I think the doughnut people took a risk. Aligning a Dunkin’ campaign with the Queen’s birthday in Thailand might look like a straightforward cultural celebration. But a brand using a royal symbol is also entering a political landscape. A celebration can become a food fight when customers read the same symbol differently. As de Mooij (2019) suggests, cultural symbols need to be understood in their wider context. Frankly, I don’t always want politics served with my doughnuts and coffee.
Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner campaign in 2017 illustrates how easily a brand’s treatment of protest can provoke a very different response from the one it hoped for (Vredenburg et al., 2020). The issue is not simply whether a brand means well. It is whether the message respects the significance of the imagery it borrows.
Heineken’s Worlds Apart campaign raises a different question: can bringing people together over beer open a conversation, or does it make serious disagreement look conveniently solvable by a product? That is my concern about turning cultural conflict into a brand story; Holt’s (2004) work offers a useful lens for thinking about brands and cultural meaning.
Nike’s Kaepernick campaign and Bud Light’s partnership with Dylan Mulvaney show how a campaign can become a focus for competing political identities (Chaudhri, 2019; Business Insider, 2023). Dolce & Gabbana’s advertising controversy in China is another reminder that a message can travel very differently from the way its creators intended (Zhou & Wong, 2019). I would not assume that any of these brands’ intentions tell us how audiences must receive them.
Dunkin’s royal birthday campaign is a useful reminder that cultural relevance requires more than recognising a date on the calendar. Once a product becomes political, the brand may be selling a standpoint alongside its doughnuts, beer or handbags. Positioning has consequences (Kotler & Keller, 2016), and that extra ingredient can be a lot harder to swallow.