always a success.

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• Uncle Ben's rice will change its name to become the original Ben's.

  The original name and logo had racist overtones.

• The pressure put on the company by the anti-racist movement, far from being new, has ended up paying off in an intense summer on these issues.

• In fact, companies no longer have a choice.

  They become accountable for their choices and must commit.

Say goodbye to Uncle Ben's but hello to “Original Ben's”.

Orange boxes of American rice will no longer display the head of their black "mascot" or the word "uncle," often used pejoratively towards black people.

If this packaging has been criticized for a long time for the racist clichés it conveys, it is obviously the resurgence of the anti-racist movement Black Lives Matter in the United States that has sounded the death knell.

It's not nothing.

Because changing its name, for an everyday brand, which is more international, "it is a strong and very destabilizing act", judge Florence Benoit-Moreau, lecturer at Paris-Dauphine University, specializing in marketing and strategy .

However, it is not the only brand to make this choice.

In the United States, several very popular companies show a black person from the segregationist imagination.

This is the case of Aunt Jemima (again the word "aunt", aunt, is seen as pejorative), on bottles of maple syrup or pancake batter.

In Denmark, no more “Eskimo” ice cream, the old name given to the Inuit.

And then in France, in 2012, Banania dropped its slogan passed down to the posterity of racism: “There's good Banania!

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Millennials in power

These brands have held up for decades, against opponents who did not appear six months ago.

But, the world has changed.

"Companies no longer have a choice", says Sylvie Borau, teacher-researcher at Toulouse Business School.

Why ?

“Brands are being beaten up by social media,” she says.

We no longer communicate with our customers in 2020 as we did only fifteen years ago.

“Before, a simple strategy was enough, above all aimed at your end consumer,” describes Florence Benoit-Moreau.

Today everyone counts, it's a conversation.

Sometimes initiated by consumers themselves.

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In short, the brands, powerful as they are, paradoxically have less control and risk the bad buzz.

A real risk when "the brand image is the most important capital of these companies, believes Sylvie Borau.

When you see the level of advertising budgets… If it didn't work, the brands wouldn't!

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According to the specialists interviewed by

, it is therefore the millennials, overrepresented on social networks, who lead the dance: "They are pro-environment, anti-racist, feminist, pro LGBT ...", thinks Sylvie Borau.

And that is reflected in communication strategies: they are the consumers of tomorrow.

We buy securities

However, the question of corporate social responsibility is starting to arise, and not only because of anti-racist or feminist social movements.

“We are seeing companies with a mission appear.

We ask that the company does not only address its customers but the whole of society.

So brands are forced to think about it, ”thinks Florence Benoit-Moreau.

All this is not necessarily just a cost for companies, it can also pay off.

Because, when we buy something, we also buy securities.

And it's even more important when you sell rice at random.

Between Ben's original and Lustucru, the difference is not necessarily obvious.

Suddenly "offering as a reason to buy collective well-being can be a very good argument", thinks Eva Delacroix, also a lecturer at Paris-Dauphine and co-author, with Florence Benoit-Moreau, of "Gender and Marketing, the influence of marketing strategies on gender stereotypes ”(EMS).

Accountable, like governments

Gone are the days when brands wanted a smooth image above all else: surveys seem to show that consumers are looking for engagement.

But our specialists also note that it is a double-edged sword: if everyone was on the same political line, it would be known.

So it is also not to be excluded that certain parts of the population reject the choice, for example, of the original Ben's.

The boycott can also be conservative: Nike remembers it, when the company decided to support Colin Kaepernick, the American footballer who dropped on one knee during the national anthem to protest against the treatment of blacks in the country, a gesture violently disapproved of by Donald Trump.

It remains to be seen whether the conversion is sincere.

Commercial opportunism reigns in a world of images.

And we are never far from accusations of green-washing or feminist-washing for companies that only change communication on the front.

In the case of the original Ben's, the company said it would fund programs to support the black community in Greenville, Mississippi, where the brand's rice has been produced for forty years.

Here too, Sylvie Borau thinks that the company had no choice: “They were obliged to support the gesture, otherwise they would have been criticized.

"Brands must seek credibility on these subjects," said Eva Delacroix, otherwise beware, once again, of the bad buzz.

In a world where brands are cultural institutions, sometimes more powerful than States, attacking their racist, sexist, LGBTphobic practices… It is ultimately not very far from debunking statues.

Businesses, like governments, must be held to account.

And contemporary social movements have understood this well.

World

Accused of conveying racist clichés, the Uncle Ben's brand changes its name

World

Top-of-the-range Danish ice cream parlor renounces offensive name "Eskimo"

• Economy

• Publicity

• Feminism

• Society

• Business

• Racism

• Communication

• Mark