When Your Customers Don't Share Your Politics (Insider Comms: Target and Pride)
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As I write this Chik-fil-a, the chicken sandwich fast-food chain beloved by conservatives in the U.S., is getting pilloried by right-wingers on social media for having the audacity to hire someone to manage DEI efforts.
This is on the heels of likely a 98% overlapping crowd of Bud Light drinkers working themselves into a frenzy over the company’s ad campaign involving a transgender influencer.
Target is also in the conservative crossfire. At the end of May the department store chain pulled celebratory LGBTQ merchandise from some of its stores in the American South because a vocal minority of unkind + angry + misinformed customers became outraged over some of the Pride friendly merchandise.
CEO Brian Cornell defended the controversial decision in a memo sent to all employees (below). The move was meant to alleviate “threats to our team's physical and psychological safety.”
Making that kind of call is difficult when your consumers’ political positions differ from that of corporate HQ. Meta, for example, constantly struggles with the dynamics because most of its employees are liberal and most Facebook users are conservative. Companies like Black Rifle Coffee (conservative) or Patagonia (liberal) don’t have the same fights because most of their customers are politically aligned.
And yet I guarantee that if Chik-fil-a suddenly announced they would be open for business on Sundays when they’re normally closed to honor the Christian “day of rest,” the lines for their sandwiches would be around the block as soon as church let out. I digress.
How do you satisfy employees, shareholders, and consumers when you’re being pulled in multiple directions? Does Target offer a way to thread the needle?
Compare Target’s approach Disney’s fight against the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill ($):
Here’s Cornell’s memo:
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