new york
CNN
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Almost a month after Target said it had finished part of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program, the company has garnered a client, its heir founder and one of its civil rights activists. It faces rebound.
On January 24, a few days after President Trump, Target eliminated employment targets for minority employees, ended an executive committee focused on racial justice, and other changes to its diversity initiative It has been announced that it will be added. Target said there was a new strategy that it first introduced last year: “belongs to Bullsey,” and “continue to rely on creating a sense of belonging for the team, guests and the community.” Target also emphasized the need to “stay a step along the evolving external landscape.”
Target is one of dozens of Fortune 500 companies that have returned to DEI in response to conservative court decisions and pressure from activists and right-wing legal groups, and recently the Trump administration has said it has “an illegal DEI.” , there is a threat to investigate what characterizes as “illegal DEIs.” ” Includes potential criminal cases against companies.
However, no company has faced a severe blow as a target from DEI supporters.
Target doesn’t have much heat than companies like Walmart, John Deere, and Tractor Supply. This is further moving towards DEI’s efforts and has a more progressive customer base than those companies.
Shreyans Goenka, marketing professor at Virginia Tech, said target Dei Rollback “seems to be quite arbitrary, based on the current political atmosphere,” and how political beliefs are about consumer choices. said Shreyans Goenka, who is studying how it affects. “When a brand becomes arbitrary to social causes, it supports day today and rewinds it tomorrow — leads to inconsistent positioning and makes the brand look foul.”
Target was a major supporter of the business world’s DEI program several years after George Floyd was killed by police in his Minneapolis hometown in 2020. The company publicly supported gay marriages in 2014 before it was legalized nationwide. It was one of the first national retailers to allow transgender employees and customers to choose a bathroom that caters to their gender identity.
Target has also built a strong Democrat customer base in recent years, strengthening efforts to attract young parents and minority customers. Polls and surveys show that Democrats are more likely to shop at targets and see the chain more positively. Target promoted opening small shops near city and university campuses.
It is still too early to say whether public criticism will financially hurt your target or will last forever damage to the company. However, the blowback to targeted DEI movement represents a key challenge to its business, highlighting the risks of businesses moving out of the diversity initiative that enjoys the support on the left. Companies are caught between pursuing efforts to increase diversity and avoiding conservative legal crackdowns.
One former target executive who spoke on conditions of anonymity for fear of career impact said the company was stabbed by a customer who felt that it had “selled a lie.”
“Black people supported Target. They went to that space for what Target did,” the former executive said. “People are questioning whether they were really behind this in the first place or whether they were marketing stunts.”
Some friends and family members stopped shopping at Target, the person said. “It’s hard to take it home when you lose your trust.”
The target change has angered customers who say the company’s moves have given them a whiplash.
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, Target has established the Executive Laisia Equity Action and Change Committee, pledging to increase the black workforce across the company by 20%, and has been able to own it by the end of 2025. The company has pledged to spend more than $2 billion.
Target was recognized in 2022 by the Executive Leadership Council, a renowned organization of Global Black CEOs, for its “remarkable commitment to achieving diversity, equity and inclusion.”
However, the target has changed the message. The Racial Equity Commission, Minority Employment Pledges and Financial Commitments to Black-Owned Suppliers have all been terminated, and targets for external diversity-focused research from the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group. Participate.
In a statement to CNN, Target said it is still committed to providing inclusiveness and a wide range of products and services, offering a wide range of products and services.
“For over 20 years, Target has built a team with diverse perspectives and experience, creating a comprehensive work and guest environment that is all welcoming, and a strategy to represent the US consumers we serve. “We’ve been driving our business by developing our company,” Target said.
Target says the company is on track to meet its previous workforce diversity goals and financial commitment to black suppliers.
However, several black target executives and senior leaders have left the company in recent years, including three of the six members of Target’s Executive Executive Equity Committee.
Target has been hit in several ways, with indications that the backlash could be affecting the business.
Anne and Lucy Dayton, the daughters of one of Target’s co-founders, called the company’s actions “betrayal,” and “shocked and discouraged” by Target’s DEI rollback in a letter released last week in the Los Angeles Times. “He said. “Target and others are undermining the very principles that have made the company successful,” said the daughter, who is not involved with Target.
According to an analysis of the marketing company Social Factor, Target also received nearly three times the number of social media posts about DEI changes than Walmart.
Most of the comments denounce the target’s move. According to the analysis, Target received negative comments, at least twice as much as the DEI movement, as positive comments. Some of the top posts were calls to boycott the target or switch to Costco and other retailers who are stuck with the DEI program.
“The emotions were overwhelmingly negative,” said Ashley Cooksley and Linn Frost as CEOs of the Social Factor.
Jamal Bryant, a well-known pastor in Atlanta, called for a boycott of Target for 40 days starting in March. Over 50,000 people have signed online pledges.
“We have witnessed a disturbing setback from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives by large corporations,” the petition states. “The biggest insult comes from the target.”
In the week the company announced the DEI change, few customers have visited Target stores.
Placer.ai. According to the week of January 27th, three days after the announcement of Target, the number of walking to Target stores increased for the fourth consecutive week, but three days after the announcement of Target, the number of walking to Target stores increased every year. It has decreased by %. Placer.ai said the slowdown could also be attributed to weather, economic conditions and other variables. Data for the last few weeks is still unavailable.
Other companies have changed their DEI policies in response to legal and political changes without much blow. Target Bet customers will not punish the chain for making similar changes, said Scott Bisang, a partner at telecom company Connected Strategies.
“Target misjudged its customer base,” Bisan said. Target said, “Target) underestimated how annoyed people would be because they saw other companies survive and get through it.”
What’s even more inexplicable is that the target repeatedly makes the mistake of alienating progressive customers.
In 2023, Target faced a right-wing pressure campaign over Pride Month’s product collection. Opponents turned their attention to women’s swimsuits sold at targets called “tuck-friendly” because of their ability to hide male genitals. The misinformation spread on social media and was being sold to children, but that was not the case.
The campaign became hostile, placing violent threats on target employees, and eroding products and displays in stores. The target chose to remove the items that caused the most “volatile” response from the enemy.
However, the target’s response has irritated some supporters of gay and trans rights. Target’s quarterly sales fell after Pride Month in 2023, but recovered in the next quarter.
“The target was a vocal advocate and a pride sponsor,” Bissan said. “They were watching warning signs from their LGBTQ pullback last time.”
The big question is whether the reaction and boycott call will cause long-term damage to the target, as they did Bud Light or went out. In 2023, Bud Light’s parent company Ab Inbev lost $1.4 billion in sales due to a right-wing backlash over Bud Light’s brief partnership with Transgender Influans’ Dylan Mulvaney.
One of the main reasons why Budlight Boycott was successful was that it was so easy for customers to replace Coors and Miller with no sacrifices, so it was a marketing professor at Cornell University who studies consumer boycotts Jura Liaconite said.
Boycott campaigns against targets can be difficult to maintain as other chains that could potentially switch to, such as Walmart and Amazon, have also rolled back the DEI program. Boycott called on Goya Foods in 2020 to support Trump as CEO. Many advocates for boycotts were not Goya’s core consumers at first, so success was limited, said Liaconite.
“Whether a target has a sustained sales decline like Bud Light depends on how well its core shopper base fits with the backlash,” she said.
