Combative consumers change the marketing strategy for Target and Bud Light

In the US, Target and Bud Light have shifted their marketing plans in wake of blacklash from some customers who have taken issue with their stands on social issues.

Target recently stopped selling certain items from its Pride Month collection after a backlash from some customers that included in-store incidents.

Many brands have long shrugged off criticism of their stands on social issues, but Target and Bud Light just proved that even huge corporations can be made to bend.

Target this week stopped selling certain items from its Pride Month collection after a backlash from some customers that included in-store incidents, and Bud Light last month put on leave two marketing executives who oversaw a collaboration with a transgender influencer that drew criticism and real-life confrontations.

Both brands, along with many other large consumer goods companies, have long supported LGBT rights. And their opponents in each case stirred outrage through social media, where previous corporate pressure campaigns have typically produced a lot of noise without significant results.

But critics this time were focused on transgender issues, which have climbed into the top ranks of conservative social agendas. And they combined their social-media messaging with tense in-person encounters.

That proved enough to disrupt the usual patterns of purpose-driven marketing, in which brands position themselves as forces for good. The strategy’s biggest risks before this year were usually complaints by opponents of a given cause or, conversely, accusations of insufficient commitment to that cause.

The growing number of brands that ran ads, sold rainbow products or changed their logos to support LGBT causes every June, for example, spawned the term “rainbow-washing” to describe a superficial act of Pride marketing.

Then consumers this week knocked down Target displays, threatened employees and used social media to share angry videos from inside stores. Bud Light’s delivery drivers, sales representatives and independent distributors last month were confronted by people on the streets, in bars and in stores.

Target chief executive Brian Cornell told staff in an email that the company was trying to address worker-safety concerns while continuing to support the LGBT community.

He thanked store and customer-service workers for dealing with backlash from customers and “high volumes of angry, abusive and threatening calls.” “What you’ve seen in recent days went well beyond discomfort, and it has been gut-wrenching to see what you’ve confronted in our aisles,” Cornell wrote.

Anheuser-Busch chief executive Michel Doukeris this month similarly expressed support for LGBT rights and a desire to protect workers. “Our number-one priority during this entire situation was the safety of our people,” he said.

Social media still plays a key role in brand protests.

While some criticised Pride-themed children’s clothing in Target’s collection as a general matter, others objected to a transgender-friendly swimsuit they said was being marketed to children. Though Target sells the swimsuit only in adult sizes, the misconception spread on social media.

Others called out Target items produced by Abprallen, a brand that sells some products elsewhere with satanic references, such as a “Satan Respects Pronouns” enamel pin. Those items weren’t sold by Target.

“Previously you could send a homogeneous message to the country, but there’s so much divisiveness and polarisation on so many issues that that’s become almost impossible,” said Allen Adamson, co-founder of brand and marketing consulting firm Metaforce.

Social media feeds mean a piece of a marketing campaign designed to target a niche group can be amplified out of context, he added.

That’s what happened when Bud Light sent a personalised can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney as part of a broader promotion around March Madness. Her sponsored Instagram post about the can on April 1 was shared widely, with many people including bar and store owners wrongly believing that it was a TV commercial, or that the can with her picture was available in stores.

Companies should also prepare to face more aggressive consumers, research suggests.

Forty-three per cent of surveyed Americans said they raised their voice to a customer service representative to show displeasure about their most serious problems with a business in 2022, up from 35 per cent in 2017, according to this year’s National Customer Rage Survey, a long-running assessment of customer attitudes.

Some 17 per cent of those surveyed said they personally behaved in an uncivil manner with a business or organisation, the survey found. Consumers’ characterisations of certain behaviour also varied, with 12 per cent of overall respondents describing physical and verbal threats as civil behaviour.

“The marketplace has become saturated with hostility that seems to break out in any number of places at any time,” said Scott Broetzmann, president and chief executive of Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, which conducts the study with the WP Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.

In the case of Bud Light, critics also used social media to single out by name a marketing executive — one of the two who were later put on leave.

Molson Coors Beverage defended a marketing executive who came under attack on social media this month from conservative commentators unhappy with a Miller Lite ad satirising the sexist history of beer advertising.

Sofia Colucci, the brewer’s CMO, took down her social-media accounts after she became the target of personal attacks over the ad.

“People can take issue with our ads or our brands, but we won’t stand by as people personally attack our employees — especially given that these are company decisions, and are never made by one single person,” company spokesman Adam Collins said in an email.

Many companies are going ahead with Pride marketing this year. Fashion houses Coach and Calvin Klein this week both introduced campaigns featuring LGBT influencers, artists and celebrities, while the North Face began promoting the “Summer of Pride” in videos starring the drag queen Pattie Gonia.

Brands including Disney, Apple, Target and Adidas this month released lines of Pride-themed clothing and other products. Disney also announced the first “Pride Nite” events, set to take place next month at California’s Disneyland as part of its “Disneyland After Dark” program.

But some marketers have grown more cautious in recent weeks than they were in past years, cutting their Pride campaign budgets and confining related messages to “gay or gay-friendly media channels” to avoid being caught up in the culture-war backlash, said Jonathan Mildenhall, co-founder and chair of consulting firm TwentyFirstCenturyBrand and the former CMO of short-term rental company Airbnb.

“I work with many top brands who have historically supported the LGBTQ community during Pride. Unfortunately I have seen a swift, cautious pullback from both levels of investment and the mainstreaming of that investment,” Mildenhall said.

Rose Montoya, a transgender content creator who has worked with marketers including Savage X Fenty, said fewer brands are reaching out for Pride partnerships this year. Montoya attributed that drop to fear sparked by the furore surrounding Bud Light and Target, in addition to other factors including greater saturation of the influencer market.

“For us, it’s important for our customers to not only see themselves in our products, but also know that we see and welcome them — many of whom aren’t represented or often overlooked by other brands across a wide range of industries,” said Emma Tully, chief brand officer at Savage X Fenty.

The fashion brand, which recently introduced a new Pride collection, uses its marketing to support the LGBT community, as well as related groups such as the Black Trans Femme Arts Collective, throughout the year, Tully said.

“All of this will hopefully blow over,” Montoya said. “The queer community has huge spending power. Brands can’t afford to not work with us forever.” Companies at the same time can no longer row back to an era when they were neutral on social and political issues, said Adamson, the Metaforce co-founder. Doing so may run the risk of creating forgettable brands that don’t resonate with anyone, he said.

“No matter what, they have to assume there will be a minority who will strongly object, and they have to be prepared to live with that decision, ” Adamson said. “And part of that is moving from marketing to the basics of crisis management.”

The Wall Street Journal