What the Pride Backlash Can Teach Brands About Corporate Values
Retailers and brands across the board are seeing a rise in backlash for their LGBTQ-themed collections for Pride month this year. In the last few weeks, consumers have taken to social media to criticize retailers like Kohl’s and Target for selling LGBTQIA+ Pride Month clothes and products, including for children, with some calling for consumers to boycott the store entirely.
While elements of pushback during Pride is not new, overall sentiment regarding these campaigns this year are on the whole more negative than they were in 2022, according to RILA Global Consulting, a consumer sentiment monitoring firm that tracks more than 100 million websites and social media pages per day.
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“The national discourse, and the political discourse around diversity, equity and inclusion, is also fueling some of the responses that companies are having,” explained Juliette Mayers, founder and CEO of DEI consulting firm Inspiration Zone. “What’s different now, I think, is that everyone is feeling like they’re under a microscope, because the country is so polarized.”
The strong reaction comes on the heels of similar uproar at other brands that have recently showcased campaigns featuring LGBTQ+ models and talent. In April, Bud Light’s and Nike women’s partnerships with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney ignited boycotts and a slew of transphobic comments directed at those brands as well, with right-wing critics taking issue with the brand’s promotion of Mulvaney, a transgender woman. This upset has persisted into through June. Just this week, Bud Light lost its top spot in the U.S. beer market, according to a Reuters report that cited data from consulting firm Bump Williams. Anheuser-Busch, which owns Bud Light, said in a statement that “Bud Light remains the #1 brand in the US nationally in volume and dollar sales” for the year. FN reached out to Nike for a comment.
Whereas most of the Pride negativity in 2022 centered around brands being seen as performative or inauthentic, the backlash this year is coming from people accusing brands of being overly woke and sexualizing kids, RILA found. As of June 5, there were more than 15,000 social media posts from consumers threatening to boycott brands, compared to about 400 similar posts in May and June of 2022, RILA found.
“There are a lot of groups, not necessarily new, that were more dormant, who feel more empowered to come out against organizations who they feel are, to use the word that they use, ‘indoctrinating’ people, particularly kids,” Mayers said. “I think the children’s focus is a definite flashpoint.”
How companies are reacting
The strong reaction to Pride campaigns is shining a light on how companies react to this type of consumer pressure. Do they double down on their campaigns, which many see as a reflection of their values? Or do they backtrack in hopes of trying to appease both sides of the aisle?
In the case of Target, the retailer said in a statement on its website that it altered its Pride 2023 collection displays and availability after employees experiences threats to their safety at work. According to reports, some stores even received bomb threats.
“Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior,” the company said, adding that it will continue to stand with the LGBTQIA+ community through June and all year.
When a company decides to take any sort of political stance, it is important to analyze the risk factors and prepare for backlash as best as possible, explained Dr. Nika White, a DEI and leadership consultant and CEO of Nika White Consulting. In some cases, this process might involve delegating extra security to monitor Pride displays and surrounding areas to prepare for consumer upset.
“I think maybe some missteps [with Target] were not preparing enough on the front end to think about what the risk with could potentially be and then having a plan for that,” White said, adding that Target now also needs to grapple with how to meaningfully support its LGBTQ employees that were subjected to the behavior indicated in the statement.
Target did not return a request for comment from FN.
On a broader level, experts say it’s important for a brand to stand with their decisions in the face of pushback to signal genuine committments to company values. If a brand does walk back its stance, “it sends this really strong message that maybe you weren’t for the community in the first place,” White said.
“Brands need to stop pretending that they’re going to be able to be at a neutral place,” White added. “People are really about what your values are, standing true in them and then backing that up without reneging or wavering just because of adversity or because some type of political issue happens to surface around it.”
For example, when Adidas was recently slammed for a Pride ad campaign that advertised a women’s swimsuit being worn a biological male, the brand stood firmly with its campaign and said in a statement it supports “Pride and the celebration of many diverse communities around the world.”
Since mid-May, Adidas has experienced a surge in mentions in online discussions — from about 12,000 posts a day to close to 40,000 a day after the news broke, with consumer sentiment largely turning sour, RILA found. About 8.2% of all of these posts mentioned boycotting Adidas. Adidas declined to comment further on the backlash.
In the face of this backlash, this type of firm stance can likely be attributed to an intentional articulation of a company’s values and how they align with any public-facing campaign. Mayers, who believes in a “holistic approach” to DEI, says having a firm understanding of a company’s values and goals will help guide them through periods of instability and backlash, especially if all members of the ecosystem are aligned.
“Corporations, particularly publicly traded organizations, are there to create shareholder value,” Mayers said. “And those shareholders also need to be factored into the strategy when you’re putting together your DEI holistic approach.”
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