Victoria Sakal, Managing Director of Brand Intelligence at Morning Consult, interviewed by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, host of Futurized podcast and author of Future Tech, Pandemic Aftermath, Disruption Games and Leadership From Below. 

In this conversation, they talk about how big brands should deal with the US election, political intelligence, emerging survey results on how consumers think brands should react to social movements. Do consumers expect CEOs to take a stance on emerging issues such as climate change, #MeToo, safe elections, or COVID-19? Who do consumers trust the most, politicians or brands? What are the top issues on Americans’ minds? How will the political role of brands evolve?

The takeaway is that, at least based on the survey findings we discussed today, brands have no choice but to enter the policy debate on important societal issues. That does not mean that they can or should necessarily take sweeping views on all issues at hand. Consumers don’t —yet—expect brands to behave as responsibly as governments. But that may change. For now, the advice for brands would be to take a stand on issues that are close to heart and where you have integrity. Then, you need to follow up. Post-election, brands will likely find themselves in a renewed game of stakeholder capitalism. Gone are the days where shareholders were all that mattered.

After listening to the episode, check out the recent report on brands in politics, Morning Consult as well as Victoria's social profile:

• Great Expectations | The Evolving Role of Companies in a Post-Election World https://go.morningconsult.com/2020-Q4-3140-Brands-and-Politics-Report-Download.html
• Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) https://morningconsult.com/
• Victoria's Author page: https://morningconsult.com/author/vsakal/ 
• Victoria Sakal (@victoriasakal) https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriasakal/ 

The show is hosted by Podbean and can be found at Futurized.co. Additional context about the show, the topics, and our guests, including show notes and a full list of podcast players that syndicate the show can be found at https://trondundheim.com/podcast/. Music: Electricity by Ian Post from the album Magnetism. 

For more about the host, including media coverage, books and more, see Trond Arne Undheim's personal website (https://trondundheim.com/) as well as the Yegii Insights blog (https://yegii.wpcomstaging.com/). To advertise or become a guest on the show, contact the podcast host here. If you like the show, please subscribe and consider rating it five stars