Brands respond to Ukraine, and a Twitter bot responds to the gender pay gap.

This week, brands continue to respond to the crisis in Ukraine as the information war turns economic, Instagram launches a Creator Lab and a vigilante Twitter bot exposes the gender pay gap.

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‍Brands are continuing to respond to the conflict in Ukraine 

In the weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, global protest and pushback has played out prominently online, with many brands issuing words of solidarity with the people of Ukraine. 

But weeks later, symbolism may not be enough. 

Companies are coming under increasing pressure to use their resources, influence and power to have a tangible, predominantly economic, impact. 

From subtle tweaks to brand names and marketing campaigns to ceasing sales and making sizable donations, here’s how brands across the world are upping their response to the crisis.

• Heineken announced it will stop the sale, production and marketing of the brand in Russia and ‘take immediate steps to ring-fence our Russian business from the wider Heineken Company to stop the flow of monies out of Russia’, CEO Dolf van den Brink stated.
• Goldman Sachs Group has become the first major Wall Street bank to close down its operations in Russia.
• Amazon.com Inc has stopped shipping products to customers based in Russia and cut off access to its video streaming services.
• Diageo-owned Smirnoff has publicly stated that its vodka is “Proudly made in America.” 
• Under Armour has partnered with humanitarian groups to help provide what is needed to the displaced and stopped all shipments to its sales channels in Russia.
• L’Oréal has closed all stores and beauty counters in Russia, as well as closing the brand’s e-commerce in the country. It is also donating over €5 million to United Nations agencies, and has donated essential-care and hygiene products to people in Ukraine. 
• Airbnb is offering housing assistance to Ukrainian refugees.

Instagram announces the Creator Lab

Instagram has launched a new, educational portal for creators, by creators. 

The ‘Creator Lab’ includes best practices, tips and insights passed down from those who’ve found the recipe for Instagram, through much trial and error - and that’s the point. 

The lab is designed to help new creators navigate and find the path to success by using the journeys of those who have reached it to show the way. The best creators share what they learnt, including the dead-ends, potholes, one ways and shortcuts, as well as the things they wish they had known when they started out.

 It is broken down into three key areas, each of which has a series of videos, offering area-specific advice on strategy, optimisations and algorithms.

“We believe that creators are pushing culture forward, setting new trends and establishing norms,” explained Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri, as he said this was part of the platform's effort to do all that they can for the creator community. 

The Pay Gap Bot steals International Women’s Day 2022

The vigilante Twitter bot who took the Internet by storm on IWD2022 by exposing companies gender pay gaps has been revealed as Francesa Lawson and her partner Ali Fensome. 

Lawson, a freelance writer from Manchester, and Fensome, a software developer, tweeted their identity as the brains behind the Pay Gap bot, which called out companies for insincere campaigns supporting International Women’s Day. “It’s me and Fensome who’ve been exposing companies with their own data,” she wrote. 

The account, which retweeted the company's tweets about their gender pay gap, was created in order to squeeze brands out of conversations that the duo believed they didn’t have the right to occupy. 

Explaining their motivation, she said they wanted to draw attention to the hypocrisy of many campaigns in an effort to make social media a more honest place, as well as send a signal to employers that vague, fluffy messages of empowerment aren’t enough anymore. 

And they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for that meddling bot.