{"id":689,"date":"2020-02-26T14:57:32","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T14:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/business-and-society\/?p=689"},"modified":"2020-02-26T14:57:32","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T14:57:32","slug":"helpful-hypocrisy-the-ironic-turn-in-corporate-talk-about-sustainable-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/business-and-society\/2020\/02\/26\/helpful-hypocrisy-the-ironic-turn-in-corporate-talk-about-sustainable-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Helpful hypocrisy? The \u2018ironic turn\u2019 in corporate talk about sustainable development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why are companies turning to humour to talk about serious issues?\u00a0<\/em>In this piece,\u00a0Sarah Glozer<\/a>\u00a0and Mette Morsing<\/a> explore the latest trend in corporate communications, which they term 'helpful hypocrisy'. This relates to the use of satire or irony to talk about global challenges, like climate change, pollution and inequality. This has been reposted from\u00a0BoS - The Business of Society.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Ironic campaigns<\/h3>\n

We have ourselves been intrigued by this new \u2018ironic turn\u2019 in corporate communications. Large international fashion brands such as Patagonia<\/a>, Benetton<\/a> and Diesel<\/a> have recently challenged conventional informational approaches to marketing communication about sustainability, choosing instead to incorporate a humorous (or more precisely, an ironic) edge to their visual representations as they address issues of climate change.<\/p>\n

Such campaigns are ironic because they bring a twist of message incongruity<\/strong> and \u2018double talk\u2019<\/strong>, where they show a world within which ambiguity, incongruity and contradictions are real and leaving it to consumers what to make of it. This stands in sharp contrast to conventional prescriptions in marketing communications where the idea of \u2018one message\u2019, or what we refer to as \u2018single talk\u2019, prevails with the purpose of targeting consumers effectively. In our recently published paper<\/a>, we suggest the term \u2018helpful hypocrisy\u2019<\/strong> as a way of coining the ironic turn.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, these new ironic messages show consumers the dire consequences of pollution, climate change, flooding and deforestation (i.e. implications of consumption) and on the other hand, they simultaneously carry strong aesthetic appeals to enjoy life and consume more, comforting consumers that \u2018life goes on\u2019 and hedonistic lifestyles will continue. In new \u2018twisting\u2019 advertising campaigns, companies blend these two narratives in complex, ironic visualization.<\/p>\n

Such double talk is often deemed hypocrisy and greenwashing in research as well as in practice. And while we agree with such assessment, our analysis shows that there is also something else going on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Double talk<\/h3>\n

We point to how such double talk may also provoke critical reflection and surprise through displaying inconsistencies between \u2018talk\u2019 and \u2018talk,\u2019 and hereby engage its audiences as more than passive recipients. In a cosmopolitan context, where people like to think that they are able and capable of critically reflect on their own lives and make their own decisions, preaching and moralizing communications about \u2018good behavior\u2019 is becoming increasingly less effective.<\/p>\n

Youth is particularly opposing being told what to do. And even in spite of the severe consequences of continued consumption, a certain \u2018climate change fatigue\u2019<\/strong> has entered the market. Consumers know that they should buy less and more sustainable products, but they are resistant to messages that give them feelings of guilt and shame.<\/p>\n

In such a world, we suggest, one way to gain traction is to engage audiences in ironic and humorous communications in which the receiver is him- and herself activated to interpret incongruous ambiguous messages.<\/p>\n

Helpful hypocrisy<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Analyzing Diesel\u2019s Global Warming Ready campaign<\/a>, we find how the technique of irony is particularly outspoken as beautiful people in beautiful clothes are inserted into out-of-place environments, juxtaposing them if you will, by the dire implications of climate change, in a way which makes the whole scenery appear absurd.<\/p>\n

In our analysis<\/a>, we develop an analytical model that positions irony and double talk vis a vis conventional marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n

We point to how the blend of climate change and luxury consumption is an ambiguous affair, and we show how incongruity is present across four levels of Diesel\u2019s use of irony: fantasy versus reality (framing), survival versus destruction (signifying), utopia versus dystopia (symbolizing) and political activism versus consumer society (ideologizing).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Without moralizing or telling consumers what to do, or even restraining from telling consumers how good the corporate sustainable activities are, Diesel exposes the ambiguities of society and sustainability by using humor.<\/p>\n

Now, we are not fooling ourselves. Diesel is a company with an ambition of selling more products. And where satire is a technique that intends to improve humanity by critiquing its \u2018follies and foibles\u2019, companies are generally known to have less noble ambitions.<\/p>\n

But we argue \u2013 with Swedish sociologist Nils Brunsson \u2013 that \u201chypocrisy appears to be exactly what we demand of modern organizations: if we expose organizations to conflicting demands and norms, and expect that they should respond to them, then we must also expect hypocrisy\u201d (1993: 8-9).<\/p>\n

We propose that irony may be considered a means of \u2018helpful hypocrisy\u2019<\/strong> in which the public is exposed to the contradictions and vices of society with the purpose of changing people\u2019s opinion and create betterment of society.<\/p>\n

References<\/h4>\n