Recently, many companies have proven the adage, \u201cGo woke, go broke,\u201d after woke advertising campaigns led to financial consequences.\u00a0 Perhaps the two most prominent examples are Target and Bud Light which have destroyed a combined shareholder value of roughly $28 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are both cases where brands have gotten in the middle of some really controversial issues,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Timothy Calkins, associate chair of the marketing department at Northwestern Kellogg School of Management.\u00a0 \u201cI think we\u2019ll see more brands be very cautious about getting into the middle of some of these really controversial issues.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c<\/strong>It was pretty clear, with Bud Light, that decisions were made by the team working on the brand, but not by more senior executives. And so, there wasn\u2019t really a line in there. I think in hindsight a team would say, you really don\u2019t want to get involved in that controversial an issue. The problem is it just takes your brand into a space that it doesn\u2019t need to be, and it just creates a lot of strong feelings about something that isn\u2019t really related to the product or its brand,\u201d Calkins\u00a0continued<\/a>.<\/p>\n HSBC analyst Carlos Laboy recently downgraded Anheuser-Busch\u2019s stock rating to a \u201chold\u201d amid the Bud Light boycotts. \u201cWhy did its US leadership underestimate the risk of pushback given the recent experience of other firms? Is A-B hiring the best people to grow the brands and gauge risk? If Budweiser and Bud Light are iconic American ideas that have long brought consumers together, why did these marketers fail to invite new consumers without alienating the core base of the firm\u2019s largest brand? These questions are not trivial to the crisis and say a lot about the state of A-B\u2019s marketing culture,\u201d Laboy\u00a0said<\/a>.<\/p>\n Target angered some consumers after selling female swimsuits that have \u201cextra crotch coverage\u201d and are \u201ctuck friendly.\u201d\u00a0 The American Tribune\u00a0reported<\/a><\/p>\n :<\/p>\n Joining fellow woke companies\u00a0Bud Light<\/a>,\u00a0Ford<\/a>,\u00a0Starbucks<\/a>, and\u00a0Adidas<\/a>, among many others, Target has now infuriated conservative customers with a female swimsuit that it promoted as being \u201ctuck friendly\u201d and having \u201cextra crotch coverage.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n