Last week, Gushers and Fruit by the Foot, two fruit candies from the 1990s, now manufactured by General Mills, joined forces on Twitter to announce a deep commitment to … something.
“Gushers wouldn’t be Gushers without the Black community and your voices,” the brand’s tweet read. “We’re working with @fruitbythefoot on creating space to amplify that. We see you. We stand with you.”
I laughed because I needed to laugh. Because the squishy, tongue-staining candy I first encountered in middle school was now swearing allyship on Twitter. And because even after reading the tweet several times, I couldn’t make sense of it.
We see you? What, exactly, were the communication strategists at Gushers and Fruit by the Foot trying to say?
Since the killing of George Floyd last month in Minneapolis, hundreds of thousands of protesters have marched in communities across the country, and hundreds of marketing teams have shared optimistic statements on social media that signal support.
Popeye’s Chicken stated that the company would use its “platform” to “support this movement.” Wendy’s claimed that its “voice would be nothing without Black culture” and promised to “amplify Black voices” on Twitter. And Burger King adapted its slogan in a tweet that read, “when it comes to people’s lives, there’s only one way to have it. without discrimination.”
It seemed that, to most food companies, the national protests against police brutality and racism were a chance to both express solidarity and build their brands.
Pepsi wasn’t the first to invoke the imagery and language of activism to make money, but in 2017, a video spot starring Kendall Jenner helped to define this type of corporate maneuver.
The Pepsi ad starts with protesters holding up signs that read, “Peace,” “Love” and “Join the conversation.” Ms. Jenner, posing for a fashion shoot in a metallic dress, takes off her wig, wipes off her lipstick and joins the protest (against what, exactly?). When she reaches the line of police officers, she hands one a can of Pepsi.
The ad drew from the aesthetics of the Black Lives Matter movement, showing a boardroom’s idealized vision of a young, attractive, multiracial coalition. It profited from the movement’s urgency, even as it trivialized its work.
It also brushed over the fact, viciously reinforced last week, that protests against police brutality are often met with more police brutality. That regardless of which soda they might be drinking, peaceful protesters in the United States may be subject to tear gas, rubber bullets, batons and worse.
Pepsi pulled the ad, and apologized. But since 2017, most food brands issuing statements seem to follow the same set of unspoken rules: Never commit to any action; and never, under any circumstances, examine your own internal systems and policies or how they might affect your workers.
All brand statements require some suspension of disbelief from the viewer, but particularly when they’re issued by fast-food companies during the coronavirus pandemic.
Fast food runs on cheap food and cheap labor — most companies offer low wages with limited benefits, and black workers and people of color are overrepresented among their staffs.
Even before coronavirus spread across the United States, fast-food workers were in a precarious position. For years, Fight for $15 has organized strikes and walkouts, pushing for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and unionization for workers.
Data from surveys in 2018 and 2019, released by the Shift Project, revealed that the majority of employees at many large chains — including more than 500,000 at McDonald’s — don’t receive paid sick leave.
As the virus exacted its toll, it became clear that not paying sick employees to stay home wasn’t only an injustice for underpaid employees, but more fuel for a national health crisis.
Some fast-food chains, like Domino’s and Taco Bell, made one-time policy changes. McDonald’s, for instance, announced it would provide 14 days of paid leave to employees who require quarantine, though only at its corporate-owned stores. The spotlight has since shifted away from these labor issues, but the problems haven’t gone away.
Last Wednesday, I saw that McDonald’s had posted its own statement on Twitter. Using its signature shades of mustard yellow and ketchup red, the brand assured me that it stands with black communities across America: “We do not tolerate inequity, injustice, or racism.”
The growth of fast food has long been entwined with the history of civil rights, as Marcia Chatelain explores in her new book, “Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America.” Dr. Chatelain writes that “few acknowledge, let alone analyze, the way that McDonald’s ingratiated itself to black America, and the ways that black America has been integral in McDonald’s many feats.”
As the company expanded, it brought jobs to some of the poorest and most racially segregated parts of the country (along with all the hazards of a fast-food diet, in communities where few other options existed).
For years, McDonald’s worked to become essential to black cultural life, courting black entrepreneurs, hiring black workers and investing in advertising directed at black consumers. When the McDonald’s Twitter account lists the names of black people recently killed at the hands of police, and claims, “They were one of us,” it invokes this complicated history, whether it means to or not.
Alongside the Black Lives Matter movement — in the middle of a pandemic that disproportionately affects black people — McDonald’s workers who fear for their health are staging their own protests.
In May, McDonald’s workers in Chicago filed a class-action lawsuit, saying that the chain failed to keep them safe. And after 11 workers tested positive for Covid-19 at a McDonald’s in Oakland, Calif., employees walked out on strike. They demanded two-week paid quarantine periods, company-paid medical costs, a deep cleaning of infected spaces and basic personal protective equipment — the bare minimum to do their jobs safely.
Though fast-food brands run robust philanthropic programs and frequently make large charitable contributions, it will take more than donations and statements to support black Americans in this moment. It will require addressing issues of inequity, injustice and racism at every level within their own businesses.
Instead, corporations publish branded tweets that reveal a familiarity with graphic design and the language of protest. Instead, with great financial resources and the potential to bring about lasting, meaningful change, they work on their image.
We see you, food brands. We see you.
