How have brands made an effort to enhance their image. CIU 210.6 Media Activism
People may argue that brands control our lives, how a brand works on our brains when we are buying shoes/technology products basically. although many brands will sell their products and promise an ethical company ruling, many of them have been caught out in the past for unethical treatment of materials/workers ect.
For example Adidas and celebrity endorsement Adidas have managed to become one of the frontrunners formost sold clothing brands in the world, this because of the Adidas style as well as the athletes who are sponsored by them. Adidas recently put out a short video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqaUF2JNY_U&t=3s) featuring over 50 sports/musical a list-ers, including David Beckham, Stormzy,Ozïl, Lionel Messi, and Pharell Williams. The names alone appeal to the younger more impressionable generation.
Another example is Nike, after a report uncovered Nikes sweatshops in Africa, you would think the sales of Nike shoes would decrease, teams would drop their sponsorship like they did with Qatar at the beginning of 2018, but no, although Nike was revealed to have a terrible secret their brand is still one of the highest grossing shoe brands on the planet, which could show a level of brand awareness which would never deviate no matter what happens to them.
An example of a brand who's image changed due to their core enhancements and selflessness. This is a football pitch in Lagos, Brazil, its powered by Philips Lights and the technology of Pavegen where the lights arepowered by the movement ofthe people playing on the pitch, not only is the ideainnovative its alsorevolutionary. It jump started Pavegen's company as they now have running tracks powered by people walking/running on the track, but it also helped Philips image, as in 2012 Philips Lighting was under fire for helping a cartel of men smuggle drugs in their lighting fixtures. Of course Philips denied these accusations but their sales dropped massively, the story of the cartel lightbulbs couldn't of come at a worse time for Philips as this was the time where eco friendly lightbulbs were released. Although their sales were brought down, due to the movement football pitch, Philips have gain respect back and their sales are on the rise again.
Lastly, Apple, Apple has managed to ‘lets be honest’ the most relevant and powerful techcompany…under amazon. But how have they stayed up there. Through pleasingtheir audience, having a good pr, their technology has been revolutionary and evenafter the king of apple died they still push through creating more and more updatesand models of their futuristic phones, think about it, they removed the Aux lead…they still sold millions of the X.