Weeks before this year’s game, Gillette proved those new social-issue ads could draw an immense number of viewers — and a tremendous amount of controversy. The razor maker’s ad tackled the issue of toxic masculinity, earning it both admiration and scorn. With the ad, Gillette ensured it would be a topic of conversation. But was it good for business?

Possibly. Controversial though these spots may be, they are simply a different way of trying to achieve advertising’s main purposes: garnering attention and cultivating loyalty. Business leaders, after all, have not given up the profit motive, nor have they discovered social or political causes that rival the imperative of shareholder value. Instead, brands and businesses have discovered that in 2019, laying claim to social responsibility has become an essential part of what it means to do business — and to maximize profits.

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Corporate attempts to appear socially responsible are nothing new. Corporate leaders have long embraced the trappings of social leadership, conceiving a role for themselves and their institutions as trustees of social progress. The public relations guru Earl Newsom told a group of business executives in the 1940s that they needed to cultivate the public’s trust. “If people are to turn to our companies in confidence,” he said, “[our] image must be one of leadership. The impression must be that of a company taking initiative in the march of human progress — showing a positive intent, not simply a passive willingness to follow.”

Profit-seeking may be the motivation behind these efforts, but not in a crude or simplistic way. As historian Roland Marchand has shown, corporate executives since the early 20th century have created public relations campaigns that depict their firms as models of public service, bulwarks of democracy and agents of social change. The audience is composed of consumers, yes, but also employees, suppliers, regulators, policymakers and other diverse groups.

As a result, corporations have to juggle a number of different messages when crafting their public relations campaigns. Business opposition to the New Deal, for example, could not always directly attack the popular Franklin Roosevelt or his policies. Instead, companies hired public relations firms to tell stories about their greater social mission and the goodness of the capitalist system. As one New Deal opponent said at the time, “It seems to me that the best way to stop the hue and cry against business so common in political discussion these days, is to set up a counter-current of understanding.” Without specifically challenging the New Deal, such efforts helped to undercut the popular perception that the economic system needed more regulation and government intervention.

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This message of social trusteeship still exists today, though the needle is more difficult to thread. Rather than avoiding social issues and courting another kind of blowback, corporations often take the opportunity to position themselves as progressive and forward-looking. In 2017, for example, Anheuser-Busch created an ad for the Super Bowl that cast the immigration story of the company’s co-founder in heroic terms. The scenes of Adolphus Busch overcoming anti-German hostility to create Budweiser stood in a stark contrast to the anti-immigrant sentiments infecting U.S. politics at the time.

Last month’s Gillette advertisement showed that attempting a feel-good political message can be risky. Referencing the brand’s longtime slogan, “The Best a Man Can Get,” it asked, “Is this the best a man can get?” The ad followed with scenes showing bullying at school, sexism in the office and sexual harassment in the entertainment industry. “We can’t laugh it off,” said the voice-over, “making the same old excuses.” The ad concluded by showing men acting in positive ways, like breaking up a fight or stopping a friend from harassing a woman on the street.

The ad went viral, and some data indicate that it had a positive impact with women, a demographic Gillette is trying to reach. But it also provoked a swift backlash from conservatives, who reacted to the ad as they often to do to liberal artists who are vocal about their views: “Shut up and sing.” Or, in this case, mind your own business.

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Many accused the company of adopting a condescending tone, if not joining a war against masculinity itself. Gillette’s Twitter account received a deluge of negative comments that called the company a promoter of left-wing propaganda.

The conservative blowback against Gillette raises an interesting question: Why do the nation’s largest corporations so often come down on the liberal side on social issues, given that conservatives are typically the ones who support lower taxes, fewer regulations and other pro-business policies? During the New Deal, business executives offered one possible answer: Projecting a socially enlightened image reduces the demand for greater regulation. But another reason looms: Social conservatives do not exercise sufficient market power to compel brand loyalty at the highest levels.

The late 1990s offered the best example of these limits. In reaction to Disney’s support for gay political groups, the Southern Baptist Convention and the American Family Association boycotted the company. Even though the SBC was the largest Protestant denomination in the country and represented nearly 16 million Christians, the eight-year campaign sparked no change in the entertainment behemoth’s policies or practices. Disney simply didn’t feel sufficiently threatened to respond.

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Social conservatives have had much more success in shaping the business policies of regional corporations, based primarily in the South where they are most densely concentrated. (Think Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby, not Starbucks and Pepsi-Cola.)

And this reveals the reality: At the end of the day, corporate support for social policy is about what companies say will sell the most razors or coffee. That requires creating moral and social legitimacy in the eyes of a business’s different publics. And whether they be employees, consumers or some other group, those publics are more likely today to lean left on a range of social issues.