POLISHING SOCIAL AWARENESS: PRETEND ADVERTISING (WOKE-WASHING ADVERTISING)

Abstract

Advertising content with high social awareness is of great importance for today's consumers. Brands that speak out and pioneer in social issues have a higher value in the eyes of consumers, and these brands come to the forefront for most consumers in purchases. In such studies called brand activism, brands produce advertising and marketing content on important issues for the future of the society and the world they are in. Thus, through brand activism, brands speak out on issues such as environmental, social, economic, political and social equality and share the messages they produce with the society through advertisements. However, at the point of brand activism, it is important that brands have the same corporate identity and brand value as the advertisements they produce. If the brand has a corporate idea or brand value other than the advertisements it produces, the consumer will perceive the advertisements as a commercial profit motive and may develop a negative attitude towards the brand. In addition, this situation will also reveal that the brand produces pretend advertisements and is not based on the values it actually conveys. At this point, in this study, the concepts of pretend marketing and pretend advertising in relation to brand activism will be mentioned and how these concepts are conveyed to the consumer will be included with examples.