Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Politics and Commerce


There's an interesting phenomenon going on in an around social media these days, young and "trendy" companies (I suspect largely run by millennial's) are using their substantial platforms to make meta-political statements. Usually this takes the form of thought provoking posts and images that encourage people to do things like register to vote and to think about what they're voting for as well as some I've seen actually offer political opinions. Today I saw one of the craft beer producers that I follow even brand one of their products with a political message, has a Rubicon been crossed here? 

Personally I'm all for this, I prefer to deal with businesses that have "personality", but more importantly people behind those businesses that aren't afraid to say what they believe and I reckon this makes them more attractive to their prospective (target) customers (and they probably understand that). Many businesses run scared of being seen to have any opinion on anything these days, "corporate happy-talk" is what most of them spout, sterile and pathetically virtue signalling along with the herd, American companies seem to be the worst of all. 

Of course, gazing into the thoughts of the owners of a business may expose ideas that I might not agree with, but I do appreciate the risk being taken, transparency is usually a good thing (if genuine). For example I applaud what Cloudwater (a Manchester brewery) is doing in the photo above, it's a fairly neutral message but an eminently sensible and rational one. On the other hand since Tim Martin (Wetherspoons) and James Dyson went public on their thoughts about Brexit I feel equipped to make suitably irrational decisions about never darkening the door of either establishments or products ever again. This internet thing really has changed the game.

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