Attendees of the 2022 New York City Pride March.
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Retailers’ parade of rainbow-colored LGBTQ Pride month marketing campaigns may get rained on this year.
Companies have attempted to appeal to the LGBTQ community and its allies for decades, but their efforts may be complicated this year amid rising backlash. In the early 2000s, many of these campaigns focused on in-person appearances or sponsorships at LGBTQ events, rarely drawing attention from opponents, said Katherine Sender, a professor at Cornell University who focuses on media and sexuality. In the 2010s, more companies undertook public campaigns during June, the official month of Pride, a shift Sender attributes in part to pressure from customers and employees to step up support. Target, for one, launched its first line of Pride merchandise in 2012.
These campaigns have a history of generating controversy, both from LGBTQ critics who’ve accused companies of using Pride to signal support while undercutting the community in other ways, and from conservatives who’ve lobbed critiques on what they characterize as moral or religious grounds.
The recent wave of anti-LGBTQ sentiment caught fire when Bud Light sent transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney a personalized can of beer. It has since spilled over to other consumer-facing brands and appears to be gathering steam as Pride month gets under way today.
While pushback against Target’s Pride collection has grabbed the most headlines, other retailers are getting caught in the fray. The North Face’s “Summer of Pride” advertisement, which features a drag performer, sparked conservative calls to boycott the company. Some customers have also objected to PetSmart’s Pride accessories collection for dogs,
Kohl’s
(KSS) onesies featuring a Pride flag, and
Adidas
’ (ADDYY) Pride swimsuit ad.
“It’s hard to say whether this backlash is new because in some ways, there’s a lot of recycled stuff,” said Ross Murray, senior director of Glaad Media Institute.
Regardless, this latest battle in the culture wars feels different, say some experts—more widespread, targeted, and intense. In addition, it may be the first time companies felt the full brunt of the ire, Murray said.
“In the last year or so, we’re seeing a much more violent response by people who are in opposition to these kinds of campaigns,” Sender agreed.
In May, Target said it would change or remove certain products from its Pride collection in response to threats to employees working in stores. Meanwhile, the marketing executives who made the decision to partner with Mulvaney have received death threats, and some
Anheuser-Busch InBev
(BUD) factories received bomb threats.
The response from progressives has also been heated. Many LGBTQ groups condemned Target’s decision to pull some of the Pride collection, encouraging people to boycott the retail chain. Some Target stores also received bomb threats as a result of the decision, according to reports.
This puts retailers who want to keep appealing to demographics across an ideological spectrum in a tough spot.
“One observation from 25+ years of researching Consumer companies is to avoid taking ‘sides’ in controversial areas,” wrote Evercore ISI analyst Greg Melich in a research note. “It isn’t easy and in a polarized environment we don’t see solutions anytime soon.”
Retreating to a neutral position can be hard, given that modern consumers want to shop at brands that align with their values and beliefs, said David Johnson, CEO of Strategic PR, an Atlanta-based public relations firm.
“Retailers now are being caught in a Catch-22,” he said. “Do they continue to take the stance because that’s what consumers are buying into—many of them—or do they bend?”
Both choices have repercussions, he added, including alienating consumers and setting a precedent of backing down in face of social media pressure.
“If retailers back down over and over again to every political group where does it end?” he asked.
Instead of reversing course, companies committed to a Pride campaign should have a strong rationale for why they’re doing it and be prepared to address any criticism, says Johnson. For those still sitting on the fence, he advises waiting to see how things shake out this summer.
While most retailers planned their 2023 Pride campaigns months before the current round of anti-Pride protests, the real measure of how cowed companies are by the backlash may come next year, said Sender. Most companies will stay the course, she says, but if the kind of pushback leveled at Target spreads widely, some companies could take a more muted stance, she says.
“There is no under the radar anymore,” she said. “If you’re going to make entries into this market, you have to do it with courage and confidence, and know that you’re gonna get a lot of publicity and some of that publicity will be negative.”
Write to Sabrina Escobar at [email protected]
Source: https://www.barrons.com/articles/pride-retail-target-backlash-2d6c4336?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo