Category: public relations

“Anti-woke” messaging on the rise as brands position by ideology

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If I ask a group of students whether or not a company or organization should take a stand on a social issue, there is universal agreement. If I ask them which stand an organization should take, there is little more than blank stares.

The same phenomenon is likely true of adults at large. Everyone makes the self-righteous  assumption that organizations need to take a stand that is consistent with their personal opinion, beliefs and values. But what if a an organization proclaims position A when you are strongly aligned with position B? 

Perhaps this is why a recent Gallup poll notes that “fewer Americans want businesses wading into current events.“

However, if you read that poll commentary you see that democrats are most likely to encourage organizations take a public stance. Relating to my initial point, that is because the stance organizations take is usually left leaning. The left has dominated issue advocacy in terms of which stances organizations take because the left dominates social institutions including government, entertainment, news media, education and now corporations.

Given that left-wing dominance, the stances are often aligned with what is culturally called “woke” perspective. This general term correlates specifically to the alphabet soup of DEI (Diversity, Equity Inclusion), ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance), CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and of late advocacy for a particular perspective on matters of sex and gender.

Stances in accord with so-called woke philosophy are no longer seen as a potential, they are stressed as inevitable. This may be a good time for a conservative turn on a woke-ish neo-Marxist statement: we need to dismantle the hegemonic structures of institutional, systemic left power. 

I have noticed the beginning of a dismantling, or at least the emergence of alternative stances on social issues. This of course causes rage among the very people who used to say “speak your truth,” “marketplace of ideas,” or even “silence is violence.” 

So if the dominant left is demanding a stance be taken, the unwavering right is responding in kind.

The first company I noticed doing this is Jeremy’s Razors.  When Harry’s, a decidedly leftist company, stopped advertising on the Daily Wire due to “values misalignment,” co-founder Jeremy Boreing started Jeremy’s Razors to embrace that difference. The advertising copy has been boldly touting its products specifically as anti-woke. Recently the company has taken on and called out companys from Hershey’s to Braun for their extreme wokism and offered alternative products with that selling point.

In the career recruitment space, the company Red Balloon offers what it calls the “#1 woke-free job board in America.” It has an ad titled “It’s time to grow up and get back to work” that features children sarcastically saying what they look forward to in a workplace and career that mocks the woke culture pervading workplaces. 

Patriot Mobile advertises itself as the only “Christian conservative wireless provider.” They call out the corporate philanthropy of other wireless carriers that support causes in conflict with conservative and Christian values.

Another example is Public Square, a shopping site to rival Amazon that expresses its values as “Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Freedom.” Businesses that share those values can add themselves to the site, and consumers who share those values can shop knowing they are patronizing like-minded business owners. Don’t overlook the meaning of the name Public Square, which refers to a democratic philosophy that all ideas should be able to be expressed, not censored.

These are just a handful of examples of companies that are speaking out on social issues with an anti-woke set of values. There are others and will likely be more. It is hard to say if ideology forward positioning is a trend or a permanent feature of public relations, advertising, marketing and business plans from now on. 

For now though, the messaging is beyond the basics of features and benefits and price point. The target publics are defined more by ideology and social opinion than need for a product or service. The question is moving from whether or not a company should take a stand on a social issue, to determining which stand to take. 

Sales and stock prices were down for Target and Bud Light after famous social values marketing earlier this year. However, some other brands have continued such overt messaging.

I personally think this segmenting of businesses and publics, making social values the primary message and brand distinction, will lead to more divisiveness writ large. It’s why I have previously advocated for companies to have the courage to remain neutral. 

But if one “side” in the market keeps pushing a woke message, the other sides will understandably set themselves apart and offer their own deeply held perspectives. In the marketplace of ideas there are many ideas, ideologies, values and beliefs. They are all being expressed. It’s called diversity. 

Viral Employee Video and Weak CEO Apology Demonstrate Need to Have PR in the C-Suite

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Right at the end of the past winter semester, a business story broke about a company in my area in West Michigan that had public relations implications. In an employee meeting, the CEO of furniture company MillerKnoll told employees to quit worrying about not getting a bonus when they asked about how to stay motivated. Instead, she implored them to commit to meeting an internal corporate financial goal. 

She famously told her team to “leave pity city.”

An employee had recorded this message and shared it on social media. It went quickly viral, reaching 7 million views quickly with numerous comments. The story earned more media mentions than a typical new product release, including national outlets like the summary with perspective on the incident in the Wall Street Journal as well as a series of articles in local media leading up to a reported apology by the CEO in Crain’s Grand Rapids Business. 

I don’t know if the MillerKnoll PR team was involved or listened to with regard to crafting the messaging for the initial meeting or the subsequent apology. But there are certainly some PR lessons here. 

A primary lesson is that internal communications can quickly go external. MillerKnoll is not the first and won’t be the last to experience a window opened on what they think are internal deliberations. All internal communications should be planned considering the impact on reputation if it is seen externally.

Related, employees can’t be isolated. First, employees are also members of the community and may also be customers and/or investors. Even if they are not, those other stakeholder groups increasingly care about and make decisions based on how employees are treated by corporate management. In a talent shortage, potential employees may wonder if they want to bother applying for a job at a company where the leadership communicates in harsh and insulting fashion.

There is a lot of published advice on executive apologies and lots of research on what makes them effective. Suffice it to say apologies have to be sincere, address the reason for the offense, be meaningful and often action based. In this case, the CEO said she was sorry for how employees reacted—but not for what she said and what that implies about her view of employees and their concerns. This is especially true in this case when the CEO told employees not to worry about their bonus when she received nearly $5 million in salary, stock options and non-equity incentive compensation and other perks, according to the MillerKnoll 2022 proxy statement (see page 32).

The central issue in this whole story is about employee motivation. Employee motivation—as well as retention and engagement—are primary concerns of CEOs everywhere, especially post-Covid. Motivation is not done by chastisement or shame. Making company ‘needs” paramount and diminishing the legitimacy of personal concern is not a wise plan. Asking employees for commitment after negating your own commitment to them is set up for failure. 

At the time this incident was getting social media and news media spotlight, I was reading papers and grading a final exam in my graduate course in Communication Management. I was reminded about some of the readings we discussed in the section we did on internal communications and performance. The 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer showed that after the pandemic, employees are considered the most important stakeholder for long-term success, replacing customers, that 78% of employees surveyed have anxiety about losing their job, and 43% say their employer doesn’t take seriously employee burnout. 

The Axios 2023 State of Essential Workplace Communications shows that management and employees are not in sync in terms of how things are communicated to them. 77% of leaders think the communication they provide has the context to help employees do their jobs well, whereas only 46% of employees agree.

One research study we dove into showed a complex model that essentially showed the importance of internal public relations in achieving employee engagement. Briefly, internal communication satisfaction (made up of feedback, information, climate and media) will positively affect both perceived organizational support and perceived employer attractiveness. Those two things are key determinants of employee engagement, which in common terms means employees who work with vigor and dedication. 

Another article we reviewed in a section on communication and leadership demonstrated the importance of a “communicative” leadership style, defined as “someone who engages employees in dialogue, actively shares and seeks feedback, practices participative decision making, and is perceived as open and involved.”

A CEO who pays attention to all of the above would not have had to mention “pity city” in the first place.

Reviewing this situation also made me thing about all of the interesting and practical topics my graduate students wrote papers about. There were papers on executive communication coaching, communication competence, transformational leadership, communication management and the ethic of care, the communication role in organizational culture and employee performance, and more.

All of this shows that leadership is more than having authority and insisting on something. Communication is more than just distributing information. An educated public relations or communications professional should be at the right hand of a CEO to ethically and strategically consider both communications and actions with regard to employees. 

The Role of PR in Civil Society

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Salvatore Alaimo is a friend of mine and faculty colleague at Grand Valley State University. He is in the College of Education and Community Innovation, whereas I am in the School of Communications. He recently started a podcast called “Tilting the Earth’s Praxis,” which is all about different aspects and influences on civil society.

I was joined by two alumni. Jason Manshum has both his bachelor’s and master’s degree from the School of Communications. He has worked in public affairs for companies in various industries, and has taught as an adjunct in my Advertising and Public Relations program. He currently is Principal at 45th Parallel Strategies LLC. Stephan Syzmanski is a more recent graduate who has worked in public relations in the political realm, including candidate campaigns and currently works as a program associate at the Great Lakes Political Academy. 

We had a good and wide-ranging discussion about public relations, ethics, culture, media, politics and society. All of it relates to the central them of civics. 

Rather than writing for this blog post, I’ll let you hear the audio. Listen on Spotify or look for the ‘Tilting the Earth’s Praxis’ podcast on your favorite podcast service. 

A Process for Both PR Pedagogy and Practice

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I’ve been teaching public relations for more than 20 years. But a few years ago I changed how I teach—my pedagogy—in several classes. This was the result of noticing how students have changed over the years, attending teaching conferences, and my own experimentation. 

What resulted was a way of teaching that students tell me they really like. And while that is nice, the reason I like it is because I notice students are actually learning more. I use this in my writing classes as well as a PR management and case studies class. It works when students work independently, such as writing classes, as well as on group projects, such as case studies. 

[Note and plug—to accommodate this teaching method I turned my lectures into books that I self-published and make available to students for $5 for an ebook and $15 for a paperback. Media Relations Writing, Corporate Communications Writing, and Public Relations: A Management Function are available from Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble or Vital Source. They have been adopted by other colleges and purchased by professionals. Learn more about these books.]

This way of teaching is the fusion of several pedagogical methods increasingly popular in higher education:

  • Flipped class—The old way was for me to lecture in class, and then students would go off and do an assignment and turn it in during the next class, after which I would grade it. A “flipped” class means students acquire the information that was a lecture before class, either by reading or watching a recorded video or some other means, and then in-class they do their homework with me there to coach. 
  • Peer learning—When I taught in France at a partner school of my university, I noticed students were always talking while I was lecturing. I thought this was rude until someone explained that this was their way, they were talking to each other about what I was saying. I applied this concept in my classes by having students come to class with a draft of an assignment and pairing with a fellow student to do a peer review/edit. I am there to make sure they are doing a substantive review and also answering questions. After this we talk as a whole class. Students learn from each other as well as me. They also learn the value of feedback, collaboration, brainstorming, that creativity is a process of draft and revision and considering alternatives. 
  • Experiential learning—Learning by doing ‘real-world’ assignments is the gold standard not just in PR education, but in all academic disciplines. The assignments are not invented but based on actual problems or opportunities of a class client we have for a semester. Also, instead of learning and then doing, students learn as they do, and what they ultimately turn in for a grade is not a first draft, but the result of a process. So at the end of a class period where the peer learning happens, they have time to make final revisions and then ultimately turn in the assignment for a grade. They do better, I see fewer mistakes having caught them in the process, and students retain what they have learned with less anxiety in the process.

It occurred to me when chatting with professionals about this that the same pedagogical methods could be translated into a process for professional practice on creative projects. For this I would translate the flipped class, peer learning, experiential learning to a simple and alliterative model of acquire, adopt, apply.

For professionals, acquire would mean independently gaining knowledge about a client or project by research, reading a creative brief, and sketching some initial ideas.

The adopt stage would involve a collaborative meeting to come to common ground on the problem, opportunity, or project goals. Then sharing and reviewing each team member’s ideas, suggestions, strategies and concepts.. The best agreed upon ideas—or revisions of them—would be adopted.

The application stage would be the design, writing and implementation of the tactic or campaign. 

The acquire-adopt-apply process captures the benefit of both solitary introspection and group collaboration. People come better prepared to creative meetings with a draft in hand. The meeting is focused on development vs conception. And the application is done with greater confidence and sense of both personal input and teamwork.

We PR educators often encourage each other to make the classroom like the workplace. Professional practice may be able to take some things from current pedagogy as well. 

PRSA Doesn’t Want You if You Are Passionate About PR, Or a Christian

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I noted with interest an email that the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is once again seeking board members. The email specifically said they are seeking “diverse candidates who are representative of the broad-based constituencies we serve” who will “lend your talent and voice to PRSA leadership.”

But what you need to know is they have a different view of diversity, and they really don’t want to hear anything they don’t already think. In my personal experience running for the board last year, I was significantly insulted personally and professionally by the process.

For one, I was called a “PR purist” in a negative connotation. They never described specifically what this means, but in my short interview with the nominating committee I stressed that the PRSA mission statement speaks of being the “premier public relations organization” and yet it speaks in the rest of the document more vaguely about “communications.” I pointed out that PR is both more specific and much broader than what communication connotes, and I encouraged the board to define and defend the breadth of the term “public relations” to indeed be its thought-leading organization. If that makes me a “purist,” I’ll take it and leave the board to its professional “impurities” as I continue to advocate for the profession and what it is.

I was also told without explanation that I had violated PRSA’s diversity code. I can only assume they read some of my personal blog and social posts in which I shared my own perspective about “woke” trends and different conceptions of diversity—in which I cited numerous BLACK professionals and writers and other persons of color who share these views. I also have commented on parental rights with regard to sexual identity of their children and the intervention of school personnel without parental consent on these matters. In this case I was expressing a deeply held and widely shared perspective based in my own Christian values and worldview regarding sex and gender. As such, I did not violate diversity, I am an expression of it.

Incidentally, the Pew Research Center reported that 66% of Black Democrats believe whether someone is a man or woman is determined by their sex at birth. If any of those Black Democrats were a PRSA member and expressed that view, would they be in violation of the diversity code? Also, a recent NYU/PR Week study showed that 68% of PR professionals identify as “progressive” and only 7% like me as “conservative.” I thought ending discriminating against minorities was the point of diversity programs. It is the nominating committee that violates the very essence of diversity in rejecting me—and implicitly many others—for not adhering to a pre-determined monoculture of singular accepted perspective. PRSA mistakes conformity for diversity, and compliance for tolerance.

I am not alone among PR professionals and members of PRSA with my faith-based perspective. At the recent ICON I had wonderful conversations with a diversity of people who share both my professional views and personal perspective. These included a Latina from Texas who reads and appreciates my posts and a Black co-panelist from Pennsylvania who is a pastor in addition to his PR work. We had long conversations in which we shared agreement on professional and personal matters. I have worked and still do work productively with people with whom I disagree with on social issues. We understand each other and our differences, but work together with honest respect. Is not that the nature of “diversity”? I have chaired the search committees for all of my tenure-track colleagues in the academic department I have headed for a decade, and I am the only white male among the 6 of us. Does this look like someone who does not have a diverse mindset? 

I am also not alone in my professional perspective and zeal for defining what public relations is at a higher level. I recently came across a conference paper from 2016 co-authored by a respected scholar and a veteran PR professional. In it they make their own call for what the national board would call ‘purity’: “Practitioners are not journalists; they are not marketers. The associations (like PRSA) seem dedicated to blurring those distinctions. If the associations are themselves trade associations, rather than professional societies, they will continue to appeal to the lowest common denominator in terms of best practices.” 

I am writing all of this not just as personal complaint, but on behalf of the above and other professionals who are not represented by PRSA’s national board. I have in recent months learned of other complaints about the nominating committee and PRSA national leadership. These come from people I know personally who confided in me—both from experience as board candidates and members of the nominating committee itself. I also am concerned that many PRSA members who share my professional and personal faith perspectives are not represented and are viewed with disdain by national leadership, and these members are not aware of that disrespect.

My application for the board included many supportive letters from colleagues in my own chapter and around the country. They and others could not understand how a PhD, APR, Fellow with years of experience as a professional and educator and dedicated service from local chapter to national committee, could be rejected. In other words, people who have known me for 30 years at close range are shocked by the insult of a group of people who talked to me for 20 minutes on Zoom.

I am a man of integrity, so I completed the work I committed to as co-chair of a College of Fellows committee even after being insulted by the national board. That work included conducting and analyzing focus groups and a resulting plan for the College to use going forward to promote accreditation and, in turn, membership in the College. But I must leave that to others to implement.

I will remain a member of PRSA to maintain my membership in the College of Fellows and the Educators Academy, where I have formed many good relationships, including with many reading this, over the years. But, because I am a man of integrity, I can no longer in good conscience give my time and talent to an organization which does not represent—and even diminishes—my well-considered professional perspective, and is not inclusive of my personal identity as a Christian.