The tide may have turned on wokeness, but bet on at least one major company stepping on a rake.
The most interesting part of last fall’s ridiculous Jaguar ad campaign — complete with weird costumes, a pseudo-Martian landscape, grumpy faces, androgynous models, diversity of kinds and hues, and the tagline “Copy Nothing”! — was how out of place and time it felt.
If Jaguar had produced that exact same ad in 2021, most people would have rolled their eyes, but it would have fit in with the radical leftist cultural revolution that had swept mainstream American society beginning in 2020.
Today, however, the tide seems to be going out on woke. Oh, sure, there are still citadels of the old censorious thinking: Fortune 500 HR departments, the teachers’ unions, the faculty lounges and the quads of Columbia University. But woke as a cultural factor is in retreat. The Democrats — the party of woke — are currently in utter disarray, banished to the wilderness. Elected Democrats are putting up a resistance against the new Trump administration and its allies, but the pushback has been haphazard and feckless. And I’m sure you’ve noticed that there haven’t been massive left-wing riots and women’s marches taking to the streets in recent days.
On the other hand, we did see Boston University moving to close down Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research this week!
There are more data points everywhere you look.
Indeed, it’s likely that the single most popular thing that Donald Trump has done so far in his young second term is his anti-woke executive order on trans athletes in women’s sports. It’s popular, because despite all the work that progressives have undertaken over the past five years, a recent New York Times/Ipsos poll recorded 79 percent of Americans, including 69 percent of Democrats, agreeing with the statement that “transgender female athletes” (i.e., men) “should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports.”
There are very few 80/20 issues in American life these days, but this is one of them. As evidence of that, the NCAA changed its policies the very next day, effective immediately, to comply with the Trump executive order.
Just this week, the National Football League — an American cultural behemoth — announced that the slogan “End Racism,” which the NFL has painted on its end lines since 2020 will be replaced with “Choose Love.” I don’t think this is a coincidence.
After 2023’s Bud Light controversy and that year’s backlash against Target’s marketing during “Pride Month” — a growing constituency of traditionalist or, at the very least, non-woke Americans seemed to be forming. It’s probably safe to say that if Kamala Harris had won the White House last fall for what would have been essentially the fourth Obama term, this year’s Super Bowl ads would be designed to appeal to that ascendant coalition. But now — I’m not so sure. We may very well see a noticeably different tone across the ad lineup on Sunday.
We might yet see a resurgence of woke. That coalition is down — but probably not totally defeated. I do, however, think that most advertisers know the winds have changed, at least for now.
But mark my words: I’d bet on at least one major company stepping on a rake. Someone is going to Jaguar themselves on Sunday night.