Asklemmy

There might be a better title but it'll do.

Corporations insincerely adopt progressive themes because, at least in most Western countries, it's become increasingly accepted, popular and seen as ethical in the dominant culture, and therefore is a good marketing strategy for reputation management.

This phenomenon is widespread, but some core examples are pink/rainbow capitalism, greenwashing, and spin (e.g. presenting exploitation such as outsourcing labor to cheaper markets as "diversity", as opposed to actual diversity programs). A classic example of this insincerity is various companies (Bethesda, BMW, Cisco, General Electric, Mercedes-Benz, Pfizer, Vogue and many more) famously adopting social media rainbow Pride logos only in some regions but not others - improving conditions for SGM is evidently not a true company value, it's marketing.

I assume that before the normalization of progressive values in these markets, the same type of phony value signaling existed to exploit the dominant values of the time. For example, in the US, patriotism and Christianity.

I believe this is an useful topic to explore, because it can give us tools to explain to some of the more casual 'anti-woke' crowd the difference between progressivism and insincere corporate pandering, perhaps by comparing it with examples of corporate pandering abusing their values, perhaps the notorious commercialization of Christmas and Easter holidays for an example.