Why do businesses get involved with politics?

Update: the returning/new CEO, Bob Iger, has been quoted expressing regret that Disney got into politics. He said that they had clearly alienated customers, the state of Florida, and more. He is planning to pull the corporation back from the Woke cliff and get it focused back on business.

On another note, there is a new, developing case study to be watched carefully. Musk is providing the evidence for what has been known for years: Twitter has been a virulent, leftist tool that has corrupted politics in the U.S. and probably elsewhere. This is not news to anyone with a brain, but what is interesting is whether Musk's transparency and resulting actions will be able to restore Twitter's credibility and it actually becomes a "public town square" as he envisions instead of a woke going broke propaganda platform.

 

Last week I was in Orlando on vacation and the local newspapers had daily articles about how things are changing for Disney, vis-a-vis their "feud" with DeSantis and conservatives, in general. The newspapers also had big stories on the thousands of layoffs Disney has begun and will continue through the summer. As predicted, things are not going well in the woke Mouse Kingdom.

Now, it appears that Budweiser has decided to betray its shareholders by antagonizing conservative Bud Light drinkers. Let's see how well that works out for them.

Elon continues to expose the evil machinations of the Swamp (an unholy coalition of Democrats, corrupt bureaucrats, and Fake News funded by the Chinese) in regards to Twitter. He may yet save the platform.

 

LOL, Budweiser senior management is now claiming that they had no knowledge of the woke marketing campaign. The CEO has issued a non-apology apology. This is straight out of the "PR Disaster" playbook. I continue to be amused by the foolishness of companies delving into politics.

 

LOL, the Bud Light carnage continues: they lost $6B in market value since their dive into politics. The clueless VP of Marketing has agreed to an "extended absence" effective immediately.

On another note, the feud between DeSantis and Disney continues to rage. Disney is trying to save its special status with legal maneuvers, but it is going to be really hard to fight the governor and the state legislature over the medium to long term.

 

Interesting twist to the continuing saga (besides Disney announcing more layoffs worldwide this week.) Target Department stores here in the U.S. are one of the biggest retail big box stores in the country. Not as big as Walmart, but very big, and a competitor to them, nonetheless. As do most large retailers, they sell seasonal and holiday items during the appropriate timeframes. Christmas, Halloween, MLK Day, 4th of July, etc., all have Tee shirts and other items featuring the particular event. For years, Target has sold LGBTQ+ tee shirts and other items during Gay Pride month (June, I think.) This year, they apparently took it too far as they were selling Satanic Gay Pride tee shirts (company out of the UK, apparently.) They also were selling bathing suits for transgender people (with unique features.) A boycott by the Right ensued and their stock valuation dropped $9 billion dollars! They quickly removed the items from their shelves and that annoyed the Left, so now both the Right and the Left are angry with them. The bad news for them is that the Budweiser saga continues along strongly with their sales continuing to tank weeks later, so this could last a while for Target, too.

The political path for businesses is getting trickier and trickier. I have always believed that it was a stupid thing to do, now more so than ever.

 

A friend of mine told me Bud Light will be very cheap right before / on Memorial day (dollar something for a six-pack). Obviously they are trying to win back their formerly loyal customer base. Is it going to happen? Given enough time I believe it is going to happen. Never cared about Target. Shopped there may be 5 times in my whole life. WalMart should buy them out. Some gated community folks believe WalMart is beneath them so they shop at Target, which is hilarious because Target is just an overpriced WalMart, so I don't get the whole idea of Target being better than WalMart. But yeah... I wish businesses of all kinds would stay out of current political and/or societal changes and trends. Not worth losing your business in the name of wokeness.

 

As I have mentioned before, any Marketing professional who decides on messaging that might alienate half of the U.S. market (that is the split between Left and Right these days) should be fired for malpractice.

 

Just saw this headline:

‘Boycott Target’ Hits No. 1 Spot on Billboard’s Rap Chart, Reaches No. 4 Overall Top Selling Song

And I also read that Budweiser Light's sales were down 24% this Memorial Day weekend. So, now my question is: what can either of these corporations do to recover from this? Do you double-down and hope that you can survive just with what will be left of your customer base that agrees with you? Do you apologize and try to win back the customers you lost? Do you try to change the subject and hope that people forget over time?

 

Interesting development with Target department stores. They had gotten in a bit of hot water over Pride month apparel (see my previous post) and this week announced that they would not put Mark Levin's new book ("The Democrat Party Hates America") on their shelves because it might offend their Democrat customers. Within 24 hours of a conservative outcry about this, Target reversed course and said that they would indeed put it on their shelves. Perhaps they are starting to realize the foolishness of playing politics and censoring conservative opinions.

 

The saga continues: Annheuser Busch just announced layoffs due to declining sales (the Bud Light controversy, of course.) They are going to lay off 400 "corporate office and marketing staff" around the country. Time to cut costs and clean out the current marketing teams that obviously stepped in it big time with their foray into sensitive political issues. Disney is also doing layoffs and desperately trying to get attendance back up to normal levels. The question now is will other corporations learn from this and the other episodes or will they continue to take sides in political and other controversial issues? "Go Woke Go Broke" has become a cliché, at this point.

 

I have heard of Hurricane Electric. They've been around for 30 years or so. The key is whether the aggrieved party (kiwifarms) has any PR clout or a large enough constituency. If it does not make the major news feeds, it did not happen. My guess is that Hurricane Electric has nothing to worry about. Likewise, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc., have been censoring conservative groups and conservatives for years now (under the guidance of their partners, the Leftists/Swamp/Fake News) with no repercussions, for the most part.

 

I tried to find the site ended up on some NZ farm site and bought 10 bushels of kiwis..... @sarahk you tricked me good...

 

Have not heard many stories of non-conservatives being banned, unless it was for spamming, illegal postings, etc. Mind telling us what your infraction was?

 

Wow, that is wild. So, you woke up one day and got a notice from Twitter saying that you were permanently banned with no explanation? Did you appeal or try to fight it?

 

Do you at least have suspicions as to why they might have banned you?