“Racism is not getting worse. It’s getting filmed.” Will Smith said a while back.

While the words of Dr. Martin Luther King stay forever true: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

After we saw how almost every brand in the world took action to support communities amid the COVID-19 crisis, we now see many brands reacting to the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and in numerous countries across the globe.

Here are a few recent examples:

Netflix

Reebok

Ben and Jerry’s

TikTok

And, obviously, Twitter themselves, that are currently in a feud with Donald Trump.

HBO and others have changed their handle to BlackLivesMatter

Glossier

While more and more brands today continue to post this – #BlackOutTuesday

House of Highlights

Football Daily UK

Tommy Hilfiger

Zara

In addition, numerous celebs have showed their support by speaking directly to their followers in various ways:

Beyoncé

Drew Barrymore

Ellen DeGeneres

What does it all mean from a professional perspective for marketers?

Well, on a podcast with The New Yorker, Mark Cuban said this week millennials and Gen Zer’s are basically telling businesses – “if you won’t get your social values right, we won’t buy with you.”

And so to anyone thinking that this surge in the importance of community and shared values we’re seeing with brands now is similar to the one we saw after the 2008 economic crisis, and the rise of the “shared value”, this time it seems a whole lot more significant. A lot more all-encompassing. A whole lot more substantial. And a whole lot more important.

It’s not a trend. It’s a new reality. Don’t ignore it. Don’t stay silent.