244: Lessons Learned: Promoting Pride Events and Merchandise – Insights from Target, Bud Light, Adidas, and the L.A. Dodgers

You do not have to look far on social media to know that LGBTQ campaigns are now deeply, deeply political. They are a cultural hot potato. Seems that brands and companies don't want to touch it for fear of getting burned, while others can withstand the heat.

And the FTC is investigating baby formula makers to see whether the manufacturers colluded on bids for state contracts. ABC News business reporter Alexis Christophoris has more on and your other business headlines. Alexis, what are you watching today?

That baby formula story. That's what we're watching. The Federal Trade Commission investigating whether Abbott Labs, Nestle and other baby formula makers colluded on bids for state contracts. The agency is looking at whether the companies work together to secure lucrative funding for state run baby formula programs for low income families. Baby formula will be stocked in that state's stores and recommended by doctors and hospitals in the state. Abbott, which sells Similac formula.

Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast where current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. This month is Pride Month and it presents an opportunity for companies to express their support for the LGBTQ community through various promotional events and merchandise. And while many brands have successfully embraced the idea of inclusive campaigns, some brands have fell short and some have definitely been burned. So in this episode, let's talk about some recent brands who have picked up the hot potato and had different results. So, so much has changed in the advertising promotional campaign around inclusive marketing and campaigns. Think back to 2020. Think back to where you were, what you were doing in your job, if you happen to work in any part of comms, ad advertising, promotion, social media, digital media, marketing, leadership, any of it. We're now, you know, the beginning of June, so we are a week away, a week past now, three years after the death of George Floyd at the knee of a police officer in Minneapolis. Back then it was pretty, pretty cut and dry, you know, what happened to George Floyd. It was just a matter of the culpability of the police. And even back then, knowing people, since it was my Hometown, I'm from St. Paul, you know, knowing people who knew people involved, like, knowing people who knew police officers involved, brought up some very interesting conversations, that's for sure. And, you know, being from the Twin Cities, I was speaking to people on both sides of that fence, definitely. But if you think back then, if you worked in the communication or leadership, the, the question really came out of all of that is, what are we going to do about this? Is this our time now to start being more values driven in our marketing efforts. You know, reaching out, whether it's from an external point of view to their consumers, to their customers, members, whoever it is, or internal with staff. Do we want people to know our values? What are our values? Do we even have values right now? It also brought up the question of how, how much money do people don't donate to underrepresented groups? So specifically then it was a lot of, you know, people of color, you know, it was a lot of, you know, black causes in black initiatives out there also under scrutiny. How many companies had open DEI efforts? Was there a diversity equity inclusion page on a website? Was the value statement? There was someone employed in that position to actively recruit and seek minority candidates. I think what we found back then is a lot of companies out there were not doing a lot. So many, many, many made the commitment to change. But since then, what we're finding, a number of them are rolling back. And just from an economy point of view, it's a difficult economy out there. We're coming from the pandemic too. People are starting, you know, companies are starting to cut off the more costly projects that are out there. But it does come with a cost because if you don't have it and then something happens, particularly if it's a race related issue or PR crisis, if you will, people will take the time to check out, you know, what, what type of initiatives you had and have you stood by whatever your values are or whatever commitments you've made in terms of, you know, hiring. So let's look at three different brands right now and what they did. Four different brands. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the first one, but we have, you know, Bud Light. We're just starting with Bud Light. I've done a lot of content on that. I've done interviews on it. Bud Light is, I've said this before, you know, kind of set the watermark now for inclusive marketing and campaigns. I don't think it's an accurate one, but it definitely set a watermark. I think what it did is it turned this type of campaigning into more of a cultural decision as opposed to a human one, a human centric one. It's can we withstand the blowback that was the takeaway? Do we want to be the next Bud Light? And I believe the spillover effect now is that many companies are saying it's not worth, is simply not worth it to do that. Bud Light decided to do a campaign, you know, with a number of influencers during March Madness. One of those influencers, Dylan Mulvaney, a trans performer who's all over TikTok, you know, all over social media, incredibly popular, working with a lot of companies out there and a lot of brands. The blowback was swift. Went out there. We saw, you know, Kid Rock, you know, shooting at the can. We saw some other people with their blowback. You've heard me talk about it before. I won't spend a lot of time on it. I contended at that time that they were doing it to make a splash. That's why the VP of marketing pretty much said that. And when you look at the algorithm and you look at how many people are talking about it and you look at the sentiments, I mean that's really what it comes down to too. The sentiment, which could have been neutral and if not positive at first, also the negativity just was overwhelmed. It got swallowed by negativity. Who felt the brunt of it? They felt it locally, they felt it at the local distributor level, the local C store level. Anyone who had to sell Bud Light, that's where they felt it. The stock prices didn't as much. So there was, there was always this question of, you know, how damaging was it. Now no one will be able to tell me that it was not successful in terms of earned media. Definitely. I also and did change my views a little on it as it changed. It's not that I flip flopped on my idea, but I was looking at things from a different way because now marketing campaigns are so different. That's how we measure all of these. Social media sentiment is such a large part of that. But also who is in the funnel, the consumer wise. Now, just an anecdote and I think I may have spoken about this on a previous podcast that I was doing an interview with NBC. I don't remember which one probably was. I don't remember which. I think it was NBC News. Now they were doing another, you know, Bud Light story and I quickly had to go on there and I had asked someone, I just want your opinion on it, someone who works in news. And I thought they were going to, you know, somewhat mirror. Not directly Mirro mirror, but just give me a perspective. I, I needed a am I crazy moment touch, touch person to do that. And this person said back to me just, you know, with my mind and came back and said, well, you know, I know you think that, you know, a lot of younger people are more tolerant of inclusive inclusivity or expect it more, but there are a lot of young conservative people too. I Was not thinking that. Okay, so it was great advice. I probably shouldn't have called him be right before I was doing that interview because it messed with my head. And in my head my messaging was like, what am I gonna talk about now? But he was not wrong. He was not wrong. Yes, a lot of Bud Light, they lost a lot of conservative, traditional that psychographic of I would assume, if I'm spitballing here, 35 plus male conservative. They like country music, they like their Bud Light, they like America, military, you know, patriotism, rah rah America. That's the psychographic demographic of, of Bud Light. But also the fact that it's, it's also being filled by that as well. And if you turn, turn them off, you know, it really may do some serious long term damage. So we don't know. So the mistake that Bud Light certainly made, our key lesson from this, the takeaway is if you are going to do a campaign and you're doing it just to make noise nowadays, that noise is likely going to swallow you. If you're not prepared for it, you'll be swallowed by it. Bud Light, Anheuser Busch, they were not prepared for it days for the Bud Light CEO to come out with the statement. And that statement was pablum said nothing. They were trying to speak, speak to their base while pandering to the more liberal, I'm not going to call it woke to the more liberal race and it did not work and it went up to the Anheuser Busch level. There's still some now discrepancies in opinion on was it, how damaging was it to the brand. So yes, earned media off the charts. We do know that it, the stock prices actually went up probably a lot because so many people were talking about it. But the sales definitely did drop off, particularly at a local level. Okay, now moving on to Target. A lot of people had asked me on social media to talk about Target. Now I didn't post anything on Target yet. I still might do it, although I may not because this is my, my Target post right now. Well, one reason is it was Memorial Day weekend and I had plans. I didn't want to be on TikTok Memorial Day weekend. But also I kind of leveraged my time off by testing my algorithm to see what was I being served about Target. I certainly knew about Target. I heard about it, but I didn't know exactly what happened. I knew they pulled merchandise, but did they pull merchandise because they were, they were backtracking on supporting LGBTQ causes or were they doing it Purely for safety. I wasn't quite sure because the Google algorithm was only showing me the dire, you know, the headlines, the clickbait that said, woke, woke, woke, woke, woke, woke, woke. Target. But then when I started researching it and looking at it, I thought, oh, here we go. So here's a lesson now.

Target is removing some of its Gay Pride merchandise off the shelves. The reason, they say, is because some of their employees were threatened. Earlier this month, the retail giant debuted merchandise tailored for transgender people as well as children's clothing that celebrated Pride that led some customers to boycott the company. Joining us now is NBC News reporter Gary Grumbach.

Gary Sinclair. Customers reportedly knocked down Pride displays and posted threatening videos on social media all over a few items of clothing, putting a bull's eye on the retailer's back.

Honestly, Target, what is going on? This is pretty disgusting.

Target taking heat on social media and stores over some of its LGBTQ merchandise.

This right here, these are baby clothes.

Why are there Pride? Baby onesies?

Days before Pride Month begins, the retailer is taking down some of its Pride merchandise after saying their employees are facing threats. In a statement, a Target spokesperson telling NBC News, quote, 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. Target didn't specify what clothing they're removing from their stores, but swimsuits labeled tuck Friendly have sparked anger from some on the right. Those are bathing suits that allow trans women who have not had gender affirming operations to conceal their private parts. But experts say the sale of these bathing suits is being taken out of context.

They're painting these bathing suits as being targeted specifically to children, which kind of furthers this false narrative that trans people are preying on children in some way or trying to, quote, unquote, indoctrinate them.

And Target is not the first company to face retaliation after embracing the transgender community. Anheuser Busch is seeing a sixth straight week of declining sales, according to Nielsen IQ data. After partnering with a transactivist.

I got some Bud Lights for us.

So I think the question is really, you know, are these companies willing to, you know, cater to LGBTQ people or have LGBTQ specific marketing campaigns and kind of stick or ride out what the consequences of that could be because of this larger national conversation and the quote, unquote, culture war that we're seeing related to it?

Some Target shoppers befuddled by the backlash.

It's 2023, and I feel like people should just learn how to accept how.

Other people are it just, it astounds.

Me that the world is made up of people who are so afraid.

Others understanding Target's move to keep their employees safe.

I think they should do what's best for the employees since they're there and they're the ones actually getting harassed. And the LGBTQ community should be open to that and respect it.

The aisles of your local department store now on the front lines of the fight over LGBT rights. Now, Joe Yerkaba in the piece there called it a culture war. That's really what this is. Because in clay I just looked through the Target website. None of the bathing suits that seem to offer that tuck friendly option or even available in children's sizes.

Really important reporting. Gary Grumbach.

Thank you. But in Southern markets, they had Pride merchandise that created a very volatile environment in some stores, so they had to pull the merchandise for the protection of staff. Now I'm going to read a statement by the Target CEO, Brian Cornell, and I'm going to read it in its entirety because I one, I think it's an excellent statement or one, it's just so well written. Whoever wrote this statement did an excellent job, but also it's a really good values based statement for handling a crisis. So I will mention that they refer to briefly, which is their internal newsletter. Okay, team, I want to end the day where briefly started on a note of care. This has been a very hard day for Target and it follows many difficult days of deliberation and decision making. To our team in stores and thank you for steadfastly representing our values. No one is better at working through uncomfortable situations in service to an inclusive guest experience. What you've seen in recent days went well beyond discomfort and has been gut wrenching to see what you've confronted in our aisles. To our team in the service centers, thank you for your patience and professionalism. Through the high volumes of angry, abusive and threatening calls, I recognize how difficult and even frightening those interactions can be. And thank you for the composure with which you fielded those comments. To the teams who have been working so hard on our plans for Pride, and now you're showing incredible agility as we adjust. Thank you. Your efforts will ensure we can still show up and celebrate Pride in meaningful ways. To the LGBTQIA community. One of the hardest parts in all of this was trying to contemplate how the adjustments we're making to alleviate these threats to our teams physical and psychological safety would impact you and your well being and psychological safety. We stand with you now and will continue to do so. Not just during Pride Month, but each and every day. Those were the two guiding principles when it came time for us to act. Do all we can to keep our team safe, and do all we can to honor our commitment and connection to the LGBTQIA community. From a host of difficult alternatives, we have sincerely sought the best path forward, finding ways to recognize Pride Month while making adjustments to prioritize safety. As always, we're stronger together. And I want you to know that I'm committing to doing all I can and all we can as a company to support a culture across the country of care, empathy, equity, and simple civility in hopes that we'll not have to face these kinds of agonizing decisions in the future. Thank you for the care you you've shown each other, our frontline teams, and the LGBTQIA community. B C well, now that is a statement. That's an excellent statement. You need a playbook for how to write a statement. A values based statement. You got it.

Target is now the latest company to be facing intense backlash over its support for the LGBTQ community. Target has been celebrating Pride Month for years, but yesterday announced that it is making some last minute changes to its 2023 collection, namely removing some merchandise from its shelves, citing an anti LGBTQ campaign that is threatening their workers safety. It's not clear exactly which products have been pulled, but there are some right wing critics who are slamming Target for several items that they had, including a swimsuit that was described as tuck friendly, meaning it's able to conceal male genitalia. Misinformation was spreading across social media that it was marketed to children, but it was not. We should be clear, products that were made by a UK designer who often uses satanic symbols in his designs were also criticized, like this sweatshirt that read cure transphobia, not trans people. Let's bring in our CNN business reporter, Nathaniel Myerson, who is here. Obviously, Nathaniel, we've seen all the backlash that is happening here. Do we know exactly how? Okay, well, I guess this is how much Target is pulling, what's in these products that they're taking off the shelves.

Right, Caitlin? So every year Target celebrates Pride Month. It has usually a collection of T shirts, mugs, hats, that sort of thing. This year, There are about 2,350 products in the collection. But Target has been the subject of an anti LGBT campaign, particularly on social media, driven by far right activists, commentators and right wing media. And it's created a hostile work environment for employees. Their videos on social media of people stomping some of the LGBT signs, pulling Some of the merchandise. And so Target says that they're going to remove a few items because of. Out of fear of employee safety and their sense of well being.

That's a statement. So what they did there. So what are some of the key points and what they did? So Target showed authenticity, for one. The CEO BC was showing here's our values and also guiding principles about pride and supporting the community, but also the safety of their staff. It was very much an internal crisis as well, but an internal response. I get that response. And I work for a company like that. I'm liking that leadership. Also, it appears from that language, the dialogue was open, they were listening. I like statements now. And I'll talk about this too, in one of the next brands we're talking about where they talk about listening to people watching what's happening, the social listening what's out there, sitting down with the groups who are offended, sitting down with the groups who are psychologically harmed. You know, in this case, it's that authenticity and open dialogue. So the lesson learned when you are faced with blowback and Target knew they would be faced with blowback, what they did is they prioritize this authenticity and this engagement. They prioritize their commitment and values to LGBTQ plus and they prioritize the commitment to their team. And not just the team, frontline team, you know, working in the stores. It sounds like they're communicators, they're social media teams. Though they didn't say that. That would have been nice to actually say those words because, man, that's not an easy job. Okay, so, like, when you share your values and you communicate them in that way, that is a win, in my opinion. That is 100% a win. Now, another example is Adidas. I know Adidas, but I go by Adidas. We are a, you know, European soccer household, an FC Soccer household. That's always on in my house on Saturday mornings. But soon in the fall, it won't be, whoa, but we go by Adidas. But that's the original pronunciation of it from the. From the original founders, the German founders, but also Adidas. So what did Adidas do? Okay, in the weeks after Bud Light, they came out with a campaign, you know, what appears to be a very well planned campaign. They collaborated with designers. They had a advertising campaign of a person who presented as male, also in the torso, wearing a swimsuit, designed for people who identify as female. It was a very bold move and it was an image photograph response to Adidas feeling towards inclusivity. They weren't Just going to say it. They were going to show it and show it they did. They were willing to say we're going to withstand the blowback. And what do you know? There wasn't a lot of blowback. Yes, you can Google, you can definitely see articles about it. I believe when this happened it was late week. Maybe it was a Friday. It was a Friday because that's when I always get press hits. So I had two calls to do an interview, one network or one and one cable to do about this topic. Same topic of this podcast right now. So it was, it was definitely a Friday. Hey, News dump day. Why am I always calling on news dump dump day? But that, you know, the topic of it is. So that's when it was rolled out. So I think it was rolled out on a Friday. They wanted, you know, they just wanted to run over the weekend so there wouldn't be a lot of news stories about that. So that's strategic. But they were ready for it. They were absolutely ready for it. Now the big difference between a Bud Light and an Adidas, you know, we have different Marcos markets, You know, this, the psychographics alone, you know, one is really more identified as athletic brand. You're going to get younger people, you're going to get more inclusive groups, you know, using that brand. It's international, there's a lot more support there. It's, it's a lot easier, it's safer, it's less risky for Adidas to make that bold decision as opposed to a Bud Light. Okay, which clearly comes out. But where I'm going to give them props, you know. So what they were doing is they wanted to collaborate. I think that's a big part of it. Yes, the authenticity. But the collaboration with the designer, the collaboration with LGBTQ +Marketing and with influencers, you know, they were doing a very successful rollout because they wanted to accurately discuss experiences of LGBTQ + community there. Now that rolls us into the next brand. I talked about it previous podcast, the LA Dodgers. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but let's just talk about the insights of it first. When they pulled for Pride, a Pride celebration, they were going to give an award to an LGBTQ plus community or group who the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, there's somewhat, you know, a campy group. They, you know, dress in nuns habits, but a very theatrical version of it. Doesn't look like, you know, Sister Mary Frances coming out of a Catholic School in 1974, if you know what I mean. It's closer to Sister act or Nuns on the Run with, you know, the great costume design element with it. But they are a group dedicated to service. You know, that's, that's the ironic part of it there. It, it mirrors what Catholic value system is right, like doing the right thing, charity, helping people, kindness. But that's the piece that the conservative Catholics, you know, missed in all that. But the Dodgers were going to give them an award. They pulled the award and they pulled the group. They did not disinvite all the other groups for that Pride event, but they just disinfect invited them. Well, the ruckus it called it caused. Now, based on research and also feedback that I received off of the two posts that I did, where the blowback came from, allegedly Senator Rubio Florida wrote a very stern letter to Rob Manfred from MLB commissioner stating that we, you cannot be honoring a group that is mocking the Catholic Church. Also, you know, from Bill Donahue, you know, his organization, which was created to, to counter anti Catholicism, you know, decades ago, has now turned into a very splinter, very conservative group that has extremely conservative views of Catholicism. A letter was written from him as well. And so they capitulated, they gave in. But then now you start looking at social media sentiment at blowback, probably having conversations, very hard conversations with people there that said this is a mistake. And a mistake it definitely was. They backtrack on it in my previous podcast and, you know, then they supported the group, the Los Angeles Dodgers, you know, so they should be commended for making the right decision in the end, but not for pulling them, which was the worst, you know, decision. So, you know, what can we learn from this is that, you know, the insights to successful LGBTQ or Pride marketing and campaigns, you gotta commit to them. You have to decide where you're gonna line up and then you're gonna stick to it wherever it is that you line. So it's, it's also that sustained support and the education that comes with it too is so important when it comes to combating this backlash. Do you look at Adidas like what they did and why they didn't have the extreme backlash? Yes. In their market anyway, they, they're going to inherently have that support, but they were steadfast in it. They were never going to pull back from it at all. The only thing worse than doing something that is anti Pride, anti inclusion, where you are showing prejudice is flip flopping on it, is saying you are and then you pull back. You never want to do that. You absolutely never want to do that. Now in every Episode of this podcast, I leave you with one indestructible PR tip. This is an easy to remember takeaway to help you build an indestructible reputation when it comes to Pride Month LGBTQIA+ campaigns. It's understandable that in this market, depending on where you are listening to this, where you're going to stand, yes, it's one thing to talk about big brands, but people listening this podcast, you're not running Apple or Amazon or the Dodgers or if you could be, if anyone wants to send baseball tickets, I'd always be open to that. But most of you listening right now, you work for small to medium sized companies. You could work for corporations as well, but not these, you know, huge brands. You know, what does it mean to you if you own a company or if you're running a company, you work in comms for a company, you know, what should you be doing? I understand that there's, there's going to be trepidation now in jumping on board any type of Pride related marketing or campaigning, but I think what you, what you need to look at is this way, is you either need to stand by or stand down. You have to stand by it. Stand by your value system, stand by your commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion. Or you just stand down. Now, stand down is not advised. Anyone who comes to me and asks, should we do some campaign for pride? I'm always going to say yes. But now if someone tells me, this is our market, we're in this conservative here, we're small, all of our consumers, we don't want to create problems, we just want to be quiet on it. Am I going to agree with it? No, I'll still want you to do it. But do I understand it? Yeah. Especially now if you're going to stand down in 2023. I mean, I hate saying this, but it's okay if you think you're going to get this extreme backlash. But here's the caveat. It's important to know the difference. How many of you are going to be inviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to one of your campaigns or one of your meetings? No, you're not. That's not your issue. So instead of focusing on are we woke or not, let leave that to the big brands. What you should be asking yourself is, do we support inclusivity? Do we support all communities? Do we support unrepresented groups? And in this month, do we support one black, Because Juneteenth is this month. Do we support our black community with Juneteenth Juneteenth. And also do we support our LGBTQIA+ community. You can still do it without making waves. You could still do it and not worry as much about the blue. Okay, you could still do social media. You could still, if you're a CEO or a leader. You know, like that letter that I read to you from the CEO of Target, Brian Cornell. You could have your monthly notes touch on it, because, believe it or not, you know, even though you may think no one in your building may think that way or be that way, you still don't know that it could still reach someone and make a difference. I'm going to leave with a quick anecdote. Three years ago, when I was doing a lot of these trainings, you know, around, you know, dei, and I was learning a lot myself, and I was really starting to change my thinking on it. Not change it, but update it, you know, learn more about it and say, yeah, now's the time to embrace it. I was doing a webinar, I believe, with a group, an organization, conservative rule, I don't think in this industry I've seen one, one type of DEI type of campaign. Maybe February, maybe we'll get Black History Month, at least with clients who I worked with. Definitely did, but you might get that. But you're not getting pride. I've yet to get pride, but on this call, I talked about it similar to this podcast, you know, talking about the importance of it. And back then, I was definitely more bold about withstanding the feedback or the blowback. But I did say you never know who inside the building is going to be touched by what you're doing. If you're so focused on the external group, don't forget the internal and what that could be saying to them. And there was a young woman on that call. I think she just started. It may have been her first day, and if it wasn't, her first date was definitely her first week on the job. And she spoke up when I had mentioned it, because I think we were specifically talking about pride, and we were talking about, I believe, trans people, and she started mentioning her sibling, who was trans and where they lived. And this. This worker, she lived in a very rural community. And as she was explaining the importance, she said, if my workplace did this, I would be touched and I'd probably never want to leave that workplace. And then she started crying because she said, I would want them to speak to my siblings because my. She. She knew how ostracized her sibling felt and how amazing it would feel to work for a company that saw that sibling. It was just one person, but she changed my life. I've never not thought about that person before. So I share that anecdote with you. Think about that one person. It doesn't mean that you have to have someone who's LGBTQIA plus in your in your walls or in your virtual walls of your company, but they might be related to someone. You know, they might be sharing a life with someone. They might care very much about someone. And if you're the company and if you're the leader who openly supports them, well, then, how great is that? How great is that? That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening and watching. Bye for now.