Are brands suddenly hesitant to take a stand on cultural issues?

In March 2022, the US state of Florida announced The Parental Rights in Education Act, a bill that prohibits classroom instruction on sexuality from kindergarten to grade 3 (ages 4 to 8).

Like everything else in the US these days, it became a culture war issue. Liberals called this the Don't Say Gay bill and conservatives called it the Anti-Grooming Bill, even though the words "gay" and "grooming" appear a grand total of zero times in the bill.

Disney, the quintessential children's company, was initially hesitant to wade into the issue. Its CEO Bob Chapek was known to be personally unwilling to do so. But when activist employees raised their voices, Chapek belatedly spurred into action and opposed the bill, expressing a lot of guilt in a now-viral video for not having done so earlier.

Conservatives immediately threatened to boycott Disneyland, Disney World and Disney+. That's half of America gone.

But Disney achieved greater brand love on the liberal side of the aisle, right? Wrong! Liberals were angry with Disney for initially refusing to take a stand and only taking a stand after the din from activist employees became loud.

Disney's stock tumbled 31% from 2021 to 2022, becoming one of the worst-performing stocks of 2022.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Florida governor Ron DeSantis stripped Disney of self-governing status for its Disney World property just outside Orlando, making the company lose privileges it had enjoyed for 55 years.

In May 2022, a different issue divided America when it looked like the Supreme Court might reverse the pro-abortion Roe v Wade legislation from 1973.

The response by brands to this issue was distinctly different, in that there wasn't much of a response at all. PR firm Zeno sent out an email to their clients advising them not to be vocal about this issue as it's a genuine 50-50 issue.

Also in May 2022, Netflix launched an updated version of its culture memo, in which they explained that they will create a wide range of content and there may be times when their employees need to work on content they don't agree with. In other words, they are not going to take either side when there are divisive cultural issues.

While all this is happening, Top Gun: Maverick has become one of the world's biggest box office hits of 2022 and the lack of social preaching or posturing in it is talked about as one of its biggest attractions. That's in contrast with, say, the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot or 2020's Birds of Prey which both had the unusual marketing tactic of calling men sexist if they didn't like these films. When did a movie like Top Gun: Maverick with no social preaching become a rarity in Hollywood? Such a rarity that people find it utterly refreshing and respond with "Take my money!"

You need to look at all this and wonder if there's a newfound feeling that brands have overstepped and should think twice before taking a stand on polarizing issues.

Is this the end of brands working to steer culture? Are they going to stay out of all socially pertinent topics? Could this be the end of brand purpose?

I don't think so.

Dove will continue to encourage women and girls to feel beautiful. Lifebuoy will continue saving lives by teaching them clean handwashing habits. Patagonia and REI will continue to do great service to the environment. Nike will continue to empower everyone to express the athlete in them. Starbucks will continue to bring people together. Always and Ariel will continue to battle for gender equality. Google and Apple will continue to conduct bootcamps for Black developers and entrepreneurs and will continue donating to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). P&G will continue to replace plastic packaging with sustainable alternatives. Unilever's Unstereotype Alliance will continue to dismantle harmful stereotypes in communication.

What has changed is that brands will hesitate to tell half the world's people that they are wrong.

That's something no brand ever had the right to do anyway. Thinking they had that right was the big mistake made by the few brands who've overstepped.

Brands need our permission to come into our lives. They don't have the permission to tell half of us that we are dinosaurs and only the other half are the enlightened ones.

By appearing to give their blessings to the teaching of sexual content to 4-8-year-olds, Disney alienated a large population. That too, the large population was parents of young kids, their bullseye target audience. This is the kind of overstepping that other brands will look to avoid from now on. It's not brand purpose that they will try to avoid.

We will now see a new phase of brand purpose where brands will stick to issues where there's a clear right side of history. Issues where only extremists and bigots would even disagree with what progress looks like. For instance, does any normal decent person disagree that gender equality is a good thing, or that racism is a bad thing, or that it's important to save lives by improving hygiene in all corners of the world?

But normal decent people can have two contrasting opinions about what should and shouldn't be taught to children. Normal decent people can be either pro-choice or pro-life. Differing from your neighbor on these issues doesn't make you an extremist or bigot.

This is the distinction that brands will start to make: the distinction between clear right-and-wrong issues and debatable 50-50 issues.

Brands will refrain from telling normal decent people that their opinions are wrong, or that those normal decent people are actually extremists and bigots.

This is a moment when brands calibrate what they can and cannot do, what they have (or don't have) the permission to do. Brand purpose will be strengthened by the missteps of a few and will emerge into a sturdier form.

And we'll all be better off for it.