From 'Woke Washing' to Influence Architecture

Navigating the Post-Purpose Era

Eugene Healey's piece on marketing's "woke rebrand" comes at a crucial moment. Just as our industry begins to embrace nuance again, he offers a necessary critique of how brand purpose has been deployed, and the backlash it's created. But nuance begets nuance. And there's more to this story.

What Eugene nails is the hypocrisy. That dissonance between purpose-driven marketing and profit-driven behaviour. The way we've trivialised movements by turning them into campaigns. His observation that "if progressive values could so easily be commodified as a tool for selling mayonnaise, why shouldn't those values be treated with the same fickleness as condiment preferences?" is spot on. When activism becomes a marketing tactic, it gets treated as disposable.

But here's what I think his analysis misses: the false binary.

Read between the lines, and there's an implication that brands should retreat to their lane, "creating fiction and spectacle to grease the wheels of consumption." That brands should leave activism to activists. It's a clean narrative. But perhaps too clean.

What this overlooks is the sheer fucking cultural power that brands wield, and the difference between wielding it poorly versus wielding it well. Between performative activism and meaningful engagement. Between hollow messaging and structural impact.

Let's get concrete about this power for a second:

Brands will collectively spend over $1.07 trillion on advertising this year. That's more than the GDP of 175 countries. That's cultural influence at a scale that most activists can only dream about.

They employ millions of creatives, strategists, and media experts whose job is literally to shift perception and behaviour. That's an army of skilled persuaders who could be deployed toward something more meaningful than selling more shit.

They own the algorithmic attention of billions. Every feed, timeline, and homepage, all saturated with brand messages. That's unparalleled access to eyeballs and minds.

They're not just commercial entities. They're among our most powerful cultural participants. And when they deploy that power thoughtfully, it matters.

When Patagonia redirects $100 million in profits annually to climate activism, that's not just PR, that's meaningful capital flowing to frontline organisations. When Dove's Real Beauty campaign began normalising diverse body types in 2004, it helped create space for a broader body positivity movement. When Nike backed Colin Kaepernick, they didn't solve racial injustice, but they did put their commercial weight behind a divisive figure being punished for protest, signalling to millions that dissent has corporate defenders.

The ELF cosmetics sponsorship of female NASCAR racer Hailie Deegan isn't solving gender inequality, but it is mainstreaming women in spaces where they've been systematically excluded. Ally Financial's commitment to equal media spend across men's and women's sports by 2027 isn't dismantling patriarchy, but it is redirecting millions of dollars toward athletic achievements that have been chronically undervalued.

These actions don't replace activism. They don't excuse corporate misbehaviour elsewhere. But they do move cultural needles. They do shift resources. They do legitimise what was once marginal.

The problem isn't that brands engaged with social issues. It's that too many engaged superficially, inconsistently, opportunistically. They wanted the badge without the work.

There's a spectrum between full-blown activism (unrealistic) and complete retreat (a missed opportunity). A space where brands acknowledge both their limitations and their unique position to amplify and support. Where they contribute through consistent action rather than opportunistic messaging. Where they see themselves as accomplices rather than saviours.

The backlash Eugene describes is real and concerning. But the answer isn't for brands to retreat entirely from social engagement. It's to engage differently. More thoughtfully. More consistently. More humbly.

We need to get past the ridiculous notion that buying the right cereal will save democracy. That's the bullshit version of purpose that deserves to die. But we should preserve the understanding that brands' cultural and financial capital can be deployed toward something more meaningful than quarterly growth.

Purpose isn't about brands saving the world through capitalism. It's about them acknowledging their impact on culture and choosing to use their massive platforms to validate, to spotlight, to shift resources toward what matters. It's the difference between Pepsi's tone-deaf protest commercial and HBO's commitment to diversifying crews behind the camera. Between rainbow washing during Pride and ongoing support for LGBTQ+ within organisations when the backlash hits. Between empty statements and structural investments.

I'm not naive. I know the role of business is to make money, to please shareholders, and that "doing good" isn't always good business. When profits dip, purpose initiatives are often the first to get axed. That's capitalism working as designed.

For years, we asked businesses why they exist beyond making money, and that's when we clutched at straws to find a social role for brands. This approach was tenuous at best and kept mainly within the marketing department, so any execution on it felt like lipstick on a pig. Or rolling a turd in glitter. We grafted purpose onto business models never designed to accommodate it.

But that's precisely why we need to reframe "brand purpose", from brand as saviour to what I'd call "Influence Architecture" - a practice that acknowledges both the profit motive and the cultural impact of how brands deploy their resources.

There's obviously a business reason why ELF is buying into NASCAR. Why Ally Financial is moving into women's sports. These aren't acts of charity. ELF sees untapped female audiences in motorsport. Ally recognises the growing commercial potential of women's athletics. These brands aren't philanthropists, they're being strategic. They've built business cases for these moves.

The brilliance is that these profit-driven decisions can simultaneously shift culture. We need to remove the wishful thinking when we approach this stuff. We can have values, but our values need a business case. The strongest Influence Architecture happens when the profit motive and social impact align rather than compete.

This reframing is honest about the money-making reality while recognising the genuine impact of where and how that money flows. It's about Nike deciding to put its massive media buy behind Colin Kaepernick rather than another white quarterback, because it resonated with their core consumers. It's about Ben & Jerry's using its social platforms to advocate for specific policy changes, because it reinforces their brand identity and consumer loyalty. It's about corporations acknowledging that every dollar they spend is a vote for something, and they can vote more thoughtfully while still serving their shareholders.

This isn't about expecting corporations to lead revolutions. It's about acknowledging the cultural power they already wield and asking them to wield it more responsibly. As spotlight operator. As resource allocator. As perception shifter. As an entity that can integrate what was once marginal through the sheer repetition of its messaging.

In his closing, Eugene writes: "if we're not prepared to sacrifice profit in support of those causes, then perhaps our most radical act is one of humility." Yes, but humility doesn't mean silence. It means understanding your proper role in a larger ecosystem of change. It means supporting rather than leading. Amplifying rather than claiming ownership.

As we swing from the performative optimism of brand purpose to the dark mode shift Eugene describes, let's not overcorrect. Yes, brand purpose as we've known it is dead, or at least it should be. Good riddance to the superficial, hypocritical version that tried to convince us buying shampoo could save the world.

But we still need a steer. We still need an approach for how brands deploy their considerable resources and cultural power. We still need something that acknowledges both commercial imperatives and cultural impact. Influence Architecture might be that something - a practice that's honest about profit motives but sophisticated about cultural leverage.

The revolution won't go better with Pepsi, that's for sure. But abandoning the playing field entirely only ensures that the voices most resistant to progress will be the loudest ones left in the room.