for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit, May 6-8 in Palm Springs.
While brands are becoming more and more vocal on social media when it comes to supporting social and political causes, there are still a few lines most companies aren’t willing to cross. With at least one notable exception in The Illuminati, the clothing brand with an activist bent.
The Illuminati caused a stir last Tuesday when it tweeted, “The Only Justice for Trayvon Martin is to take the Life of George Zimmerman. #EyeForanEye #ZimmermanTrial.” The Washington Times published a screengrab of the tweet, which appeared to have called for the death of the former neighborhood watch leader who was found not-guilty in the shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin on Saturday.
The tweet has since been deleted, and another, more restrained Illuminati tweet has since gone out: “We do not support any violence in reaction to the #ZimmermanVerdict however we do believe in #JusticeForTrayvon.”
Ever since Zimmerman was acquitted, the brand, which has more than a million followers on Twitter, has continued to tweet a stream of comments relating to the controversial case:
While more and more brands are standing up for previously off-limits topics like marriage equality (Ben & Jerry’s and Svedka) and peace between India and Pakistan (Coca Cola), a controversial legal case that involves racial issues and murder is something that most brands would avoid getting tangled up in.
But then a company that posts articles like “14 Conspiracy Theory Locations You Must Visit,” and sells t-shirts with slogans like “Fuck the police,” is hardly a typical brand.
Still, the Illuminati clearly has a grip on its particular audience: The tweet about Trayvon dying a martyr got 1,410 retweets and 492 favorites.
Image via Shutterstock
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