The before photos in the ad DID need better lighting. It's manipulative when the before photos are sabotaged and the after photos are of course spared the same sabotage.

That's how commercials work, bud. 

It's not the woke bogeyman, it's just advertising.

I'm just giving what I consider to be 'woke' and Google's Pixel ad is an example. It feigns social consciousness when it's really just sleight of hand being used to sell a product.

Hmm, So you are now defining a new definition for woke.  Before it was stuff people did not like, now you are adding advertising to the list as well.  Its not like there are hundreds of ads that advertise to groups of people of different race, genders skin tones etc so why is this any different.  You say it feigns social consciousness but that isn't correct.  What it does is try to sell a feature that Google believes will target a group which is people with dark skin to buy their product. 

The fact you label this as woke seems like you will label anything woke that doesn't advertise to white people.  There are hair products, lotion, food, cloths just to name a few that advertise to non white people so would all of those be considered woke to you as well.

Funny when you think about it. 

If going woke = going broke, then why is it that companies are marketing to the woke crowd? 

The first photos Google shows in the ad had poor lighting. As a solution, Google sells some feature called real tone on their Pixel phone rather than tell their target audience that cameras need good lighting to take good pictures.

I view this like an insurance salesman selling volcano insurance in an area with no volcano close by. A dishonest salesman will show the horrors of volcano eruptions to their target audience and hide the fact that there is no volcano in the area.

I'm calling Google dishonest in the ad and to top this dishonesty off, they add a fake veneer of social consciousness to their marketing. I find this appeal-to-emotion marketing obnoxious. And while I dislike using the word 'woke', if I had to use it, this ad would qualify as 'woke' in my book.

To answer your question, no. Any product aimed at someone who isn't white is NOT what I consider 'woke'.

It's the deceptive element in Google's ad that I'm offended by.

For the record, I find the notion that 'going woke = going broke' to be nonsense. Plenty of companies have been accused of going 'woke' and are still plenty successful. For example, I can see RockStar being accused of 'going woke' with some of its releases and yet it continues to see greater heights of success.

The notion is stupid, business is more complicated than such a simple mantra.

To answer your question, companies appealing to a 'woke' crowd I feel is just them trying to appeal to emerging markets they feel might have untapped potential. It's nothing new for businesses to seek out new customers wherever they can.

I think some of it, is just being scared of the left side (the woke side) that love to toss labels at everyone and name call people.
These big companies don't want to be called racist or transphobic or whatever, so rather than risk that, they pander to them instead.
Look at SBI, the company lead, did a speech where she basically talked about going to HR, and mentioning this risk factor, as a easy way to get your DEI point across if you work at a company (it comes off, as basically threatening, to get consulting jobs).

Part of it is money lending, apparently you get like tax right offs, and have a easier time, borrowing money, if you put in DEI stuff.
Not sure what government funding projects or whatnot this is, but I've heard this mentioned before.

I think another part is just indoctrination.... alot of people are taught this stuff at universities, and come new off the market, thinking like this.
Plus I think, even if LGTBQA+ make up a small part of society,alot of people that get into graphic design and creative fields, are gay or lesbian, compaired to normal people. These people find jobs, in the games industry (someone has to make the graphics ect).  And they believe in this stuff, because alot of them are from that part of the community (or have friends from the field that are, so allies as they call themselves).

I think another part of it, is the people that get a kick out of owning the chuds.
Theres people just cant help come out on twitter saying stuff like "gamers are a mistake" "I want to punch these people" ect ect.
Alot of people, just view it as a job... and care nothing about how well the game sales do.  Their messaging in the game is more important than the profit the company makes.

So this is the why of it... Even if ultimately it might be counter productive to profit margins.

False.  

Camera technology is complicated. 

How you capture light, a lot of modern cameras even use AI to try getting the image to closer match what the person is actually seeing. 

How these cameras actually automatically focus on the image. 

There's a ton of processing that goes on for digital cameras. If you think it's as simple as "more light was all that was needed", then I don't know what to tell you.