What the Target Boycott Says About the Power of Consumers
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. We're talking about Target today. The retailer recently reported its earnings, and while competitors are at least treading water, Target's numbers were not great. Though company executives cited a variety of factors, one major one was the boycott that some of its customers began in response to Target dropping some diversity, equity and inclusion measures.

We'll look at the underlying factors of the Target boycott, why this one seems to be working, and talk about the power of consumers in today's economy. That's all coming up next, right after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. In the days of the civil rights movement, boycotts were seen as a pretty effective tactic for driving change in the behavior of local businesses.

But as the economy globalized and corporations scaled up, getting enough people together to impact a massive retailer has not generally been effective. This Target situation might be different. Since the company announced a rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion measures, a variety of boycotts, organized and more sort of vibes-y ones, have succeeded in driving down sales at Target.

Not by a huge amount, 3.8% in this last quarter, but the change in the company's fortunes have sent its shares down 30% since the start of the year, while both Walmart and Costco are up and the broader market is roughly unchanged now after the turmoil of the year. Here to talk with us about what's going on, what happened, we've got Amanda Moll, a columnist at Bloomberg who writes the column Buying Power on American Consumerism. Welcome, Amanda. Thanks so much for having me.

We're also joined by Alex Osola, who's host and producer of the What's News podcast at The Wall Street Journal. Most recent special podcast was Boycotting Target. Welcome. Hi, Alexis. Thanks. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, happy to have you. We've also got Americus Reid, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Welcome, Americus. Great to be here, Alexis.

So, Alex, set us up a little bit. I mean, we know that this has been, you know, tariffs and there's a lot of uncertainty in the economy. But Target has really had more trouble than other retailers. Just for people who haven't been paying attention, like how did we get here? Why are people boycotting Target? Sure. So back in late January, as you mentioned at the top, Target was

the company changed some of its diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. It rolled back some of its goals and changed some of its policies, calling it belonging at Target. So after that, a number of boycotts popped up across the country, many of which were against that rollback of DEI policies. One of the big ones that came up was called Target Fast, and that was led by Pastor Jamal Bryant out of New York.

out of a church outside of Atlanta. And basically that boycott came with a number of demands. So they were asking, and it was time to Lent as well. So that's where the fast part comes in. So they were asking that Target honor its previous pledge of committing $2 billion to Black-owned businesses. They were also asking for

to restore all of its previous DEI commitments that target deposit $250 million in Black-owned banks and that it create community retail centers at 10 HBCUs. So that was the sort of place where they were saying that they wanted the company to get to before Easter. And

You know, one of the things that was really striking in the reporting that we did around this project was how, you know, we wanted to see if people were really adhering to this, you know, not just through this organized boycott, but also on their own. And it was, you know, some people hadn't really changed their habits. We talked to a number of customers outside of Target's, but a lot of people really had. And they were they're pretty adamant about, you know, being disappointed by the company's change in their DEI policies. Yeah.

i mean i think one of my big questions and we'll probably get to everybody on this one um do we think it was the organized boycotts that worked or was it just more the vibes around the brand changed you know what i mean like was this really like i know plenty of people here in the bay area who have stopped shopping at target or or rap massively cut back except for they need a special brand or something or whatever

But it wasn't that they necessarily were following a particular leader. This seems like, I don't know, a vibe shift on the brand. Yeah, I think that's a great question. And my sort of initial answer is both, right? Like I talked to, I actually got to go to that Easter service at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and

I talked to a bunch of the congregants afterwards, and I was just sort of curious, like, come on, are you like secretly going to shop at Target? Like, you can be honest with me. And almost everyone I talked to was very adamantly behind their pastor. They were like, look, we're behind this mission. We believe what he's saying, and we think that the company should be stepping up. Right.

Amanda, do you think that Target was uniquely sort of vulnerable to this kind of shift in consumer sentiment? Yes. And I think that they were vulnerable on like two different levels. One is just because Target has had like a slightly more difficult time in the recent months or year than some of its direct competitors. Target tends to go after a slightly more affluent consumer.

And it has a smaller consumer base than Walmart or Amazon. So when you have a sense that, like, you're going to have economic trouble, when you're worried about inflation, when you're worried about instability, a lot of those customers that might choose to sort of, like, switch up into a nicer type of goods

is then going to switch down. They're going to look for more deals. They might say, okay, well, you know, we've been shopping at Target, but we're going to go back to Walmart or we're going to get more stuff on Amazon because we think it's a better deal. So they were vulnerable already because they present like, you know, it's a very slight premium to those other retailers in people's minds, but it is a premium. So you open yourself up to switching in that way. And then Target also in the kind of,

psychographic of consumer that it courts most strongly is, you know, a type of consumer that is slightly more affluent, more likely to be college educated, more likely to be a suburban or urban dweller, and quite likely to be a woman. So you...

get into this demographic that are statistically pretty likely to be Harris voters. Of course, by no means all Harris voters, but you have a group of people who are quite likely to have an extra level of concern above and beyond the average American right now. So,

When you are a retailer in that particular position and you decide to sort of slide back on some of the things that have been appealing to a lot of the different groups of consumers that you've courted, that puts you in a really tough spot when it comes to how consumers are going to react.

Yeah, you know, I'd never really thought about it like this, but Target is kind of like the fast casual of the major retailers, right? So and maybe, you know, at a certain point, you think, well, you know, if this fast casual place doesn't I, I'll just go back to my fast food spot that, you know, is, wasn't promising me anything more in the brand.

Right, absolutely. You have consumers who are looking at Target and going, "Okay, part of the reason that I shopped here was because I thought you sort of represented, you know, an idea that seems more aligned with my own idea of where I want to spend money and how I want to interact with the economy than Target or Amazon does." So if you're going

to abandon those ideas that had first attracted me to you, or at least abandoned some of them in the minds of these consumers, then what is the upside of spending a little bit more in shopping at Target versus just going to Walmart, whose policies are now sort of similar in your mind and in some actuality to what Target's are now? So you've screwed up some of the value proposition for a large group of your consumers.

And there's also some who might have access to a Costco who can say, "Oh, I hear this place does align more. I'll switch some of my shopping over there." And Costco's been doing quite well in this. Yes. America's Read, talk to me a little bit about just boycotts and brands in general over this kind of more modern period of a globalized economy.

Has this been effective in the past? When has something like this actually ended up showing up in a Wall Street earnings report and not just kind of being an annoyance to one of these retailers?

It's a great question, Alexis. I think that what we're seeing here is something that is not typical because most boycotts don't work. And what I mean by that is it takes a tremendous amount of consumer energy.

and involvement and constant media coverage for a boycott to actually rise to the level of creating traction that's actually going to affect the bottom line of the companies that are being boycotted. So, you know, what we're seeing with Target, and I love Amanda's point here, is because Target spent, or Target, I should say, spent $1

a great amount of time telling a story about this is who we are. We believe in these ideological points of view. And when you're developing a relationship with consumers and someone basically tells you, this is the alignment of our values that connect us in this relationship. And then you go back on that. It's no different from a romantic partner who lied to you.

And so, you know, you've got this visceral reaction that is emotional. It's full of anger. It's full of betrayal. And it's that kind of energy that can really push a boycott to the level that's required to sustain it over time. And so this is not typical because there are sort of watchdog groups that are documenting

boycotts all over the country and there's tons of them happening all the time. Um,

But they don't typically reach this level because they're just so difficult to sustain because consumers have so much going on in their lives. And it's one of these ideas. I love the point that was being made earlier, which is that if Target's consumer is a slightly more educated and more resource-having consumer, then they've got the time and the energy to actually inconvenience themselves.

to boycott you. And so all of these sort of moments, which was, I think, adding up to a perfect storm is not something that we typically see because you need a lot of different elements. You need community involvement. You need kinetic energy. You need the media covering this so that you have social proof saying that, hey, this is something that we should all pay attention to and get on board with. And that's something that you just don't see.

You know, in a case like Target, the only one that I can think of to your question originally, Alexis, is probably Tesla, which is, you know, a whole other... Which we will talk about more in the B segment, of course. Yeah. No, thank you. America's Read Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Also joined by Alex Ocella, who is host and producer of the What's News podcast at The Wall Street Journal, and Amanda Moll, a columnist at Bloomberg, who writes the column...

buying power on American consumerism. We would love to hear from you, of course. How are you participating or not in this Target boycott? Have you changed your relationship to Target or any other company in this kind of era right now have changed? Love to hear from you on that. 866-733-7333.

That's 866-733-6786. You can email forum at kqed.org. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, etc. We're KQED Forum there. You can join the Discord community as well. You know, a listener on Blue Sky writes, Target's only direct competitor is Walmart, which is hardly a model of woke. In fact, my wife and I have been avoiding shopping at Walmart for years. We'll be back with more. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.

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Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. Now that Target has reported some earnings, we're talking about the Target boycott and consumer power, joined by Alex Osola, who is host and producer of the What's News podcast at the Wall Street Journal.

I did a special series called Boycotting Target. Also joined by Americus Reed, professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and Amanda Moll, columnist at Bloomberg, who writes the column Buying Power. Of course, we're taking your calls too, 866-733-6786. If you can't get through there, you can try forum at kqed.org.

Alex, one thing I wanted to get to on the Target situation specifically is it feels like some of the back and forth that they had over their Pride collections feels like it was a prelude to our current situation.

Yeah, definitely. So in 2023, there were some conservative shoppers who took issue with the company's pride collection. Now, it's worth noting that Target had been putting out pride collections for something like 10 years. But this year in particular, they took issue with it. And part of the controversy was around a tuck-friendly swimsuit that they said was targeted towards children. Actually, it only came in adult sizes. But people were quite upset about this. They boycotted Target.

And Target had to do a number of things, you know, including to to keep its own staff safe in its stores. So it moved some merchandise to the back. It sort of vocally made additional commitments and, you know, saying that they were standing behind their LGBTQ customers. But that that that.

Boycott definitely dented sales that year, and it actually had an impact on the company's bottom line for the entire year. So in many ways, yeah, when we were reporting on this series, we were really wondering, like, is this an echo of that moment or is this different? And in some ways, it's a little bit early to tell. But we do know that the boycotts this time around have dented the company's sales for the quarter. Now, whether that'll have the impact for the year remains to be seen. They did lower their targets for the year, though, right?

So at least we know they're expecting it to have an impact. You know, one of our listeners, Carter and Alex, I'm going to come back to you on this one again. Could someone explain exactly what the DEI programs Target had before and what they changed? Yeah. So in 2020, now it's also worth noting that Target,

is headquartered in Minneapolis where George Floyd was murdered. And so Target was really kind of in the middle of this. I believe one person told us in this reporting that the store was, you know, one of their flagship store is where protesters went in to buy milk during some of like the sort of thick of it during those George Floyd protests. So they felt a lot of commitment to their community. And after 2020 kind of ramped up

their commitments. I can pull up exactly what those commitments were, but really they wanted not only to cultivate more Black shoppers, but also they had a development program for Black suppliers. They wanted to commit to just a number of programs for the Black community, and they said so quite explicitly. They created a committee called REACH that was

intended to look into whether these programs were working and whether they needed to shift them. And throughout the subsequent years, they took a look at what their racial components of their staff looked like and how they could continue to shift that. So they really were very vocal in some of those commitments starting from 2020. Let's bring in Jordan in Mill Valley. Welcome, Jordan. Hi. Go ahead.

calling from Mill Valley California and I am boycotting Target my family has long-standing roots in the Twin Cities and st. Paul and Minneapolis Minnesota and we have been target enthusiasts since it was a Dayton's Hudson's Marshall Fields brand look this five-year anniversary of the George Floyd murder I feel personally I feel

I feel upset that Target as a really, you know, a representative of, you know, the Twin Cities has rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion commitments. It just seems like this is all connected and it's just really disgraceful. I will not shop in the store until they correct these changes. I'm following closely

both the lack of funding or the changes in funding to the historically black colleges that Target was so involved in funding, scholarship programs and funding to universities. It seems like they're also slowing down those commitments.

So just in general, I've been a longtime Target supporter, Target fan. You know, from the products that they make, they just have had some incredible innovations and products. They've brought some really incredible black and diverse entrepreneurial partnerships to their brand. Their staff is incredibly diverse. I just feel like they're missing the boat, and I won't go back and get back to get their ass together.

Hey, Jordan, appreciate that statement of purpose there around the Target boycott. I mean, America feels like there really is genuine depth of emotion that people feel for this retailer and what it has and now is not doing. Yeah, I mean, Jordan used the word disgraceful, and that says a lot. And I think that Jordan's not alone.

because there are a lot of consumers that are out there, Alexis, that are because basically information search costs are zero. So you can go on Google and you can go on the internet and you can figure out what all the retailers are doing or not doing in a matter of seconds. So as a

very savvy consumer, which it sounds like Jordan is, you know, she can do her research and figure out exactly what's going on. And I think that there is a decision calculus that we study in this literature, Alexis, that basically says, listen, you have a choice to connect your brand to ideological points of view or not. But

the golden rule is that if you do that, you basically have to be all in and you can't sort of hedge bets or pull back or roll back on things like that because you're going to end up basically creating a reaction that Jordan talked about, which is to say that, hey, I was with you. I was part of the tribe. We were rolling together. And now you basically betrayed me in this very disgraceful way. And so I'm watching you now.

And so we'll see if you're able to course correct because I'm taking my dollars elsewhere. And so this is the kind of powerful thing that brands, products, services, and organizations can choose to do. So the rule basically says, listen, stay out of this.

Or go all in, but don't try to make everybody happy and don't try to sort of walk the fine line between trying to be a little bit of something to everyone. And I think if you follow that rule, you'll be okay because you have to live or die by the sword that is this alignment of values that you're trying to get to.

You know, Amanda, I feel like growing up as millennials, this idea that we would purchase in alignment with our values was really sold hard as like one of, I mean, I think of it in particular around things like climate change, right? That there would be companies that were sort of doing things to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And even if the product looked the same and the price was the same, or even a little bit more, you could say, well, this company is doing something in alignment with my values.

Do you think that, I mean, I know this is like exactly what you're writing about. Do you think that that general consumer power is a real thing? Like, can it actually generate positive change, which it seems like is what's behind people believing that Target might be better than Walmart or something?

The question of whether it can generate real, meaningful, positive change is sort of an open one, I think. I tend to be a little bit pessimistic about that because I think that generally consumer identity in most cases tends to be something that is at base sort of isolating, that sort of puts us in a silo with our personal funds and our personal values and our personal decisions.

and asks us to make a sort of impossible set of decisions, which is trying to figure out which of these sort of like large opaque entities, corporations, what have you, actually mean what they say when they're trying to part us with our dollars. And I think that that is, you know, I think the consumer system was developed in part in order to create that reality for people because

Asking people to define themselves and their identities as consumers first before any other type of political actor is asking them to channel their energy and their anger and their hope into a set of economic transactions that by themselves often don't add up to a lot. That's why most boycotts don't really go anywhere.

I think that, you know, at the margins, what we're seeing with Target is like in a lot of ways a best case scenario. It is very, very hard, especially in an era of really sort of scaled up enormous multinational corporations to coordinate enough consumer behavior across a large enough space and over a long enough period of time to make any of these companies feel anything from us.

So I think that like what we're seeing right now is, you know, with Target and with Tesla is probably the most that like just pure consumer behavior can get us on a political front. But I think that it's useful probably symbolically. Like I think it's useful for people to look at these headlines and look at these, you know, the damage that these businesses are taking in say,

There's a lot of people out there evidently who are feeling like I'm feeling and there's a lot of energy around this and there's a lot of people who are willing to, you know, change their everyday behaviors in some way to reflect their dissatisfaction or their sense of betrayal. And I think that that might be, you know, is potentially the spark of something more useful, but I think consumer behavior by itself tends to be sort of neutering.

It's interesting. We're going to stack some comments here of folks who are boycotting Target. And I would say...

For a consumer show, this is actually quite unusual for us as well to have so many people writing in talking about how and why they're boycotting Target. So here you go. Here's a sort of selection of what's coming in. Rodney writes, I was once a very loyal Target shopper. I would visit a Target either in person or online at least once a week. I can honestly say since their decision to end their support of DEI initiatives, I haven't purchased anything from them since mid-January.

I do miss Target, but I feel that the longer I fast, the less likely I will return. Their recent decision to let two prominent women execs go also doesn't help their case to win me back. Additionally, I'm boycotting Walmart and Amazon. While I do miss the convenience of shopping at these stores, I'm proud to be supporting other retailers, and my wallet seems a little heavier. Ned Lushner writes, I'm not shopping at Target any longer. I'm shopping at Costco or online for products I once bought at Target. I feel betrayed.

I love seeing images of diversity in their marketing and employees all alive. They don't value diversity at all. Nohemi writes, I am pro-DEI, pro-black, and anti-Amazon, anti-Walmart. I was very disappointed with Target because I shopped there to align with my values.

Since the boycott began, I have gone to Target maybe two to three times max, whereas I used to shop there once a week. I've been purposely shopping at Costco and small businesses. I recognize my privilege, but in an era where it feels like I don't have any control, this gives me a sense of purpose with my purchase power. We're going to come back to that, but one last comment. A listener on Discord writes, I have not shopped at Target since they dropped many of their DEI policies.

Bad vibes. I feel like the bad vibes boycott. And Alex, you know, I mean, one of the things that's fascinating, you know, just reading these comments back to back, you know, this is an era in which I do think a lot of people feel helpless. And this is something right. What do you think? Do you think that's what's going on?

Yeah, I think that's certainly one way to look at it. One of the things I was certainly wondering, you know, the more I learned about these boycotts is like, A, where do you go for just the things that you need? Like if you need shampoo right now and you don't want to wait three days for a delivery, what kinds of alternatives do you have if you're avoiding Target and let's say you're avoiding Amazon, you're avoiding like some of these other big, you know, retailers?

That is one challenge that it sounds like a lot of people are working pretty hard to overcome, which is fascinating. And the other thing that came up in some of those comments that I find so interesting is like, what would it take for Target to win some of these customers back? Like, we've been talking about betrayal. We've been talking about trust. And let's say, you know, Target reinstated all of its DEI goals. Would that be enough to bring some of these folks back?

into the stores. And it sounds, I'm curious, genuinely. They got to go to a retailer's couples therapy. Something like that.

One of the interesting things, too, is a listener writes, it's so hard not to shop at these big box places and Amazon because of pricing and the fact that our wages have not really increased over time. Yes, we try to buy local, but after years and years of these kinds of stores and Amazon killing local stores, there are not many local stores left to buy from. I can't think of a locally owned store that sells cleaning supplies, diapers, accessories,

Let's see. Let's go to Louisa in Oakland. Welcome, Louisa.

Hey, Louisa from Oakland. And I've been boycotting Target and I don't think I'll ever go back. And something y'all were talking about was, you know, kind of getting used to not shopping at Target. But I think what they thought was that we kind of have this comfort culture of, you know, the ease of getting everything at Target, getting it immediately, being able to go in and, you know, get cat food and paper towels and cleaning supplies. But the...

The amount of effort I've put into looking for products in local places is making me feel like I'll never go back. Like I've put so much effort into changing my habits. I'm not interested in going back. Like I've put so much effort. I've changed as a consumer. Yeah, that's really interesting. Right. That there's sort of like a I mean, I've always loved this concept in fashion.

Sociology and science and technology studies about like de-skilling, you know people usually talk about it about workers But there's a part of this to Amanda that's like about the there are a bunch of consumers who are Reskilling around how do you find local products if what you're doing isn't just going down to here, you know, Emeryville and going to the target Yes, absolutely. I think that you know, it's gotten easy over the past year

couple of decades to sort of forget all of the other places that people used to seek out the things that they needed in everyday life. Walmart, Target and Amazon are sort of the big three in scaling up to

meet our demands in like virtually every part of our daily lives, especially if you live near a Walmart or Target that also has a full grocery store inside of it. And I think that this has, if nothing else, sort of prompted people to be thoughtful about the businesses around them, the options that they have, because the goal of these retailers is to get you to sort of default to buying as much of the stuff you want or need at these locations because of their convenience.

And, you know, convenience is great, but it is not the end-all be-all of things that we necessarily want or need in life. And being prompted to sort of like step back and think about that, I think, is just like generally good. Yeah.

We are talking about consumer power. We're talking about the Target boycott. We're joined by Amanda Mull, columnist at Bloomberg, who writes the column Buying Power. We're joined by Alex Ocela, who is host and producer of the What's News podcast at the Wall Street Journal. If you want to go really deep on boycotting Target, just...

There's a special sort of section of What's News on this from Alex. We also have Americus Reid, who is a professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, of course. And we are taking your calls as well. Have you ever boycotted another company that's not Target?

Is there a company that you feel loyalty to because of its values or are you on the other side and you don't think that a company, a corporation can actually align with your values? We'd love to hear that as well. The number is 866-733-8663.

Maybe you're a small business owner who relies on companies like Target to sell your goods. How are things going for you? Again, the number is 866-733-6786. You can email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, or KQED Forum. And of course, there is the Discord community as well.

One place where we're going to go in the next segment of the show is to talk about whether Target is different or worse than other companies, push back on some of the boycotts. So if you're in that camp, feel free to join in the discussion. 866-733-6786. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.

Support for Forum comes from San Francisco Opera. Amidst a terrible storm, Idomeneo promises the god Neptune that he will sacrifice the first person he sees if he and his crew survive the tempestuous waters. But as he arrives safely to shore, his relief transforms into horror when the first person he lays eyes upon is his own son.

This summer, venture into the storm with Mozart's sublime opera, Idomeneo. June 14-25. Learn more at sfopera.com. Greetings, Boomtown. The Xfinity Wi-Fi is booming! Xfinity combines the power of internet and mobile. So we've all got lightning-fast speeds at home and on the go! That's where our producers got the idea to mash our radio shows together! ♪

Through June 23rd, new customers can get 400 megabit Xfinity Internet and get one unlimited mobile line included, all for $40 a month for one year. Visit Xfinity.com to learn more. With paperless billing and auto-pay with store bank account, restrictions apply. Xfinity Internet required. Texas fees extra. After one year, rate increases to $110 a month. After two years, regular rates apply. Actual speeds vary.

Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We've been talking about the Target boycott and the broader sense of consumer power in boycotts. We are joined by Amanda Moll, columnist at Bloomberg who writes Calm Buying Power, Alex Ocela, who is host and producer of the What's News podcast at The Wall Street Journal, and Americus Reid, professor of marketing at the Wharton School, which is at the University of Pennsylvania, of course. Listener writes in, "Americus has come to you. In regard to Target,

The boycott seems like another case of a small fraction on the left trying to convince the rest of us to enact another purity test that is poorly thought out and not likely to advance any meaningful change. It sounds like Target tried to do more than others in regards to appeasing left-leaning causes, then got pushback from some of its customers, so they adjusted in response to that criticism. The question is whether they still do more than their competitors and what the alternative is to shopping at Target. Buy from Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot? Um...

I guess the question here is really about like the nature of politics and companies. You know, I'm not sure I would call what's happening at Target like a purity test. I think it strikes me as more around politics.

Building a brand around a certain set of ideas and then having those be challenged. Do you think companies should try to build brands around some of these of these more political or social values?

Well, that's a great question. It's a six million dollar question, Alexis. I think that it's the it's the decision that the company has to make. And the decision calculus is quite clear. The idea is saying, hey, listen, you know, we're going to we're going to align with a political ideological set of values, beliefs, et cetera. And we know that half the country is going to be upset about that.

But the half that is aligned with us might be more loyal to us. So there's an economic reason to do this, which is to say that, yes, I will loosen people, but the people I gain should be more valuable because from a customer lifetime value perspective, they should be more loyal because they're not just showing up to buy the stuff. They're showing up to reaffirm who they are.

And so that's a very powerful economic argument. Now, you could also, of course, layer on top of that the moral argument, which is to say that as a C-suite leader, as a company leader, I believe this is the right thing to do. And so we're going to do it. But I think there's a little bit of both that that is basically sprinkled in here. And that's.

the notion of political ideology is something that, you know, if you're a company brand service product organization, you can consider peppering that in as part of your brand DNA. But as I said earlier, if you're going to do that, then you have to

be all in and you have to accept the fact that, you know, there may be people on one or other sides of the issue that are going to say, hey, we don't like that we're going elsewhere. But you hopefully have calculated that as part of the decision making process as an organization and you understand exactly who your customers are. Yeah. I mean, I guess one question I have is whether in today's climate it's possible to have a brand that

All brands are trying to become part of your identity. You know, we've been talking about it in this show. So in this particular cultural moment, is it possible to have a neutral brand or a non-aligned brand, you think?

I love that question. And in fact, the literature that I'm looking at right now, Alexis, is pointing to the pendulum swinging the other way or starting to swing the other way. And what I mean by that is you can just take a look at the political climate right now. Folks can't go to Thanksgiving and not get into a fistfight. So people and consumers are basically saying, you know what?

The political ideology is fine and I can have my own beliefs, but I think at a certain point there's a fatigue around all of this in terms of consumers basically saying, hey, you know what? I just want my sandwich. I just want to watch the football game and I don't really want to necessarily espouse political beliefs as a part of affirming a particular brand or product or service or type of thing that's happening in the marketplace. And I think we're starting to see a little bit of that.

that's happening right now. So there is a bit of an evolution that's going on right now. But if you think about it, I mean, there's always been an analysis that has looked at, you know, okay, if you go to largely democratic geographies, you'll find more whole foods than you will cracker barrels, for example, if you were to go to more red states

red sorts of geography. So there is a sort of clustering of these brands, products and services and organizations. But I think consumers are starting to get a little bit tired of all of the fatigue that's associated with having to signal something by the pants that you're wearing or where you shop or whatever it is that might be aligned with your political beliefs. I'm curious about it because there's also all that stuff about like

black rifle coffee company. Yes. Things like that. Yeah, I'm just I'm just Yeah, I'm interested. I'm very Alex, what do you think? Do you do you agree that there is a pullback and from from your reporting and what you heard from folks?

Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things that came up in our reporting is like the future for Target and likely for a lot of other brands is just like talking a lot less about DEI. Now, I think an open question is, does that actually mean that if they're not talking the talk, are they not walking the walk? Like, if they're not paying lip service to DEI, are they no longer committed to those values? And

I mean, if you're a consumer who doesn't necessarily have time to sit down and like parse the difference, then maybe that doesn't really matter. But I think it might sort of become clear over time whether, you know, and Target is far from the only company to do this, by the way. Like lots of companies have been rolling back their DEI initiatives over the past few years. And what that functionally means, I think, is still very much up for debate. Yeah.

We do. Amanda, I wanted to come to you. There is another company that has been in the midst of a lot of turmoil. I mean, Tesla, European sales have dropped by almost 50 percent. Its showrooms have been the site of protests. Is that something fundamentally different because Elon Musk has been in the administration and means something different?

I think the situation with Tesla sort of turns all of these dynamics up to 11 for a couple different reasons. The first one is just the Elon Musk situation. It's not that he has sort of like changed some of his corporate policies or his, you know,

pulled back on certain types of initiatives. He has become one of the main faces of the federal government and cuts to a lot of different programs that people liked, lots of public messaging that may be construed as offensive in a variety of different ways. So he has thrust himself into the spotlight and Tesla as a brand has always sort of

lived and died with Elon Musk. He is the, he himself is the brand's marketing effort. And for much of the history of the company, that effort undertaken publicly by him was to market Tesla's goods to a largely progressive climate-concerned clientele. So Tesla had a very specific customer base in the US.

And its entire public perception was based on the actions and beliefs and public persona of one man. And then that man started behaving very differently in an extremely public, extremely pointed way.

So, it is hard to look at that and say, "Okay, this type of product appeals almost exclusively to a progressive type of consumer because of the fact of it being an electric vehicle and it being associated with concern about climate change."

So if the person who is synonymous with that brand and has always been suddenly changes political alignment, then that means the brand means something entirely different. That the act of driving a Tesla signals something different about your values. So when you change the underlying meaning of something that has always had so much symbolic value,

A big part of the value proposition to customers just is going to change fundamentally. And nobody is more responsible for that conundrum than Elon himself. I mean, Americus, I imagine Elon's turn here is exactly how you draw it up in a marketing class. You're like, here's how to minimize brand value after building it in a particular way. Is that true or do you think there's something else going on?

I think that's 100 percent true. It's now the best in practice case example. I'm going to bring it into my class at the Wharton School. This is exactly what you should not do if you're trying to build your brand value. And I think Amanda's point is very poignant here, which is to say that not only are we talking about a change, we're talking about 180 degrees.

change. And so the only thing that's surprising here is that Elon was so surprised that people were protesting and upset about this. And he couldn't understand, well, what's going on? You know, I don't think I did a Nazi salute. I don't think I did this, that, and the third. It doesn't matter because when your customers feel like you are a

But perception is, this is what Amanda was saying, you're the brand. Tesla does no advertising. There is no ad for Tesla. He's on X doing all the marketing. And so you're in a situation where if you choose, we're going all in on Doge and MAGA, and that's it. Well, that's your target now. So you can't be upset that people are now...

sort of repulsed in a certain sense because of what they believe is a change in the belief system that you have been portraying over the last several years. And so, you know, I think it's a special, I love the spinal tap reference on 11. I think that's 100% correct. It's like, it is just like, this is exactly what not to do. And you, you know, the question of, it's an incredible unforced error to increase your customer acquisition costs and increase your customer retention costs that have nothing to do with the car.

You literally are going out there and you're making people upset for no reason. And it's just you can't make a strong business case for doing that. Let's bring in Jackie in Sacramento.

Hey, Jackie. Good morning, Alexis. All ideologies and moral concerns aside, one should know that Target is something of a malignant organization when it comes to their employees. Any losses they suffer come right out of them.

Also, I do take a newspaper still, the Sacramento Bee. There have been several articles over the last two years about Target, and one of them concerns the reaction to the George Floyd murders. They did suffer quite a lot of physical damage to their equipment by young people coming in and breaking them up with claw hammers to the consternation of the standing employees. Mm.

Also, our CEO has made several comments about how all theft at Target is related directly to employees and not to the general public. Our editorial commentator in Sacramento did say that Target does not deserve your sympathy. They also hog up a lot of police time here. Thank you for taking my call. Yeah, Jackie, thank you. As you could probably tell, they're a Target employee.

One of the fascinating things, Amanda Moll, has been the flip side of all this, which has been Costco getting, I guess, B-U-Y-cotted with people preferentially choosing to shop at Costco. Yes.

You know, it's very interesting and I think it sort of goes back to the idea that like Target's customer base relies pretty heavily on a particular sort of psychographic of customer. And this is a type of customer who is also going to be sort of partial to the Costco pitch that, you know, Costco has been successful for a long time on the idea that like

their corporate buyers are like very discerning and good at finding like the particular type of a product that is like the best value and the best version of that possible and as long as you're willing to buy like a dozen of it at a time or a you know a gallon of it at the time whatever it may be then you are gonna get the the absolute best value for the absolute best product and this is a type of pitch that is not like necessarily done upon you know identity lines but it is very

It is very interesting to a lot of people in Target's sort of core demographic, a lot of people who are, you know, buying for families and really interested in quality. So Costco's pitch of saying, you know, hey, we're, you know, we think DEI is good for business. These policies have been good for us and we're going to hang on to them, you know, whatever the, you know, outside impact may be is, you know, sort of an extra, an extra, you

way to talk to this potential new consumer into saying, hey, why don't you go ahead and spring for the membership? Because, you know, you've been curious anyway. So Costco was really, really particularly well positioned to take some of that boycott traffic away from Target. Yeah.

You know, other listeners are writing in talking about their experiences with this boycott. A listener writes, you know, my family's first priority since November was dumping all use of Amazon, have cut back on Target and avoided it during the Lent boycott, have tried subbing in Walgreens, which is close by, but my local one is such a pain in the neck. I'm being lured back to Target.

because of its drive-up service convenience. Not proud of that, but there you are. I only have so much time to deal with shopping per week. Another listener writes, you know, I've been boycotting Target, but it's hard because I'm also trying not to buy from Amazon because I also hate Jeff Bezos. Has Amazon taken any hits? Another listener writes, at this point, the only thing we can't seem to get anywhere else, we also don't use Amazon, are things like diapers. So Alex, I guess...

One question I have for you is whether it feels like this is a movement that could spread away from Target. You know, we've seen some Amazon crossover and a lot of comments coming in. Or is this really, as we've kind of been saying, a kind of like special situation because of the combination of the Target brand, the Target consumer, and other factors?

You know, I think that's still very much an open question. A lot of these boycotts still have quite a bit of momentum, even though they've been going on for months now. And I think to the point that we were all making earlier that, you know, consumer habits really count for a lot. And if consumers have successfully shifted their habits away from Target and any other company that they're looking to boycott, then maybe that'll stick.

Yeah, you know, there's a couple of other Bay Area historical points that people would like made. One listener writes, in the 1980s, California Teachers Association led a very, very long but successful boycott of California grapes. The boycott of South African companies and U.S. investment therein was also successful and many can argue greatly assisted in dismantling apartheid.

Stephen writes, "I'm 65 and I grew up in the Bay Area during the time of the Delano grapes boycott. Throughout my childhood, I knew that our family and our family's friends simply didn't buy or eat grapes. Once the boycott was over, it took me many years to be comfortable buying grapes even as an adult.

So there are at least some children growing up now who are learning that, you know, we don't buy Walmart or Target or Hobby Lobby or and the imprint is being made. It will not last for years, but for a generation. Of course, it's happening in the opposite direction, too. Unless you're a company that is being nonpolitical. There you are. What Alex, what are you looking forward? You know, are you going to be watching over the next quarter? Are you going to be reporting more on this?

I hope so. I guess, you know, we'll see about that. But, you know, I really wonder if, as some of the listener comments were coming in, you know,

financial well-being is something that is obviously very important. And as people, you know, are busy, they, you know, their sort of resolve tends to shift a little bit away. Like maybe they'll start to creep back to some of these big, big retailers. So I definitely want to, you know, keep an eye on some of these big earnings coming out in the next, you know, coming quarters. And I want to see who's making noise online. Like, you know, are the boycotters still being...

being loud about it and you know loudness counts for at least something yeah um last thing for listeners who are looking for alternatives uh other listeners wanted to share these things with you jeff writes the ecology center store in berkeley is a great alternative target for cleaning products in berkeley another listener writes i'd like to recommend local refill shops where you reuse containers as an alternative you can buy shampoo detergent dish soap

many other things and you're supporting local small businesses. We've been talking about consumer buying power and the target boycott. Been joined by Amanda Mull, a columnist at Bloomberg who writes the column Buying Power. Thanks so much for joining us, Amanda. Thank you so much for having me. We've also been joined by Alex Osella, who is host and producer of the What's News podcast at The Wall Street Journal. Thank you, Alex.

Thanks, Alexis. And we've been joined by Americus Reid, professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks for joining us, Americus. Thanks, Alexis. Great conversation. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with Mina Kim. Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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