"Woke" Advertising: Contemporary Corporate Advertising and the Representation of Racial Justice Justice Movements

A fashion brand talking about global unity, an athletic retail brand tackling racial inequality, and a beverage company portraying protests implying the Black Lives Matter movement. These industries and ideas share little in common, but in the broad socio-political climate amid the omnipresent political divide following the 2016 election, commercial brands have relied increasingly on corporate advertising to engage politically activated Gen-Z consumers. As a generation that has been characterized by strong engagement with social justice movements, an aversion to traditional advertising, and even capitalism at large, corporations have certainly identified messages of social justice to not only target the Gen-Z consumer segment, but also reimagine corporate brands as “woke” brands, or socially conscious brands. In order to investigate the representation of racial justice in corporate advertising, I will consider corresponding producer discourses as well as wider critical discourses surrounding selected campaigns. By assessing Benetton’s “All the Colors of the World” campaign (1983) as an early example of this phenomenon, I will analyze Pepsico’s “Live for Now” campaign starring Kendall Jenner (2017) and Nike’s “Dream Crazy” campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick (2018) as current examples of corporations using advertising to leverage racial justice movements in order to manage brand awareness among younger, more politically activated consumers. Through the analysis of these three campaigns in dialogue with theoretical frameworks and corresponding media discourses, I will provide nuanced insight regarding where they missed the mark in creating advertising campaigns that meaningfully engage with such movements beyond a representational level. Through the analysis of these three campaigns and their shortcomings, I will provide insight into whether corporations can engage with broader social justice movements and employ strategies to surpass performative corporate activism.