#BLM: Are brands cashing in?

Companies are pledging support and money to the Black Lives Matter movement, and an end to systemic racism. Do they mean it? Ed Butler asks Pepper Miller, a market researcher who has campaigned for over 20 years for companies to realise the value of African-American consumers. One business that already has a long history of supporting black equality and other social justice movements is the ice cream brand Ben & Jerry's. But the company is based in Vermont, the second whitest state in America. Ed asks activism manager Chris Miller whether the firm's purported values are also reflected in their own personnel decisions. It's a pertinent question, according to Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business. With the shift in demographics and purchasing power towards young educated liberal urban workers, and the increased scrutiny of company behaviour in the Google era, he says American businesses see commercial opportunity in taking a much more overt position on US politics than we have seen in the past. (Picture: Ben & Jerry's Justice Remixed ice cream brand ice cream tub; Credit: Ben & Jerry's)