Some brands do everything they can to avoid political controversy. Cards Against Humanity is not one of them.

Last November, the maker of the crude-yet-hilarious party game announced it was raising $2.2 million to buy a small plot of land on the U.S.-Mexican border to prevent a wall from being built on it, then dared the Trump administration to sue them over it.

This was not the first foray into national politics for the popular card game. In 2016 co-founder Max Temkin created a Super PAC called the Nuisance Committee, which purchased billboard ads written in Arabic saying, “Donald Trump, he can’t read this, but he is afraid of it.”

Before the election, the company created custom 15-card add-on packs for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, asked fans to vote with their wallets for the candidate of their choice, and then donated all of the proceeds—more than $550,000—to Clinton’s campaign.

Taking a sharply pointed political stance is built into the DNA of the company, which was founded and is still owned by a squad of eight comedy-writing friends from the Chicago area.

“We don’t have investors, a board or shareholders,” says Temkin. “We’re accountable to ourselves. We get to choose our customers through what we do. And if there are some out there who aren’t happy that we stood up for the rights of immigrants and refugees, we’d rather they left us alone.”

Few brands have the freedom—or the chutzpah—Cards Against Humanity does. But nearly all are feeling the pressure to take stronger social, environmental and political stances, especially from the youngest consumers to flex their marketing might, Generation Z. How nimbly brands navigate that minefield is crucial to their future survival.

The new digital

The pressure to step up is driven in part by the rise of direct-to-consumer brands that see social activism as part of their primary mission. For example, with Warby Parker’s Buy a Pair, Give a Pair or Toms’ One for One shoe programs, people in developing nations receive a free pair of glasses or footwear every time someone makes a purchase.

But firms are also feeling the heat from social media-driven movements like #MeToo, #TimesUp and #BoycottNRA, which demand that brands pick a side—and do it quickly.

“Traditional brands can no longer sit on their hands and allow well-scripted corporate statements to shape who they are,” says Tripp Donnelly, CEO of digital reputation management firm REQ. “They have to be dynamic and understand they’re talking to multiple generations of people.”

The increase in brand social awareness has given rise to ad agencies that specialize in purpose-driven clients. One such agency, School in Boulder, Colo., operates with an ethos of #GiveaShit, continually working on campaigns that help fund projects for impoverished children around the world.

School founder and CEO Max Lenderman says having a clear purpose gives brands a distinct market advantage, and those that fail to recognize this will be left behind.

“Purpose is the new digital,” he says. “Brands you wouldn’t normally consider purposeful realize they have a role to play. And their customers are recognizing that this is kind of great.”

The middle path

Many brands play it safe by steering a middle path, sticking to issues important to their constituents and close to their core values. But even then, they run risks.

When the Trump administration announced plans to open up Big Ears National Monument and other public lands to oil and mining interests last December, outdoor brands like Patagonia, REI and North Face publicly opposed the move.

Alex Thompson, REI’s vp of brand stewardship and impact, admits there was some risk in taking such a public stance, but says the response from its members was overwhelmingly positive.

“REI believes strongly that public lands are a nonpartisan issue and loved by people of all demographics, regardless of party,” he says. “When the Department of the Interior called for public comment, we felt it was our role as a 17-million-member co-op to engage constructively in the conversation. That’s not to say everybody was necessarily on our side, but we think it was appropriate to follow through on our values.”

Similarly, Whirlpool‘s Care Counts program is solidly in line with the company’s family-centric values. Over the last two years, Whirlpool has donated commercial-grade washers and dryers to schools in poor neighborhoods, so students whose families can’t afford laundry machines can show up to class in clean clothes. The result: a dramatic increase in attendance—from 82 percent to 91 percent during the 2016-17 school year—by high-risk students in cities from Baltimore to Los Angeles.

The Care Counts program is part of a larger portfolio of corporate responsibility projects at Whirlpool Corp., which includes support for Boys and Girls Clubs and Habitat for Humanity. But the company remains resolutely nonpartisan, notes Deborah O’Connor, director of global corporate reputation and community relations.

“We’re not a political organization,” she says. “We sell products to make everybody’s lives easier.”

Conversely, brands that stray too far from their comfort zones, or attempt to shamelessly appropriate social or cultural movements, tend to pay the price. The poster child for inauthenticity remains Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner TV ad, in which the model/influencer joins a peaceful protest march, then manages to quell a potential riot by handing a cop a can of soda.

Pepsi quickly pulled the ad after being accused of trying to commercialize the Black Lives Matter movement.

“That was a poorly executed campaign where both sides tried too hard,” says Tiffany Zhong, CEO of Zebra Intelligence, a SaaS platform that connects brands to teens for research and marketing purposes. “It wasn’t related to Kendall’s brand, and Pepsi hadn’t branded itself as caring about Black Lives Matter or social issues. They were just trying to latch onto a quick trend.”

Z marks the spot

Still, the time when brands can sit on the fence and steer clear of controversy is rapidly coming to an end. The reason? Generation Z.

The first generation to grow up with smartphones in their hands accounts for some 25 percent of the U.S. population, making Gen Z larger than boomers or millennials. Though many are not yet able to legally buy alcohol, they still wield $44 billion in annual purchasing power, according to the National Retail Federation.

Gen Z also has different needs and expectations, says Jamie Gutfreund, global CMO of digital agency Wunderman. They are “venture consumers” who require a lot more information from brands before they’re willing to risk an investment.

“If I’m a member of Gen Z and I’m seen on Instagram wearing a shirt from a company that’s considered ‘unfriendly or bad,’ I’m going to pay a price for it socially,” Gutfreund says. “So I will be extra selective in terms of the brands I support.”

Research conducted by Wunderman shows that nearly three-quarters of Gen Z believe they can change the world, but 85 percent put more trust in private companies than government. And nearly 90 percent say they’re only loyal to brands that share their values.

Yet, there’s paradox at play here. For this generation of consumers, brand loyalty is tenuous and fleeting. The most politically woke, socially responsible, innovative companies in the world are never more than one click away from losing their customers to a competitor.

“Everyone says they’re super loyal until they find something better,” says Connor Blakley, an 18-year-old Gen Z marketing consultant. “And then they jump ship.”

Table stakes

This means asking brands to take risks without any guarantee of reward. Yet those are the table stakes moving forward. Those who fail to be transparent about their values and beliefs will become invisible.

“If a brand doesn’t take a stand, or partners with an influencer who’s taking a stand, people are just not going to see you,” says marketing consultant Cynthia Johnson. “To build a real brand that attracts Gen Z, you will absolutely have to speak up.”

It’s a tightrope for many risk-averse American corporations, which often have difficulty responding to issues at the speed of the internet, notes Mark Ray, principal and chief creative officer at Portland, Ore.-based North, a purpose-based ad agency.

“American business culture is realizing that it doesn’t have the time or expertise to figure this out,” he says. “They need help navigating it from a smart PR person or ad agency that’s paying attention.”

Ultimately it comes down to figuring out what your brand’s values truly are, then articulating them loudly and often.

“If you have a clear idea what you’re about, and you’re willing to take a stand, your customers will respect you and things will work out,” says Cards Against Humanity’s Temkin. “If you’re constantly making every decision on a piecemeal basis, or trying out activism as the buzzword for 2018, people will see through it.”

At a press event in New York, Google announced today that it’s rolling out the Google News Initiative, in which it’s investing $300 million over the next three years. The goal is to help publishers make money and to combat “fake news,” which consists of several products designed to help newsrooms and media businesses.

According to press reports, Google believes it can help support the ailing media industry through the initiative’s products. Take, for example, Subscribe with Google, which will make it easier to purchase subscriptions through your Google account. So far, participating publishers include USAToday, New York Times, Washington Post, and the Financial Times.

The feature gives publishers data and tools to “expand reach,” “drive conversations” and “engage subscribers.” Google, naturally, takes a cut.

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

The company wrote in a blog post that it paid $12.6 billion to news organizations and “drove 10 billion clicks a month to publishers’ websites” for free last year. This sounds like a lot—and it is—but Google, perhaps more than any other technology company, has arguably crippled the economics of media over the last two decades.

Media execs are watching this with a close eye. Raju Narisetti, CEO of Gizmodo Media Group, said that Google has worked toward easing that tense relationship with news publishers.

“While all our and their business models still create friction and competition, it’s been good to see Google rely on Richard Gingras and his Google News team, and be both responsive and receptive to news industry feedback, and also put serious money where their mouth is,” Narisetti said.

The New York Times, which is among the early participants, has been in talks with Google for a while about the search giant’s relationship with journalism. Meredith Levien, chief operating officer of The New York Times, said that while there’s no arguing that the atomization of the experience of journalism has been bad for the business of journalism, she sees the News Initiative as a positive step and is happy to participate. Google’s latest initiative, she said, “isn’t the whole answer, and there’s more to be written here … but the details make sense to us.”

Google is also attempting to stamp out “fake news” through another tool of the News Initiative, dubbed Disinfo Lab. It’s working with First Draft, a project based out of Harvard’s Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center, which combats “mis- and disinformation during elections and breaking news moments.” Google is also partnering with Poynter, Stanford, and the Local Media Association on a media literacy project called MediaWise.

“Misinformation and the weakened state of news media is a fundamental, global problem and [I’m] glad Google wants to pitch in to try address what is turning out to be a wicked problem that doesn’t lend itself to easy fixes,” Narisetti said.

The fact that Google is taking on something like fake news holds a note of irony; the company’s algorithm continually and frequently surfaces conspiracy theories and unverified news reports from disreputable publications. After the Parkland shooting in Florida, for example, the No. 1 trending video on YouTube was a video that alleged that one of the survivors, David Hogg, was an actor.

And after the massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas, the search engine (along with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) helped propagate misinformation dubbing the man who shot and killed 26 people in a church “variously as a member of a pro-Bernie Sanders group, as a supporter of Hillary Clinton, as a recent convert to Islam and as a radical alt-left supporter with possible antifa ties,” according to USA Today.

News organizations and the public have a speed problem. The problem of disinformation or lies travels faster than truth in a world of distributed content and networks—especially today, with increasing encroachments on free press, Levien said.

“I’m interested in how news organizations work together to make the public more conscious of these things,” she said. “The answer lies in how the public that thinks about how it gets its news and is conscious of what it takes to have quality journalism.”

What types of content Google’s algorithm will pull up and whether it will stop surfacing conspiracy theories masked as news remains to be seen.

“Actually, that story should have been done three to five years ago,” Narisetti said. “They had a perfect playbook, and Facebook is idiotic not to copy it, despite just starting to. We can now mostly trust but verify with Google, while we have to verify before trusting with Facebook. A big difference.”

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At the moment, women are poorly represented on corporate boards; hold less than a fifth of senior roles at UK companies and experience an average gender pay gap of 14%. Marketing Week’s Career and Salary Survey 2018 reveals that women in the marketing industry earn less than male marketers in every sector and in every role, except that of marketing assistant. It is clear that companies have work to do to embed diversity and inclusion into the heart of their businesses.

In the run up to International Women’s Day, Marketing Week is partnering with WiQ, a women’s initiative run by technology specialist Media iQ, to explore how to better champion women’s success. At an event on 7 March entitled celebrating Women of Impact, panellists including HSBC’s global head of communications Jenny Varley, radio presenter Angie Greaves, Media iQ director of talent Clare Martin and Ruth Mortimer, managing partner at Econsultancy, will take part in a thought-provoking discussion around the issues of gender equality. Ahead of that debate, marketers from a range of sectors told us what needs to be done to close the workplace gender gap.

Confidence

Tanwa Edu, CMO at Culture Whisper, highlights confidence as the central obstacle to gender parity in the workplace: “Women lack confidence to believe that they are worth the salaries that they get, to believe that they can strive to be promoted to the job [they want],” she observes. “It is about empowering and giving women the confidence – the more we can do that in the industry the better.”

Role models

If building confidence and self-esteem is key to enabling women’s career progression, both mentoring programmes and having female role models are powerful drivers. Andria Vidler, CEO of Centaur Media, which publishes Marketing Week, admires high-profile initiatives within marketing including networking group WACL, WPP’s Stella women’s network and WiQ, which is a grassroots diversity initiative.

“Having senior role models has helped women grow within Centaur, where previously there were very few senior women,” she says. “Four of our six board members and over 50% of our senior leadership team are female.”

Process

Anna Hill, CMO for UK, Ireland & Nordics at The Walt Disney Company, underlines the importance of having the right processes in place to recognise, develop and reward female talent.

“In general, the media and marketing industries represent women very well but of course there’s always room for improvement,” she states. “All organisations would benefit from more mentoring and sponsorship of high-potential female employees to help them with getting the experience and visibility that positions them for senior roles.”

Of course, men must play a role in promoting women’s success too. “It’s only when I had a daughter it became a visceral personal reaction for me,” says Media iQ president Richard Dunmall. “I just want her to have the best shot at being successful, the same choices as anyone else, and I’m not sure that’s the case in society right now.”

Culture

If women are leaving a business in disproportionate numbers or the pipeline of female talent is not available, there could be a culture problem that needs fixing. Jenny Varley, global head of digital communications at HSBC, argues that creating an environment where women can thrive at work might mean subverting the culture of organisations to allow for changes such as flexible working.

“It is really important to be mindful of the pressures outside work and openly acknowledge them,” says Varley. “And also, the disproportionate duties that a woman has when it comes to caring and having to take a career break.”

Taking action

It is clear that there is now a greater awareness in the industry about the challenges it faces. It needs to eliminate blind spots on company boards as well as pay gaps. It needs to redesign working environments to enable a woman to juggle her career and family. It needs to focus on developing female talent.

“These issues are so big and so important and we look to big organisations to solve them,” comments Helen Tupper, commercial marketing director at Microsoft. “They definitely do need to work at that level, but while that is going on there is accountability we can all take as individuals or hiring managers; things like getting mentors, eliminating gender-biased language from job descriptions and being a role model.”

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