A Nonessential Corporate Social Responsibility Reorientation: The Woke-Washing Phenomenon in Victoria's Secret's Transformation

Abstract

In markets that prioritize Corporate Social Responsibility, brands frequently encounter pressure to adopt socially progressive values. Victoria's Secret's recent shift toward inclusivity exemplifies how rapid moral repositioning can elicit skepticism and accusations of “woke-washing.” Despite extensive research on brand authenticity, consumer skepticism, and CSR-driven rebranding, empirical studies connecting these themes with crisis-management theories remain limited. This exploratory case study applies Mitroff and Pearson's crisis-management framework, utilizing sentence-level sentiment analysis with ChatGPT, to evaluate consumer reactions on social media. The findings indicate that Victoria's Secret's abrupt, externally driven rebranding intensified consumer skepticism, alienated loyal customers, and failed to establish trust among socially conscious consumers, thus reinforcing perceptions of performative activism. These results underscore the critical importance of integrating genuine internal organizational changes with CSR strategies, demonstrating that superficial approaches to social responsibility can exacerbate reputational crises rather than mitigate them.