The culture wars test corporate America’s commitment to Pride Month

Pride Month has become a fixture in the US marketing calendar, as June provides an opportunity for companies to signal to employees and consumers that they value diversity over discrimination.

That changed this year, with a bitter culture war over the rights of gay and transgender people turning a routine branding opportunity into a difficult and costly test of companies’ commitments.

More than a year after Disney became embroiled in a feud with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over Republican legislation limiting what schools can teach on sexual orientation and gender identity, other brands have expressed support for the LGBTQ community. Conservatives are finding themselves the center of anger.

A boycott of Target and Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud Light brand has cost the retailer and brewer billions of dollars in market value in recent weeks, and the hostilities aren’t limited to social media. AB InBev warned of dangers to its facilities, while Target said “confrontational behaviour” made employees feel unsafe.

“There’s a long history of boycotts from the conservative right wing, but the really big change is the increase in violence with these recent campaigns,” said Catherine Sender, a communications professor at Cornell University. “(Companies) are really trying to protect people who are just trying to do their job at a local company.”

The growing controversy over long-running LGBTQ-affirming ads and merchandise has marketers stunned. American companies have increasingly embraced cultural events for marginalized groups, from Ramadan to Black History Month, in an effort to diversify their employee and customer bases.

Big retailers including Target, Walmart and H&M have sold Rainbow merchandise for nearly a decade with little pushback. According to Sender, since the early 2000s, executives have feared accusations of “rainbow washing” their brands, far more than boycotts from right-wing groups.

But that dynamic has shifted as the banning of gender-affirming care and drag shows have become central talking points for Republican lawmakers.

This year, several states including Florida and Tennessee passed 491 bills rated by the American Civil Liberties Union as anti-LGBTQ, a record. Measures range from banning discussion of LGBTQ topics in public schools to banning transgender students from playing on sports teams corresponding to their gender identity.

As Republican politicians and pundits turn LGBTQ rights into a powerful wedge issue with their voters, they have sparked passions among conservatives that spill over into the consumer world.

Sales of Bud Light fell for six consecutive weeks in April after transgender TikTok personality and actress Dylan Mulvaney’s collaboration prompted a boycott by conservatives.

AB InBev ended the partnership and two executives took a leave of absence. In the week ending May 20, Bud Light sales were down 24.3 percent year over year, according to Nielsen, while AB InBev shares are down 19 percent since the Mulvaney promotion.

Some Target stores were vandalized after a viral video circulated on social media falsely claiming it sold child-sized “tuck friendly” swimwear designed to help transgender people hide their genitals .

The retailer said it would move its Pride displays to the back of some stores and remove some items altogether, only to be met with a backlash from LGBTQ advocates and its shares plunging 9 percent in a week.

“As the LGBTQ community, we are really disappointed in Anheuser-Busch and Target because they have a long history of partnering with our community, yet here they are being tested for the first time and they are stepping back , ”said Sarah Kate Ellis, chief executive of the advocacy group GLAAD.

NYC Pride, organizer of Pride events in New York, Said It was “upset” that Target, one of its longtime partners, “accepted bad actors, setting a worrying precedent”.

Conservative activists are calling on other brands including Nike, Coles, The North Face and Chick-fil-A to be “bud lit” for their Pride promotions.

“The goal is to make ‘pride’ toxic to brands,” conservative commentator Matt Walsh wrote on Twitter last week. “If they decide to throw this garbage in our faces, they should know they will pay the price.”

There’s some evidence that executives are reducing mention of the words “LGBT” and “LGBTQ” on earnings calls this year, with data providers AlphaSense/Sentio showing companies avoiding a once-adored topic.

But LGBTQ advocates have urged the companies not to deviate from their proud commitments in what Brian Bond, executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG, called a “coordinated attack” by “a very small vocal group of fanatics on the wrong side of history.” . ,

Disney, which has been exposed to more anti-LGBT backlash over the past year than any other major US company, is among those sticking to its plans. Despite the controversy that prompted it to sue DeSantis in April, Disney World in Orlando will again host what are informally known as “Gay Days”, which have been held at the park for more than 30 years. are fan-driven events.

Visitors will be able to purchase clothing, pins and accessories from Disney’s Pride Collection, which was launched in 2018 by “LGBTQIA+ community members and allies”. The company’s Florida resort will also host an “Out and Equal Workplace Summit” later this year. ,

Brands ranging from apparel line Ugg to Mars Wrigley’s rainbow-colored candy Skittles have stepped forward with Pride campaigns, while organizations ranging from Deloitte to Major League Baseball have released Pride Month messages on social media, building on past years. Kind.

Other companies cited their employees as the main reason for maintaining their support. Mike Parra, the Miami-based chief executive of DHL’s Americas business, said it would not withdraw any of its planned Pride sponsorships because of the backlash. DHL sponsored a rainbow-flagged “DHL Delivered With Pride” race car at the Indy 500 last Sunday.

Parra said, “When you are a company like ours, which is extremely diverse with so many employees in so many countries around the world, people need to know that their voices can be heard and feel a sense of belonging and inclusion. feeling.”

Americus Reed, a professor of marketing at the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, said at this stage it was unlikely for US companies to roll out the Pride campaigns and merchandise lines they had planned months ago.

But future rollouts of products and ads targeting LGBTQ communities may be smaller, limited to progressive geographies, and subject to more broad audience testing.

Reed said, “I don’t think any marketer worth his salt will look at a Target or Bud Light and say ‘I’m ignoring this’.” “It’s going to have an impact.”

Additional reporting by Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Christopher Grimes