Socially Conscious Advertising: a profit making strategy?
By Ella Nicholls
Due to the ever changing world we now live in, over time it’s fair to say the way adverts are made and the way we as consumers perceive these adverts has changed. As a race we have become for socially aware of the world around us and whilst it is a powerful way for businesses to shape their brand and connect with consumers on a deeper level, companies have utilised this aspect and more than ever adverts prey on our socially conscious society in order to maximise profit.
Whilst these adverts are designed to instil a particular loyalty to a brand or company in us they often spark debates and can be controversial, but perhaps this is what companies want, by sparking debate the advert becomes well known as does the brand/ company overall increasing the popularity of the of it and maximising profit for the company. Yes, some companies use their brands as platforms to promote general social issues, the most powerful adverts however do not come from brands or companies but charities. Instead big companies and brands such as Gillette, Always and Nike whilst they campaign for equality and tell you to ‘dream your biggest dreams’ their campaigns are made controversial, despite how incredibly moving some of the advertising is. These adverts often attract more consumers than your average advert for a supermarket, evidence for how companies use socially conscious advertising to spark debate consequently maximising profit.
The Always advert for example has been viewed 66M times on YouTube alone whilst the most recent advert for Tesco has just 153,000 views, both huge companies in their own rights yet the advert that uses promotes equality and preys on our desires for a coequal society has been viewed 431 times the amount. Despite the fact this is an incredibly important issue do Always or Gillette or Nike necessarily care or is their advert helping towards changing the imbalance of equality in society? The answer most likely is no, instead the adverts generate views which generates popularity which turns into sales for the brand and then into profit.
So whilst Socially conscious marketing has many potential risks and rewards, depending on the particular approach they often consider it as a strategy that can be used to maximise profit.