Woke or Broke? The ROI of Brand Activis
Brand activism means taking public stances on divisive social, political, or economic issues. It's moved from fringe strategy to
In April 2023, Bud Light sent personalized beer cans to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Within weeks, sales had dropped 20%. Within months, the brand had lost over $400 million ($480 million USD). Distributors reported strained relationships. The brand that had been America’s top-selling beer for decades lost that position to Modelo Especial.
Around the same time, Nike also partnered with Mulvaney to promote its women’s sports clothing range. Nike experienced backlash. Conservative consumers threatened boycotts. But Nike’s sales stayed strong. The brand emerged relatively unscathed.
Same influencer. Same period. Two completely different outcomes.
Brand activism means taking public stances on divisive social, political, or economic issues. It’s moved from fringe strategy to mainstream expectation. The brand activism ROI question matters because real money is on the line. Every founder needs to know: does it actually work?
The Data Says: It Depends Who You’re Selling To
Sprout Social’s Q3 2025 Pulse Survey shows consumer attitudes toward brand activism are swinging back. In 2023, only 25% of consumers wanted brands speaking out on causes. By Q3 2025, that number hit 47%.
But the demographics tell the real story. 63% of Gen Z are more likely to buy from brands that speak out. 57% of Millennials feel the same way. Only 35% of white consumers care whether brands take stances. 62% of liberals support brand activism. 40% of moderates and conservatives support it.
Race matters too. 63% of Black consumers and 61% of Asian consumers favor activist brands, compared to 52% of Latino consumers and just 35% of white consumers.
Brand activism works brilliantly for some audiences and alienates others completely. Your target audience either rewards it or punishes it.
When Activism Works: Three Different Approaches
Nike has championed activism since the 1990s. Colin Kaepernick. Serena Williams. Transgender athletes. Nike consistently takes controversial stances on racial justice, gender equality, and social issues.
Nike’s market research shows their core audience (younger, urban, diverse, politically progressive) expects this. When Nike faces boycotts from conservatives, their base buys more to show support. The brand stopped trying to be everything to everyone years ago. They doubled down on who they already serve.
But Nike’s approach (celebrity endorsements + ad campaigns) isn’t the only way activism works. Consider two radically different strategies:
Tony’s Chocolonely: The Product IS The Message
Tony’s Chocolonely makes chocolate bars with unequal pieces. Not by accident. By design. The uneven distribution physically represents the unfair profit distribution in the cocoa industry.
The Amsterdam-based company generated €200 million ($240M) revenue in 2023-24, growing 33% yearly. They hold 20% of the Netherlands market and rank fourth in the UK. Their US sales grew 86% in one year.
Their success isn’t despite the activism. It’s because of it. Child labor on their farms: 3.9%. Industry average: 46.7%. The product itself proves the point.
Tony’s works because the activism isn’t a marketing campaign. It’s embedded in the product design, supply chain, and business model. You can’t separate the activism from the chocolate. That’s authenticity at the operational level, not just the PR level.
Orange France: Making People Feel Their Bias
During the 2023 Women’s World Cup, Orange France ran ads showing “male” footballers scoring spectacular goals. Viewers watched. Then the reveal: the plays were actually female players. Orange had used deepfake technology to put men’s faces on women’s bodies.
The campaign generated 2 billion impressions, 200 million organic views across 91 countries. It worked because Orange had sponsored both men’s and women’s teams for years. They had credibility. And rather than lecturing about gender bias, they let people experience their own bias firsthand.
Nike, Patagonia, and Ben & Jerry’s share two traits: authenticity and consistency. Nike didn’t suddenly start activism in 2020. They’ve been doing it for decades. Their audience knows what to expect. When Nike takes a stance, it aligns with the brand’s history.
When Activism Backfires: The Bud Light Disaster
Bud Light’s customer base is primarily conservative men. The brand had never positioned itself around social justice or progressive causes. Its marketing historically focused on sports, fun, and beer.
Then came the Dylan Mulvaney partnership. Bud Light’s core audience saw this as betrayal. The brand they’d drunk for decades was suddenly taking a stance they opposed. And Bud Light hadn’t built any credibility with progressive consumers who might have supported the move.
Conservatives boycotted. Progressives didn’t rush to replace them (Bud Light isn’t aspirational to that demographic). The brand got crushed from one side without gaining ground on the other.
Research from Chris Hydock at Orfalea College of Business confirms this pattern: activism is riskier for market-leading brands with broad customer bases. When you have 30-40% market share, your customers span the political spectrum. Taking divisive stances alienates roughly half of them whilst unlikely to win many new customers (you’re already the biggest).
Target faced similar issues in 2023 when it prominently featured Pride merchandise. Conservative backlash led the company to scale back displays in 2024. Target’s customer base is too politically diverse for strong activism to work.
Apple: When Internal Actions Contradict External Messaging
Apple positions itself as progressive. Pride campaigns. Racial justice statements. Environmental commitments. The brand courts liberal consumers who value corporate responsibility.
In 2024, the National Labor Relations Board formally accused Apple of violating federal labor laws. The New York Times reported workers “felt scared to speak openly” about workplace conditions. Apple was accused of restricting employees from discussing pay equity and forcing deletion of a wage survey from Slack.
The damage wasn’t from labor violations alone (most big companies have violations). The damage was from hypocrisy. Apple publicly champions progressive causes whilst internally silencing workers who raise concerns about fairness. The contradiction kills authenticity.
Activism fails when your internal practices contradict your external messaging. Consumers can overlook imperfection. They can’t overlook pretending to care about issues whilst actively working against them behind closed doors.
The Authenticity Problem
The biggest risk is taking stances that don’t align with your brand’s history or actions.
Consumers can smell performative activism. When brands suddenly announce support for causes because it’s trending, audiences see through it. The term “woke-washing” describes exactly this: brands that use progressive language for marketing whilst their actual practices contradict those values.
A brand can’t credibly champion environmental causes whilst its supply chain destroys ecosystems. It can’t authentically support workers’ rights whilst exploiting labor in developing countries. It can’t genuinely back racial justice whilst having all-white leadership and discriminatory practices.
The Havas 2024 Meaningful Brands report found 73% of consumers want companies to show more humanity during tough times, and 71% want businesses to do more for society. But those same consumers are increasingly skeptical of corporate motives. They’re asking: do you actually believe this, or are you just trying to sell me something?
The ROI Question: Does Activism Actually Make Money?
The data shows brand activism works when it’s authentic, consistent, and aligned with your customer base. Under those conditions, it does drive sales.
Nike’s stock price has grown consistently despite (or because of) activism. Patagonia is one of the most profitable retailers globally. Ben & Jerry’s maintains premium pricing whilst taking controversial stances.
But activism fails spectacularly when it’s inauthentic, inconsistent, or misaligned with your audience. Bud Light learned this the hard way. So did Target, Disney, and others who lost billions in market value.
The mistake is treating activism as a marketing tactic. Values statements shape your entire brand identity. You can’t be activist on Monday and neutral on Tuesday. You can’t champion causes in June (Pride Month) and stay silent the other 11 months.
Charles Byers, marketing professor at Santa Clara University, notes that brands whose target audiences expect corporate social responsibility will continue to face business incentives to participate. “A huge amount of the electorate said that DE&I and having a sustainable economy is important. If you’re a marketer, are you going to ignore 48% of the population?”
But he also points out that Bud Light “absolutely, totally misread their target audience.”
What Founders Should Actually Do
Know your audience better than you think you do. Demographic data isn’t enough. You need to understand the political leanings, values, and expectations of your actual customers, not your aspirational ones.
Be authentic or be silent. Performative activism is worse than no activism. If you’re going to take stances, they need to align with your company’s actual practices, leadership, and history.
Accept you can’t please everyone. The brands that succeed with activism (Nike, Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s) have accepted they’ll lose some customers. They’ve decided that’s acceptable because the customers they keep become more loyal and valuable.
Consider your market position. If you’re the market leader with a broad, politically diverse customer base, activism is riskier. If you’re a challenger brand targeting a specific demographic, activism can be a differentiator.
Think long-term, not campaign-term. Brand activism isn’t a Pride Month promotion. Multi-year or multi-decade commitment shapes hiring, supply chains, partnerships, and every customer interaction.
Measure beyond sales. Employee retention, talent recruitment, brand loyalty, and customer lifetime value all matter. Some activist brands accept lower market share in exchange for higher margins and more loyal customers.
Where Brand Activism Stands Now
The second Trump administration and rollback of DEI initiatives by companies like Walmart suggest a cooling of corporate activism. But the consumer demand hasn’t disappeared. It’s just become more segmented.
Younger consumers (Gen Z and Millennials) still expect brands to take stances. They’re willing to pay premium prices for brands that reflect their values. Older consumers and politically conservative audiences largely reject brand activism.
This creates opportunity for brands willing to choose a side. The risk is trying to straddle the middle, which increasingly satisfies no one.
Brands that take every stance on every issue are disappearing. Brands making strategic choices about which audiences they serve and what values they champion are emerging.
Woke or broke? It depends on whether you know your customers well enough to make the right choice.
Selected Sources
- Sprout Social: Brand Activism is Back
- The Drum: Will Brand Activism Survive 2025?
- Harvard Business Review: Lessons from the Bud Light Boycott
- Marketing Brew: Is the Era of Brand Activism Coming to an End?
