0:01

NPR. see

0:08

next video. Bye. This

0:12

is The Indicator from Planet Money.

0:14

I'm Waylon Wong joined today

0:16

by producer extraordinaire Julia Richie. Hello,

0:18

hello. Waylon, like me,

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I know you love a

0:22

weekend trip to a big

0:24

box store. Mm, sample Saturdays?

0:26

Absolutely. But one

0:29

big box retailer has been having a

0:31

rough go of it lately, Target. The

0:33

chain has been the subject of

0:35

a boycott over its decision to roll

0:37

back diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. You

0:40

know, DEI. It's been in

0:42

the news a lot recently, Whaley. Mm

0:44

-hmm. It is an about face for

0:46

a chain that had enthusiastically promoted

0:48

racial equity causes just a few years

0:50

ago. Well, Atlanta pastor Jamal Bryant

0:52

organized a 40 -day boycott against the

0:54

store beginning in March to coincide with

0:56

Lint. And after meeting with

0:58

target CEO earlier this month, he

1:00

shared this update with his congregation on

1:02

Easter. Their currency does

1:04

not ride with us. If

1:07

in all of these years we

1:09

have been loyal customers and clients, and

1:11

then in the moment of dis -ease, you

1:13

turn your back. I told them what

1:15

I'm getting ready to tell you, we

1:17

ain't going back in there. The

1:21

early data indicates that this boycott

1:23

has taken a toll. Foot traffic

1:25

at the retailer has been down

1:27

for 11 consecutive weeks. Target's share

1:29

price is down about 19%, and

1:31

its CEO says sales are down. Political

1:34

boycotts are nothing new, but

1:36

they are getting more attention. So

1:38

we wanted to know, when does a

1:41

boycott actually make a difference? Today

1:43

on the show, we talked to a

1:45

researcher about how to measure the impact of

1:47

a brand boycott and how one company

1:49

is caught in the crosshairs. I'll

1:51

see next video. In

1:56

January, President Trump signed two

1:58

executive orders calling for the

2:00

termination of diversity, equity, and inclusion

2:03

offices, positions, and programs in

2:05

the government. Although the

2:07

orders only apply to the

2:09

federal government, many corporations from

2:11

McDonald's to Target followed suit,

2:13

rolling back their own DEI

2:15

policies, including those designed to

2:17

diversify their workforces. While Target is

2:19

bearing the brunt of the backlash, it's

2:21

not the first brand to face a consumer

2:23

boycott for seeming to roll over for

2:25

the Trump administration. Trump's first

2:27

term was notorious for these kinds

2:30

of stories. Stories that Yura Locanita

2:32

began studying. She's a

2:34

professor of marketing at Cornell University,

2:36

and the first consumer boycott she studied was

2:38

the Hispanic food company Goya. Oh, I

2:41

do remember this. It was so many boycotts

2:43

ago, though. I know,

2:45

please. jogged my feeble memory. So

2:47

in 2020, former Goya food CEO

2:49

Robert Unanaway made a friendly appearance

2:51

with Trump in the Rose Garden

2:53

to promote Hispanic and Latino entrepreneurs.

2:55

We're all truly blessed at the

2:58

same time to have a leader

3:00

like President Trump, who is a

3:02

builder. His flattery irked a

3:04

lot of people on the left.

3:06

So many boycotted the brand. Meanwhile,

3:08

conservatives were encouraged to add Goya

3:10

to their grocery baskets. Yura

3:12

says the headlines were divided between

3:14

boycott versus buycott, which means, like,

3:16

go buy more of this brand.

3:19

She and her co -authors crunched the numbers to

3:21

find out which side came out on top.

3:23

For Goya Boycott, what we

3:26

observe is that it

3:28

was a boost in sales

3:30

around 20%, but it

3:32

was very short -lived, like,

3:34

up to a month. So,

3:37

the buycott one. temporarily. Euras

3:39

says it's hard to directly correlate

3:41

how much of this bump was customers

3:43

rallying to go a side. But

3:46

the numbers showed a disproportionately higher increase

3:48

in sales in Republican -leaning counties. Euras

3:50

also noticed that among Latino households, beyond

3:52

maybe like a slight dip, there was

3:54

not much of a difference in the

3:57

baseline. Right. So this observation led Euras

3:59

and her colleagues to develop a sort

4:01

of framework for how to determine

4:03

whether a boycott will be effective economically.

4:06

Factor number one, Who are the

4:08

brand's core customers and does the

4:10

brand stand conflict with those consumers? Factor

4:13

two, can you swap this

4:15

brand easily for something else? Yura

4:17

calls this factor substitutability. Well, say

4:19

that three times fast. No way.

4:21

And this factor played a big

4:24

role in another boycott she studied

4:26

on Bud Light. You may remember,

4:28

in April of 2023, Bud

4:30

Light and his parent, Anheuser -Busch,

4:32

came under fire for a partnership

4:34

with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. This

4:36

month, I celebrated my day 365

4:38

of womanhood, and Bud Light sent

4:40

me possibly the best gift ever,

4:42

a can with my face on

4:44

it. this. Far -right influencers and Fox

4:46

News pundits piled on and called

4:48

for a boycott. Kid Rock,

4:50

for one, also spoke up.

4:52

Let me say something to all

4:54

of you and be as

4:56

clear. and concise as possible. Who

5:04

could forget Kid Rock shooting up a

5:06

pyramid of Bud Light cans in his

5:08

backyard? Which I'd very hard to forget,

5:11

Julia. Sorry. Bud

5:13

Light sales did take a steep

5:15

and prolonged hit in the months that

5:17

followed, nearly 30 % from Euro's research.

5:20

And Euro says it's probably because it

5:22

was easier for consumers to substitute

5:24

another domestic beer, like Coors or Miller

5:26

Lite or Michelob Ultra. I have

5:28

to say, my palette is not nuanced

5:30

enough to tell the difference between

5:32

any of those beers you just listed.

5:35

Ah, I'm a cate drinker personally. But

5:37

the two brands that benefited most

5:39

from the Bud Light Backlash were

5:41

Coors Light and Miller Light. For

5:43

the Target Boycott, Euras says this

5:46

substitutability factor is likely to determine

5:48

whether the retailer feels ongoing pressure

5:50

from customers in the long run.

5:52

I think the question then comes

5:54

down to like how essential is

5:56

Target? in their shopping

5:58

experience and their convenience

6:00

experience. And what

6:02

are the other alternative options? Like,

6:04

you know, do you stop on

6:06

Target on your way back from

6:09

work? Is it much more inconvenient

6:11

for you to stop somewhere else? Target

6:13

already faces competition from Walmart

6:15

and Costco, not to mention the

6:17

growth of online retailers like

6:19

Amazon. Earlier this month, target

6:21

CEO Brian Cornell met with the

6:23

Reverend L. Sharpton and Pastor Jamal

6:25

Bryant to discuss the boycott. We

6:28

reached out to Target to ask if

6:30

the retailer was reconsidering its decision on

6:32

its DEI policies. The company

6:34

responded with an email saying it

6:36

has an ongoing commitment to creating a

6:38

welcoming environment for all team members,

6:40

guests, and suppliers. These policy

6:42

rollbacks aren't just a consideration

6:44

for a politically engaged customer base.

6:47

It also affects Target's vendors. That

6:49

includes minority -owned businesses that the boycott

6:52

aims to support. Take

6:54

Rucker Roots. It's a black -owned

6:56

business from Lancaster County, South Carolina.

6:58

They sell natural hair care products like

7:00

shampoos, growth serums, and scalp oil. Ellen

7:03

Rucker Sellers and her sister,

7:05

Ione Rucker Jamison, run the

7:07

company. Our parents had eight

7:09

children and out of the

7:12

eight there were four girls.

7:14

And my mother used to

7:16

use these wonderful kitchen concoctions,

7:18

you know, refrigerator items like

7:20

mayonnaise and olive oil and

7:22

avocado and different things like

7:24

that and make hair masks

7:26

for our hair. Rucker Roots

7:28

launched in Sally Beauty Supply

7:30

in 2018. Target was

7:33

their second big retail contract. They're

7:35

a successful company that now has

7:37

seven retail chains nationwide. Ellen

7:39

says when she first heard about

7:41

the DEI rollbacks, it was unsettling.

7:44

For me, it's so

7:46

scary because a lot

7:48

of times when you

7:50

are a supplier like

7:52

Rucker Roots, you are

7:54

planning on having

7:56

inventory for these retailers up

7:59

to, you know, six to

8:01

nine months prior. They've invested

8:03

a lot to increase their

8:05

inventory to keep shelves stocked.

8:07

So any drop off customers

8:09

could mean fewer sales. Ion

8:11

and Ellen are discouraged by the

8:14

DEI rollbacks, but they're also conflicted

8:16

on the boycott, they want retailers

8:18

to keep black businesses front mind.

8:20

You know, don't boycott so much

8:22

of these black businesses that are

8:24

worked blood, sweat, and tears that

8:26

they will go bankrupt from these

8:28

boycotts because, you know, then

8:31

that's just not the right strategy

8:33

that we want to see. You

8:35

know, the Atlanta pastor leading these

8:37

boycotts, he says he wants to

8:39

see Target increase its commitments to

8:41

the black community. That

8:43

includes investing in black -owned

8:45

banks, partnering with historically black

8:47

colleges and universities, and

8:49

to what a more effective

8:51

DEI could look like in the Trump

8:53

era. This

8:56

episode was produced by Cooper Katzman

8:58

with engineering by Sina and Robert

9:00

Rodriguez. It was fact -checked

9:02

by Tyler Jones. Kate is the show's

9:04

editor and the indicators production of

9:06

NPR.