Brands are Stepping Up. Cynicism Isn’t the Right Response

Brands making big-time donations from Facebook to Frito-Lay are making headlines and sparking criticism with significant big-dollar pledges in response to COVID-19.

To be clear: the global pandemic isn’t a marketing campaign. A healthy interrogation of brands’ social impact efforts is necessary at any time, and equally important today. The role of the gadfly remains crucial to public benefit.

But these aren’t just unprecedented times — they’re incomparable. There’s no reference point.

The human toll is staggering and difficult to fully comprehend. The economy has been brought to its knees. Fundamental underlying inequities have been ruthlessly exposed and exacerbated.

Arguably, it’s not the time for purity tests.

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Brands have reach. They have power. They have assets and resources and infrastructure and distribution systems. The moment calls for them to harness all of those to mitigate as much pain as they possibly can.

To be fair, it’s a worthy discussion to question whether brands should be garnering a halo effect when it’s really the responsibility of the government to act. But the fact is, this government is not acting. Yes, it’s weird that Pornhub donated 50,000 masks. But it’s also a way of calling attention to the far more bizarre, and more insidious, fact that Jared Kushner is essentially privatizing those masks and with them federal disaster relief.

As long as there’s not a gap between rhetoric and reality, brands can and should speak about their efforts.

Because when the entire world is focused on one goal — competition gives way to collaboration.

Molson Coors donated $1 million to out of work bartenders. Anheuser-Busch followed up with $5 million to the Red Cross.

In the same week Allbirds, Warby Parker, and Madewell announced that they were closing their stores but continuing to pay their retail workers.

PepsiCo announced more than $45 million towards protective gear for healthcare workers and meals for at-risk populations.

That means more masks for healthcare workers, more meals for food-insecure households, more relief for people who desperately need it.

It’s intellectually dishonest to argue that brands communicating their relief efforts aren’t looking for credit. But to date, even the clunkiest of brand communications is more beneficial and more honest than those of the federal administration.