Whether or not companies should take a political/social stand is too broad of a question. It should be broken down into three separate questions. First, what do your customers and employees want to see from you? Second, what are the risks and rewards? Lastly, if you choose to take a stance, are you doing it with genuine intentions? This question itself is complex, but there is a simple answer – yes.
Although deciding to take a stance is risky and choosing a side is riskier, it’s exactly what customers and employees want to see. According to Sprout Social, a social media monitor, more than two-thirds of consumers believe it’s important for companies to speak on important issues.
Point blank, big companies have great influence. We expect, especially in today’s times, for those who hold that impact to make one themselves.
There are so many sociopolitical issues that need to continue to be advocated for and if a company were to participate in that advocacy, it would only increase the awareness that is needed.
“High risk, high reward,” as the saying goes, but that’s not the case here. Researchers for Harvard Business Review surveyed 168 managers and a few MBA students to determine how they perceive companies who hold different values.
Research showed that companies with more conservative values were seen negatively and companies with more liberal values continued to stay seen as neutral.
If a company takes more conservative stances on topics, the business could suffer from a decrease in profit. Twenty five percent were less likely to buy from the company, 25% were more likely to buy from a competitor and 43% said they were less likely to work for that company.
It’s empowering to see so many companies advocate for basic human rights nowadays, but some get jumbled up in the mix and are only doing it to fit in or to look good. Some companies lose sight of what the genuine intent was and focus on how to keep sales up, but no amount of sales can make up for falsely supporting something that hits home for many individuals.
Overall, yes, companies should take sociopolitical stances, but they should stay true to their values and beliefs rather than do what everyone else is doing, because even though you risk a profit decrease, customers are a lot smarter than we think and know when something isn’t authentic, and that can result in something far worse than a profit decrease – a cancel.
But that’s a topic for another day.
