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The Bud Light boycott continues. Anheuser-Busch is responding by sponsoring vet groups and commissioning ads that "will play heavily on themes such as football and country music". A glance at conservative comment sections reveals a few vocal consumers vowing that no amount of patriotic pandering will change their mind and that they will continue the boycott no matter what.
I am reminded of this apocryphical exchange between two Chinese officers late for battle:
That is to say, a proper incentive structure should not only contain costs for injecting woke politics into business but also rewards for backpedalling.
On the other hand, the undisputed champions of pushing business and people around do not seem too keen on accepting apology. Or do they? The bottom line seems to be: If your public kowtow is more valuable for the propagation of the movement than the display of your head on a spike, you may get another chance (unless and untilyou even slightly step out of line again).
This seems ideal because the incentives for the victim thus contain an effectiveness criterion. Mouthing platitudes is not enough, you need to actually further the cause of your attackers. The uncertainty ups the ante for the victim.
On the other other hand, woke shaming campaigns might not be the ideal blue print for convervatives, given their lack of clout and high-brow media capture.
This is completely inaccurate take. Anheuser-Busch never really apologized, they refused to admit that they did anything wrong. The best non-apology strategy they have is something like that this was one among many influencers and that it was not a campaign and so forth. So in a sense there is no apology to accept.
It is too late to downplay the situation now and pray it disappears - they voluntarily walked into this political mess, so now deal with it. Obviously they do not want to back down and say they did wrong, because then they would anger woke people - plus I'd guess that PMC people in that company genuinely despise their customer base and they would never admit they did anything wrong. So I think it is absolutely okay to continue despising them back, there is no resemblance with your apocryphal proverb. If they come out that they fired all people responsible for that shit, and that they pledge percentage of sales to go for anti-woke causes - like let's say helping detransitioners with their plight - then I would reconsider.
This is also why I vow never to buy Gillette product unless they denounce woke stuff - which will of course never happen.
I haven't bought a Gillette product since the infamous ad. But pondering what would make me reconsider, I can think of a few things. For example, an ad with an equal budget highlighting how boys are falling behind in education, how men in the workplace face discriminatory hiring practices, how men do all the necessary but dirty jobs etc. That would piss of the woke but it also wouldn't get them in legal trouble.
That ad would have to feature white men almost exclusively to mollify me. I could easily see them making such a thing and stuffing it full of minority men.
Why would that be an issue when it comes to making up for misandrist marketing? IIRC the original ad also featured male perpetrators of all stripes.
Because I want an unambiguous anti-woke statement, not one that can be fudged with excuses to fly under the wokes' radar. I want it thrown in their faces the way the original ad was an attack on me.
I suggest you become a little less sensitive if a razor advert constitutes an 'attack' on you. An ad executive ploy should not be able to bother you to that extent
HRC?
But as it happens yes, I agree one shouldn't be bothered in the reverse case either. Those two certainly don't seem like attacks, and no-one should be personally bothered by them.
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Why? What is the significant cost of perceiving an ad executive ploy as an attack, and being angry about it? Do these costs apply to all people who get angry about social signals they don't like? Because from where I'm sitting, the argument that such behavior is not adaptive is flatly incredible, and really ought to be backed with elaboration and evidence.
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