Value Washing: When communication lacks the management to support it

During the first half of 2024, there were multiple anniversaries or dates of global commemoration such as Women’s Day, Men’s Day, Environmental Education Day, Earth Hour, among many others. Now, as we approach the commemoration of the rights of LGBTIQ+ populations, better known as Pride Day, several companies and brands are planning communication efforts and campaigns to make a statement. However, even if there is a genuine intention to promote positions of support and solidarity, it is essential to analyze whether these manifestations, rather than building value, constitute a corporate reputational threat and generate a perception of value washing on the part of their audiences.
 

But what is value washing?

 
Probably the expressions green washing or pink washing are more familiar. Value washing occurs when words are stronger than actions; when there is a communicational display without a genuine commitment or management behind it; when there is no real vocation to contribute or to create a long-term link with a certain cause.

Among the different forms of value laundering, we can find social washing, greenwashing, rainbow washing, purple washing, among other practices that undoubtedly affect reputation, as they are all the result of misleading ethical marketing or communication practices.

Purple Washing: Apparent commitment to and work for gender equality, taking advantage of events such as Women’s Day to launch empty marketing campaigns, without concrete and verifiable actions in favor of women’s rights.

Rainbow Washing: Strategies aimed at presenting institutions, countries, individuals, products or companies as allies of the LGTBIQ+ community with the aim of projecting a progressive and tolerant image.

Green Washing: According to Greenpeace, it involves misleading consumers about a company’s environmental practices or the low impact of a product or service. A strategy used by some organizations to present a commitment to the environment, without any management to verify it.

Social Washing: This term covers all kinds of ethical activity, or rather, inactivity, and goes beyond the care of natural resources to include supposed practices in favor of labor and human rights, gender equality, modern slavery, among other social issues.

These behaviors are of increasing concern to business and corporate governance, as they undermine the trust and credibility of the public and have an unfavorable impact on organizational positioning. The only way to prevent and avoid them is to communicate about practices that are authentic and consistent with previously defined values and demonstrable with verifiable facts.
 

Three tips to avoid communication that incurs value washing:

 

1. Formulate and reflect on questions such as the following: Has the brand worked on this cause before? Do we have measurable actions and results in this regard? Is there a strategy or action plan beyond communication? Does the company or brand apply and live a culture based on values or does it have policies that support an active voice on the campaign’s theme?
2. Consult an authoritative voice on the subject: Validate your campaign, before launching it, with an expert entity, foundation, among other authoritative voices on the subject. This review can give you a conscious look at how much impact your initiative has or alert you to how it may be perceived by the population or community involved.
3. Choose a cause that is closely related to the core business. Avoid getting involved in every cultural calendar date just for the sake of it: Companies that find greater value and reputational connection with audiences choose and focus on an initiative that they can develop and improve every year, so that they have evidence of genuine and sustainable support.

 

Value washing not only raises major ethical questions, it can also undermine genuine efforts to achieve meaningful social and environmental change.

Companies need to act with integrity and real commitment to these causes, managing to raise the perception of their corporate image based on truths.

Communication without management triggers reputational risk.

 

This content is translated with AI. Read article in its original language.