by Daisy Luther, The Organic Prepper:
A while back, I covered the mysterious CEI scores that seemed to be the root of Budweiser’s poorly thought-out marketing campaign with transgender TikToker Dylan Mulvaney. Budweiser and its parent company, Anheuser Busch, have since lost more than $15.7 billion dollars in revenue, a number that is almost unfathomable to most of us.
You’d think that this would be a cautionary tale about what the average folks in America want. You’d think this would stop marketing firms in the tracks before making a similar move.
You’d be wrong.
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It has people saying, “What on earth are they thinking?” as it happens again and again. That’s what this article is all about. What they’re thinking. Because “go woke, go broke” is not actually as clear-cut as we might think. The apparent suicide missions may not be quite as deadly as expected.
The conclusions in this article may not be popular. But when I begin researching to answer a question I’ve posed, I have an obligation to share my findings honestly, whether I like those findings or not.
Since the Bud Light fiasco, one company after another has followed suit.
Since that ill-considered partnership, it seems like huge companies are following Anheuser Busch off the exact same cliff in a mission of corporate suicide.
- Actually, it started before the Bud Light campaign. Notably, Hershey’s celebrated International Woman’s Day by putting a photo of a person who was not born a woman on a candy bar wrapper with a label that said Her/She.
- Calvin Klein, a company well known for suggestive ads featuring buff, sculpted models in provactive poses, changed course with an ad that appeared in 2022 but has recently resurfaced. This time, they advertised their bras and undergarments with a “pre-surgery” transgender person with a beard and breasts that had not yet been removed at the time of the shoot.
- Nike immediately partnered with Mulvaney, a biological male, to advertise sports bras and women’s athletic wear. Many women were outraged since this took away promotional opportunities for biological female athletes. As well, Mulvaney’s clip was far from athletic.
To be clear, I’m not picking on Mulvaney. The TikToker just happens to be the paid partner in more than one of these controversies. Most people who make a living as an influencer would accept a lucrative offer. I don’t endorse violence or hatred toward those who have made choices I don’t understand. It’s the offer itself with which I take issue.
- Miller, owned by Molson-Coors, quickly came into the spotlight after Anheuser Busch with an ad apologizing for using women in bikinis in previous advertising campaigns. This ad was actually aired in March, before the Bud Light fiasco. Molson-Coors claims the ad was satirical and stood behind their marketing person.
- Soon came an ad from Adidas featuring an unnamed, very obviously biological male model in a women’s swimsuit. The advertisement drew backlash for “erasing women” and resulted in an outcry for a “Bud Light moment,” referring to the beer boycott.
- Not to be outdone, North Face launched a campaign with a drag queen for their “summer of Pride” outdoor gear.
- Most recently, Target is taking fire for its Pride Month line-up. To be clear, Target has had a Pride Month marketing campaign for as long as I can remember, so the concept itself is not new nor is it directly related to the other campaigns. This year may have been a bridge too far with a unisex “tuck-friendly” swimsuit in adult sizes in a style usually worn by women and a line of Pride clothing for children, including a onesie for infants. Target has since moved the products out of their former front-and-center locations, citing employee safety concerns. The company lost 9 billion dollars in value in the span of a week.
What in the world is going on here?
Are all the companies losing money?
While Bud and Target have suffered losses in the billions, Rolling Stone assures us that actually, the woke do not go broke in this article. At the same time, other pundits say that these companies are taking a financial hit. The Street also says that the ESG crowd is losing money hand over fist. However, it’s important to note that the LBGT community accounts for 3.9 trillion dollars in retail revenue, making this a demographic to be reckoned with for marketing decisions.
Just because they aren’t going broke doesn’t mean that it’s what most folks want in their brands. Most of us just want to wear shoes, drink beer, and browse Joanna Gaines’s cute household stuff. We really don’t want moral lessons of tolerance along with our shopping.
However, the latest Rasmussen Report tells us that the majority of Americans are turned off by woke marketing.
…consumers view woke companies negatively for the following reasons :
1: Pandering. Companies feel the need to speak out about every social issue as they hit the headlines but this comes across as exploitation, shallow, and what is sometimes referred to as ‘virtue signaling’, which is received as being inauthentic.
2: A holier than thou attitude. Many people don’t want corporations to educate them on how to behave and live their lives. That’s a very personal thing ingrained in their value system. A preachy company selling butter can come across as patronising and condescending. Consumers just think, ‘who the hell are you?’
3: Misrepresentation. Don’t just replace your customer base in adverts to tick the boxes for diversity and inclusion (this is coming from an ethnic minority). It can feel forced and calculated when brands go out of their way to make sure every group of people is represented equally because in a non-discriminatory world you would expect to see a typical advert proportionally representing the population of a country, region or target audience.
But due to investment groups like BlackRock pushing agendas, you can expect to keep seeing these confounding advertising partnerships on your screens and in your stores.
A quick recap of CEI scores
CEI stands for Corporate Equality Index. The next two sections of this article are a recap from a previous article.
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