Selling Virtue ‘WOKE’ ADVERTISING AND CORPORATE ETHICS
A melancholy piano score plays over a montage of similar images. Two people, faces unseen, reach out for each other’s hands in a range of everyday situations: walking together, climbing a tree, sitting at a table, lying by a pool. The pairs come closer to touching with each image, until we see each pair clasp hands at the same moment that it is revealed we are looking at same-sex couples holding hands in public spaces. Eventually, we cut to a shot of two women walking hand in hand onto a bus and sitting down. One of them looks warily at a man sitting nearby with a scowl on his face, and we see the women’s hands again as they release their grip. From there, with just seconds between each scene transition, we revisit each of the couples we have seen so far, as, one by one, they stop holding hands when another person enters the shot. The next scene shows a couple holding hands as they approach what looks like the entrance to a pub, where two men are sitting outside drinking beer. Just as we expect the ad to repeat the same image of the hands letting go, the hands clasp tighter. ‘When you feel like letting go,’ the on-screen text reads, ‘#holdtight’. This image begins a final montage of each couple clasping hands once more as the music swells with dramatic orchestral strings, before the screen dissolves into a corporate message: ‘ANZ is proud to continue supporting the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.’
This is clearly an advertisement for ANZ, one of Australia’s largest banks, but it is not immediately apparent what it is selling. There is no specific product mentioned, and the ad’s ‘call to action’ (to ‘hold tight’ in the face of real or perceived homophobia) does not appear to have anything to do with banking. So, how are we supposed to read this ad? What exactly is it selling? Is it significant that the ad’s implied audience is other same-sex couples? What does that have to do with banking? Most significantly, what sort of response is ANZ hoping to elicit from the ad’s viewers – and, for that matter, what sort of behaviour?
This ad, which the company released in 2017 under the title ‘#holdtight’, is an instance of what has been described in some quarters as The ad displays an apparent understanding of a very specific experience of queer life: the impact of homophobia on whether same-sex couples feel comfortable holding hands in public. It even positions itself as a moral authority on the subject by suggesting a specific course of action in response. While the ad’s desired effect on consumer behaviour is initially unclear, it does appear to be invested in linking a broadly anti-homophobic narrative with the ANZ brand.
