A new poll reveals that business leaders are “out of step” with the public on speaking about social issues.
After polling executives and voters, The Brunswick Group found significant disparity between the two groups:
Only a minority of voters (36%) agree unequivocally that companies should speak out on social issues, compared to 63% of corporate executives.
Corporate executives have a highly inflated sense of how effective corporate communication has been on social issues compared to voters. While nearly 3-in-4 corporate executives (74%) think that communication on this topic has been effective, only 39% of voters can say the same. This shows how corporate executives vastly overestimate the effectiveness of companies that choose to communicate on these issues. In short, the gap arises when what you say and what you do don’t align.
Although The Brunswick Group was not surprised that “Trump voters are less open to companies speaking out on social issues than Biden voters,” they observed that “even Biden voters think corporate executives need to weigh in less.”
Among other elected officials, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has noted the rise in corporate wokeness. During an annual meeting for the Florida Chamber of Commerce, he told executives that he would take action against employers using corporate “power” to forward ideologies.
“If you’re using your power as a corporation, and you’re leveraging that to try to advance any ideology, I think it’s very dangerous for this country and I’m not just gonna sit idly by,” DeSantis said. “Do you want to be more of a political actor or more of a business actor?”
“Don’t ever think that caving to the mob is going to save your bacon,” DeSantis warned. “That’s just going to cause them to come back more.”
“You know, if you do it, you are also going to come by some people on the other side, like me, who are going to say well, wait a minute, if you’re going to criticize what we’re doing I may criticize some of the things you are doing,” he continued. “I may look under the hood and not like some things … I got a podium. I got cameras that will follow me around. Maybe I’ll go talk about that a little bit. And so, I think it’s something that’s very damaging.”
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