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Corporations being tone deaf is a regular thing, but the evoking of "Every Voice Matters" so often after shutting down, and punishing, champions of their tourna

• ben_jones 7y ago
  I think society has shown that it only works sometimes. The biggest example in recent history was the kneeling movement in the NFL and the NFL's stance of blacklisting and penalizing prominent players won. Similarly with the NBA, player agents have indicated an overwhelming support by players to NOT speak out for fear of losing their endorsements from Nike, Adidas, Anta, and other firms deeply embedded in the Chinese industrial complex. Even with the Commissioner coming out in favor of voicing the issues, its the big stars the fans care about and without them there will be a significantly fewer repercussions.
  • dickeytk 7y ago
    > The biggest example in recent history was the kneeling movement in the NFL and the NFL's stance of blacklisting and penalizing prominent players won. Did it? I'm genuinely asking and seeing contradicting results trying to search. At least super bowl stats look like they've lost quite a bit. [anecdata] I know myself I quit watching football as a result of that and the injuries.
  • gamblor956 7y ago
    Citation needed, since all reporting has said the opposite. Players want to be able to speak freely. Many of them have started their support for the Hong Kong protests.
    • in3d 7y ago
      Players such as? Lebron James certainly wasn’t for the protests or players supporting them.
      • trophycase 7y ago
        Lebron James is a moron. Remember the part of his statement where he claimed that many people had been physically hurt by Morey's words?
      • gamblor956 7y ago
        Ah today I learned that Lebron James is so big he counts as multiple players. But seriously, where are the citations that multiple players support censorship, let alone NBA players in general? Because the reporting on ESPN and CBS Sports is the exact opposite--players may choose the remain apolitical with respect to Hong Kong but want the right to speak out if they choose.
  • gameswithgo 7y ago
    >and the NFL's stance of blacklisting and penalizing prominent players won. We don't know what would have been the result if the NFL had simply ignored the whole thing and let the players peacefully protest. A lot of effort was put forth by the NFL and the president to get people angry about that before they shut it down. Maybe don't do that.
  • overgard 7y ago
    Not sure I'd say the NFL won. If anything their reaction prolonged something that probably would have passed quickly on its own if they had let it play out. In the end they came out of it looking really bad. The players didn't "win" necessarily, but I'm not sure if there was ever a criteria by which they could have won. The goals of the protest were too diffuse. I guess the main goal was awareness of police violence, but the people that needed to hear it the most immediately pretended it was about something else (the troops, patriotism, etc.). I think with what's happening in the NBA, the truth is a lot of these "woke" individuals are only woke as long as it doesn't affect their business interests. It is what it is. This isn't a new thing.
• magashna 7y ago
  It's the difference between a Walmart, which everyone expects to be pretty low ethically, and Blizzard, which has been using things like LGBT in their marketing (showing their lead Overwatch character as gay [outside of China at least]). You can't have it both ways. You're either progressive in marketing and action, or you're a hypocrite and deserve the market's backlash when you show your greed over ethics. It's why Lebron got pummeled so hard for his HK remarks.
  • yourbandsucks 7y ago
    If a streamer had said something, for example, anti-LGBT, Blizzard would have shut them down the same way and everyone would be applauding. Depending on your personal politics, any given corporate action is either 'brave, standing up for principles' or 'obviously a sellout to the corrupt bad guys'.
    • gpderetta 7y ago
      That's consitent with parent's point. The act of shutting down is very often a political act claiming no politics is allowed is hypocritical.
    • SuperFerret 7y ago
      Yes bad ideas are criticized and good ideas are celebrated. That's the way it's supposed to be.
      • z3phyr 7y ago
        Its obvious what is good and bad here. But do some roleplay; Its 15th century CE, and you (and all the people) have been conditioned since your childhood that the christian god is one true god and that the christian god is good. Now if a person declares something "blasphemous", everyone will think that the person is on the "bad" side. Setting a precedence lead to ugly slippery slopes and keeping to the absolutes in the guidelines is generally more inclusive.
    • TulliusCicero 7y ago
• izzydata 7y ago
  Blizzard has done a crazy amount of virtue signaling over the past few years. It should have been obvious to most that this was just marketing to get people to buy their stuff, but it seems to work on a ton of people. You may or may not be surprised to know that they backtrack on a lot of their progressiveness in the Chinese market such as various characters being of certain sexualities. The sooner that people learn that almost every company ever is only out to make money and is not your friend the better. This has been a more difficult realization for some due to it being a video game company.
  • not2personal 7y ago
    How to get people to stop complaining about you not paying taxes: Step 1: put out a rainbow version of your product during pride month. There is no step 2.
  • sanderjd 7y ago
    I don't think awareness that corporations are out for profit and not your friend is incompatible with pushing back on corporations who are curating an image of support for certain causes and are then acting in ways at odds with that image. In fact, I think it is necessary in order to understand how to push back. They are not your friend so they don't care about your disappointment, but they are out for profit so they do care about the things you can do to affect that: personally boycotting, organizing boycotts, spreading bad word of mouth, etc. Maybe your perspective is that corporations shouldn't do this image curation thing, and yeah maybe so, but in a world where they do, it absolutely makes sense for individuals to push back on them when they are then hypocritical. Otherwise they get the benefits of standing for causes without taking on the risks inherent in doing so.
    • vlan0 7y ago
      But, a business does not make decisions. The people of that organization make the decisions. We must pierce the veil and hold the individuals accountable. Start picketing their house, where they eat, everywhere they go. The folks that care should really be taking lessons from the anti-abortion people picket outside of a physicians home.
• ajross 7y ago
  > punishing, champions of their tournaments [...] for supporting a good cause Which makes this headline framing by the LA Times even more upsetting. I mean, yes, it's a PR disaster, but even in context that's not the important fact to convey here. They're dealing with outrage because of an expressly political act they took, not merely a mistake in the management of "Public Relations".
  • gamblor956 7y ago
    Taking a political stance is quite literally within the definition of public relations.
    • michaelt 7y ago
      Some people would say, if a company sincerely took a political stance, it would encompass the CEO, purchasing, HR, hiring, service delivery, content and so on - rather than only being the purview of the public relations department. If political stances are taken by the PR/marketing department in isolation, they risk finding the company's actions in contradiction of its words.
      • gamblor956 7y ago
        Some people might say that. But those people who know better would say that it is the job of the PR department to coordinate the internal discussions regarding a company's political stance with the appropriate decision makers (which might include the CEO and board but would not include HR, or any of the other departments you've mentioned), and to coordinate the disclosure, dissemination, and followup of said stance once the decision-makers have weighed in. And yes, in most companies, it is the PR department that determines the company's political stance, not the CEO, because the the people in the PR department have a much better understanding of the consequences, because it's literally their job to understand this stuff. In that respect, they are no different than than Legal or Accounting departments. And like the Legal and Accounting departments, when it comes to PR issues, the head of PR gets to tell the CEO what to d. (This doesn't mean the CEO will actually do that, see Elon Musk, but at the overwhelming majority of companies the CEO will trust the expert.)
• jsonne 7y ago
  As a marketer here's the deal. A brand can be "woke" and be socially conscious. When they do that though, and this is where people get tripped up, they're opening themselves up to an incredible amount of scrutiny that most legacy brands frankly aren't prepared to deal with. So as a marketing strategy it works, but it doesn't work as ONLY a marketing strategy. The entire organization has to be aligned on that messaging otherwise someone can and will figure out where you falter and attack you relentlessly for it. It's why it works for someone like allbirds, but blows up in Blizzards face when they grand stand on something like gay rights but then kowtow to Chinese party lines. Another good example is Nike and Kapernick campaign while also using sweatshops in SE Asia. Nothing enrages anyone quite as much as hypocrisy, especially the kind of person that would choose to support a brand based on their social stances. tl;dr when you posture as a pillar of morality people will call you out if you aren't consistent.
  • sanderjd 7y ago
    Just to point out: this is true for individuals as well. Standing for any cause or principle has inherent risks. Some people will disagree with your cause or principle and people who agree with it will expect you to be consistent.
• jammygit 7y ago
  Could someone remind me what the second champion punishment was?