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Sara Lebow (00:00):

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(00:24):

Hello, listeners. Today is Wednesday, June 18th. Welcome to Behind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail, an e-marketer podcast made possible by Cint. This is the show where we talk about how retail collides with every part of our lives. I'm your host, Sara Lebow. Today's episode topic is how retailers' political stances are impacting their bottom line. Before we get into that, let's meet today's guests. Joining me for today's episode, we have two podcast regulars. First up, it's Sky Canaves. Welcome back, Sky.

Sky Canaves (01:00):

Hey, Sara. It's great to be back.

Sara Lebow (01:02):

Great to have you. Also with us, someone we have on the retail podcast less frequently, Paola Flores-Marquez. Hey Pao.

Paola Flores-Marquez (01:08):

Hi Sarah. Hi everyone.

Sara Lebow (01:10):

And also with us is a special guest. Author and professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, Dr. Marcus Collins. Hi, Marcus.

Marcus Collins (01:19):

Hi there. Thanks for having me.

Sara Lebow (01:21):

Thanks for being here. Go blue.

Marcus Collins (01:23):

Go blue.

Sara Lebow (01:24):

All right. It's June, which means it's Pride month. This year's Pride comes as many companies roll back their DEI efforts. Companies like Amazon, John Deere, Lowe's, and notably Target have made changes to DEI policies that have made headlines. Before we jump into how that's impacting retail, I want to make sure that we're on the same page here because DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, can mean a lot of different things. Pao, I'm going to put you on the spot here and start with you. What do we mean when we say DEI?

Paola Flores-Marquez (01:55):

At its most basic, DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion, but I know we don't have a specific definition for it, and I've found it difficult to find anything that's universally accepted. I've always understood it to be an intentional effort on an organization's part to make sure that they're creating an environment that is exactly what it says, diverse, equitable, and inclusive in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, anything else.

Sara Lebow (02:27):

Yeah. Anything to add to that from your perspective, Marcus?

Marcus Collins (02:30):

I can only co-sign. Essentially, there is meaning and there is intent, and to Pao's point, there's an intent that DE and I as an initiative is an effort to drive heterogeneity within the workforce, but also creates some parity with regards to their experience, i.e. equity, and ensure that there's access, which inclusion is speaking to. However, though that might be the intent, its meaning is just as heterogeneous as diversity is itself.

Sara Lebow (03:01):

Meaning that there are a lot of different meanings to it.

Marcus Collins (03:03):

Absolutely. Yes.

Sara Lebow (03:05):

Yeah. I mean in political discourse, in retail, we have it meaning a lot of different really squishy things. Being compared to the word woke, which also has a lot of squishy definitions. Let's talk about retail specifically though. We've seen these DEI rollbacks. What changed this year when President Trump took office in how retailers were thinking about DEI? And Sky, I'll go to you first for the retail perspective.

Sky Canaves (03:33):

Sure. I think there's a very broad, essentially war on DEI efforts from the Trump administration. They want to banish it not only from the government and public sphere, but there have been threats or implied threats against private businesses as well for their DEI programs. And here we're not talking about the fuzzy values or lip service, but I think more towards the specific programs with goals and objectives. And some companies in retail had said that they want to have 25% people of color in leadership positions or increase women in the boardroom to closer to parity with the general population. So these kinds of programs, I think have really come under fire and scrutiny and could potentially face some kinds of investigations or challenges from the administration and that's where I think retail companies really got spooked about what could happen to them and started to roll back and follow the administration's line a bit closer in terms of walking back programs and starting to say that they're not going to feature them as prominently. Now, that puts them in a real bind because of course for retail and companies in general, you want to both appeal to a broad base of customers, diversify your audience, but also your internal employment pool very much depends on a diverse workforce. Few companies are going to do themselves any favor by limiting their hiring or positioning themselves as environments that would not welcome a diverse workforce.

Marcus Collins (05:12):

I mean, I think Sky is spot on. I mean truly, if we're being totally honest here, the word or the phrase DEI signifies anything that's not heterosexual, cisgendered white male. That has become the orthodoxy. And the change that has happened since Trump took office is that he has taken an ideological approach to a policy that anything that is any semblance of diversity, heterogeneity, equity, parity, or any inclusion i.e. access to people who sit outside of the hegemony, then those things are in direct ideological opposition to the administration in every facet of the country considering the imagination they have of the country. So every institution, from business to retail to government to education to social services are now being clouded in this idea that is antithetical to the intent of DEI.

Paola Flores-Marquez (06:18):

Yeah. Actually what we're seeing is the latest iteration of a long-standing battle that they've had against affirmative action. This is just the latest version of it, and they see DEI as an embodiment of affirmative action to a certain extent. It's just a new framework that they're using. But it's been a long-standing conversation and effort, I think. It's just escalated to the point where they're actively using government tools to dismantle it.

Sara Lebow (06:46):

Yeah. In the interest of answering the question of why would a retailer roll back DE&I, there are I think retailers that maybe won't be as impacted by rolling back these efforts maybe because their efforts weren't-

Paola Flores-Marquez (06:59):

Explicit?

Sara Lebow (06:59):

Changing things very much. But there are either retailers with a conservative shopper or retailers that just have been quiet about everything always that honestly probably won't be impacted or maybe could even benefit from rolling back DE&I. But for the most part, the data doesn't support that. According to Pew, 52% of people believe DEI at work is a good thing compared to 21% who don't. And we've seen this in action. Consumer backlash over DEI rollbacks has resulted in Walmart and Target warning investors about these risks. And in addition to that, 53% of Americans feel disappointed when brands stay out of social conversations entirely according to Givsly. So there is data that shows that rolling back on this can lead to trouble as it seems like it has for Target.

Marcus Collins (07:52):

Absolutely. I mean, Target in particular faces a significant amount of backlash in rolling back its DEI efforts because in many ways Target was seen as an ally. They seemed like one of us. They seemed like they were invited to the cookout as some would say. And for them to roll back their DEI efforts because of the pressure they're getting from the administration or the social pressures in general felt like a betrayal. And people said, "Yo. That is antithetical to everything you said you are about." But for other retailers, as you mentioned, Sara, that are sort of prototypically conservative, whether in their stance or their patrons, it didn't make that big of a deal because we expect that of you. But for Target, that wasn't what was expected. And considering the posture and the kinetics of brands post George Floyd, there was so much talk about we're going to focus on diversity, we're going to be down for the cause. And the minute that it became inconvenient, we started to get rollbacks and that's problematic and that's why you see the ones who were usually the loudest voice, the one that was the biggest advocate when it was convenient experience the biggest blowback when it's not.

Paola Flores-Marquez (09:06):

It's the betrayal. There's a sense of betrayal.

Marcus Collins (09:08):

That's right.

Sara Lebow (09:09):

It's poignant that this is happening five years out from when George Floyd was murdered. On the other side of this, we have Costco doubling down on DEI, at least in its publicity efforts, which means that that Target consumer, if they are able to, can trade up to Costco or could trade down to a cheaper Walmart product, and that could be a struggle long-term.

Sky Canaves (09:34):

Right. It can be hard to make the direct relationship between the positions and what's happening in stores. But Placer.ai, which tracks the foot traffic data in stores, has noted a consecutive four months decline in Target's foot traffic for probably every week, while at the same time Costco has seen increases in its foot traffic. And Costco of course has stuck to its previous DEI position and rebuffed attempts to have it follow suit with Target and other retailers that have shifted their stance.

Marcus Collins (10:07):

The interesting part is that I don't even know if people really know what Costco's DEI efforts are or what their stance are, but the fact that they're being vocal, but the fact that they are standing up when others are folding, it's enough. It's almost just the gesture is enough because of what it signifies. And that's a really powerful thing. There's a scholar named Ivan Ross who would say that people purchase brands of branded products so they consume what things are consistent with or in some way pushes forward their ideal identity project. Who they want to be. And when a brand is no longer congruent with who I am, consuming from it or consuming it becomes antithetical to my identity. There's a great cognitive dissonance that happens there. People either say, "I'm going to stop," or they find ways to justify it. They go through some cognitive acrobatics to help justify acting in ways that are out of sync with their ideas or their ideology. And brands like Target becomes a very, very easy target, pardon the pun, because there are other options that can help supplement. And I think this actually gets down to the nitty-gritty of it all. And it kind of sucks to hear this. This is a tough pill to swallow. But in most cases, lots of retailers are parity, where people can't really tell the difference.

(11:39):

The cost difference aren't that great. One may be more convenient than another, but we're seeing that race to convenience being leveled out. And if one thing is no longer aligned with who I am, the switching costs becomes much, much more affordable.

Sky Canaves (11:58):

And this is, I think, where things like the loyalty and membership programs come into play. Like Costco is a membership retailer. That fosters a lot of loyalty from its members because they're paying to be part of Costco and Target is really trying to ramp up its paid membership program, Target Circle 360, as a path to future growth and turning around a lot of other issues it's been grappling with in addition to its DEI rollback. And the real challenge is that it's kind of alienated some of its most loyal customers who would be the ones who would pay to be a Target Circle 360 member and now might say, "No. Your values don't align with mine in this fundamental way." They're not going to pay for the extra added conveniences that Target might offer with its membership. And they're also up against the Walmart Plus and the Amazon Prime. So it's becoming very competitive. Once I think a retailer can get a customer to buy in to pay for membership, then there are a little more added switching costs that might keep them with a retailer a little longer.

Marcus Collins (13:00):

But that loyalty one is a tricky one because loyalty isn't monolithic. There are different forms of loyalty. There's a marketing scholar named Christie Nordhielm who talked about loyalty as the three H's. There is hand loyalty, which is habitual, a thing that we just normally do. Like I normally get the Crest toothpaste with the Scope mouthwash. That's what I normally get. It's just my thing. And I just go, when I go into CVS, I get it because that's what I normally get. But the minute that Crest with the Scope mouthwash is gone, I go, "Oh man." Do you think I'm leaving to go to another retailer to get that Crest? No. I'm now saying, "All right. What's here now?" And in that moment, Crest runs the risk of losing me. Because it was only habitual. Then she says, "Well, then there's head loyalty." And head loyalty is this loyalty where we're constantly buying the thing that we can rationalize because the value propositions are better. I'm buying from this thing because it's cheaper or it has more fluoride in the toothpaste or whatever the case may be. And so long as your toothpaste has more fluoride, I'll continue to pick you. And then the last level of loyalty is the most special, and it's heart loyalty. It's like I can't explain it. I just love it.

(14:16):

I just love it. I love it. That's why I go. I love it. I love it. And if you would've asked me six months ago, "Which retailers do you love?", Target would've been the top of the list. This used to be our routine. I take my daughters, Georgia and Ivy, to go to Ivy's swim lesson. We'd go get pancakes after our swim lesson, and then we'd go over to Target to do some light shopping and the kids loved it. But post the rollback of Target's DEI commitment, it's like, yo, I can't do it. It is out of sync with my identity to go to Target. And those first couple weeks, my daughters are like, "Yo, we're not going to Target? What's good? What's happening here?" And I go, "No. Let me explain to you why." We haven't stepped foot in a Target since January. Since January. And one would say, I was a loyal Target customer. Well, we loved it and there was habituality there, but because of the head loyalty completely pulled me out of that cycle. That's unbelievably powerful when we think about the ways in which we create golden handcuffs to make it harder to switch. To your point, Sky, when those systems aren't there, it's really easy to lose someone.

Sara Lebow (15:30):

And this isn't just anecdotal. According to an Ad Age Harris poll, nearly one in five US adults have stopped using or purchasing from a brand because of its DEI approach being changed. And for Gen Z, that's 40%. We talk a lot about what people claim not being consistent with their behaviors, but I think that we're seeing an actual impact here. In fact, companies that held firm on DEI commitments saw reputation scores rise by an average of 1.5 points in the Axios Harris Poll 100.

Paola Flores-Marquez (16:04):

Yeah, I think that consistency aspect is super important. Going back to the Costco example, part of the reason Costco is benefiting so much is not just because it offers a viable alternative to Target, but also because it has a history of being really good on labor issues, it has a history of being really good about quality. The Costco Kirkland brand is notorious for standing up to its competitors or whatever it is duping. And then there's the infamous hot dog incident where they tried to kill someone.

Sara Lebow (16:31):

Which may or may not have happened.

Paola Flores-Marquez (16:32):

I'm going to believe it. I choose to believe it in my heart.

Sara Lebow (16:36):

Wait. Can you say what that is for listeners that might not be familiar with it?

Paola Flores-Marquez (16:39):

Was it someone on the board or maybe one of the owners? I can't remember.

Sara Lebow (16:42):

It was the founder.

Paola Flores-Marquez (16:43):

The founder of Costco, when someone told them that they were going to raise the price of a combo of a Costco hot dog and a soda for 1.50, the founder said that he would kill him if they raised it.

Sara Lebow (16:57):

Which might be an old wives tale-

Paola Flores-Marquez (16:59):

I believe it.

Sara Lebow (16:59):

But is kind of iconic.

Marcus Collins (17:01):

That is amazing mythology.

Paola Flores-Marquez (17:01):

The folklore.

Marcus Collins (17:01):

That's great mythology. Yes, exactly.

Paola Flores-Marquez (17:04):

Amazing.

Marcus Collins (17:06):

And we would say that that is cultural production. Those kinds of things are unbelievably powerful. And to your point, they become the receipt that this company is about that life. So when the winds may blow, these guys are 10 toes down.

Paola Flores-Marquez (17:21):

Costco rises a hero in trying times to save us all.

Marcus Collins (17:25):

That level of commitment, people go, "It's safe to shop here because it's always going to be congruent with my identity. Such that I believe this thing, I can rest assure that Costco's always going to stand strong." And in a world where consumption is so conspicuous, where I go, what I eat, where I shop, what I wear, what I do, these things are constantly present in public, in our public social lives. 1000%. Thanks to social networking platforms of course. But since so much of our lives are public, that creates more opportunity, more variability to put our confidence in jeopardy. That if I buy the wrong thing, if Sky goes, "Ugh. Marcus, why you do that?" I go, "Oh, I didn't know." But if I can count on something because they stand the test of time, no matter where the wind blows, they stay plumb, shoot, that is a great identity project for someone. It's a great strategy for which I'm able to ensure that my actions are aligned with my belief and I won't find myself in cognitive dissonance or run the risk to the peril of potential social currency damage.

Paola Flores-Marquez (18:36):

Yeah. I think it also offsets any other negotiations we might make, because at the end of the day, we're all constantly negotiating between our ideals and our survival. So sometimes we do have to make those concessions and make purchases that we don't completely feel okay with. But if I can make other purchases that offset that, then I feel a little bit more comfortable with the fact that I had to concede on a certain point.

Marcus Collins (18:58):

That's right.

Sara Lebow (18:58):

But before we jump even deeper into shopper patterns, which I really want to do, let's talk quickly about Pride specifically. Retailers seem quieter this Pride month. Roughly two in five companies plan to reduce Pride-related engagements this year. None expect to increase them according to a survey from Gravity Research. I mean, I think we have some suspicions of why this is, but what is happening here?

Marcus Collins (19:29):

They weren't convicted to begin with. It became a opportunity to ride the zeitgeist, benefit from the zeitgeist in an effort to potentially drive commerce. And the minute it becomes inconvenient to do so, you back away. They're not really about that life. And I think that we constantly see this over and over and over and over again. You project conviction, but it's really an act of convenience. And once it's inconvenient, you bend. And I think that post-2023 after Dylan Mulvaney with Bud Light and then Target got really hit hard because of their Pride apparel, it's been a slow decline since. Slow. The last two years has just been quieter and quieter. People are less likely to stick their toes in the water, especially considering the red waters that run today.

Paola Flores-Marquez (20:26):

Yeah. I think that's a major aspect in terms of there's a level of unpredictability, I guess. We just have never been in a situation where the government has been so forceful in its scrutiny of these sort of policies, and we don't know what tools they're going to use to crack down on it if they do decide to double down on that. And so I think people are being submissive preemptively.

Marcus Collins (20:48):

That's right.

Paola Flores-Marquez (20:48):

Which we shouldn't.

Marcus Collins (20:49):

Don't nobody want that smoke. They don't want that smoke. Everybody's dodging it.

Sky Canaves (20:53):

At least publicly facing. I think internally, they still have to nurture and support their employees, and you can't really afford to alienate or lose a large number or significant share of employees who are diverse. The LGBTQ employees are really everywhere. So I think for companies, they're trying to balance that publicly saying nothing but internally providing support.

Marcus Collins (21:22):

That's the sucky part too, because you hear that. I hear that from clients all the time going, "I don't agree what they're doing. I don't think that's right. But what are you going to do?" And I can't help but think about a song from Destiny's Child.

Sara Lebow (21:34):

Sure.

Marcus Collins (21:35):

Say my name, say my name. If nobody's around you, say baby I love. If you ain't running game, say my name. Say it in public. If you love me, if you about it-

Paola Flores-Marquez (21:45):

Claim it.

Marcus Collins (21:45):

Say my name in public.

Paola Flores-Marquez (21:45):

Claim it.

Marcus Collins (21:48):

Exactly. Exactly. I think that, and if you don't, you go, "Oh man, you're not really in this with me. You're not really in it." And that sucks. To be an employee in that kind of organization sucks because basically parking your identity at the door, but being asked to bring all of you to work. Come on.

Paola Flores-Marquez (22:05):

Is this a good time to mention or to bring up again, what we kind of discussed previously about the weird sort of conflicting nature of the corporatization of Pride and how we are so against companies getting involved in that because it kind of dilutes it or cheapens it or whatever. But at the same time, you want that level of acknowledgement and you want that level of involvement and you want that level of support because it offers a degree of normalcy, that it's something that should just be a given, that people can just operate in these spaces without being discriminated against.

Sara Lebow (22:41):

Yeah. And we're seeing about 25% of corporate donors to New York City's Pride celebrations canceling or reducing contributions. I want to zoom back into retail though, because we can have this conversation about ideals, which is great and we need to have, but what happens from here on out? Will people just sort of forget about this and move on? Will this remain in the zeitgeist? I think that even if people forget about these political tones right now and move on, they may still have discovered alternative products that they will then continue to buy.

Marcus Collins (23:20):

They have new habits. There's new habituation in their consumption. You go, "Now I'm a Costco guy. I used to be a Target guy, now I'm a Costco guy." And there there's a part of the brain called the basal ganglia where habits are constructed and formed and shaped, and you can have a brain damaging incident and the basal ganglia stays intact, and you'll still continue to do those habits. That's how powerful habituation is. So to this idea of what happens when we have some elasticity and we snap back to where we were, though the zeitgeist may change, our behaviors may be pretty stuck. And for those retailers, you might be pretty cooked.

Paola Flores-Marquez (24:04):

For a while at least.

Marcus Collins (24:06):

For a while.

Paola Flores-Marquez (24:07):

Yeah. I don't know. I still have it pretty fresh in my memory when Chick-fil-A was against gay marriage in California and all this other stuff, and I was never a Chick-fil-A major shopper anyway, so I guess I'm not the target audience, but on that principle, I still haven't shopped there. But I have many friends who do, and they're just kind of like, "It's fine. Whatever." I have gay friends who shop there and they're just like, "Whatever. I love the food. I'm going to keep doing it anyway." And so I think that there's giving a level of distance that comes with it as well. And I don't know, again, negotiations that we make every day.

Marcus Collins (24:37):

And I think you're absolutely right. And those negotiations don't happen in the individual. They happen the collective. They're negotiating constructed with our people. They're socially created. And to your point about Chick-fil-A, a retailer, in this case mean you're right. There was discourse about some things happen with Chick-fil-A, but yet some people were able to normalize. They were able to justify it. And much of that is because there isn't as much parity when it comes to Chick-fil-A products.

Paola Flores-Marquez (25:07):

That's true.

Sky Canaves (25:07):

They'll make an exception for Chick-fil-A.

Marcus Collins (25:07):

Exactly. Exactly. And we do the same thing with Amazon. We go, "Oh man, I don't like the way you treat their employees, but I want my dog food tomorrow." So until there's another option that's just as good, that's when we're willing to flip.

Sara Lebow (25:19):

Well, we talk about value a lot on the podcast, and we talk about it in comparison to price. Value incorporates a lot of other things beyond price and values are sort of something that gets folded in there as well. Your social currency also is folded into value. Before we wrap up, I want to talk about where DEI goes next. Because for all of this conversation that we've had, as we all know, queer people aren't going anywhere. The values that are associated with DEI aren't necessarily going anywhere, but we're seeing a lot of other language emerging that I think is a safer way of encompassing it.

Marcus Collins (26:00):

Yeah. You hear words like we're focusing on togetherness and belonging, and those things are even more abstract than DEI itself. And as a result, you create sort of this haze that allows you to operate but still be in the confines of the social forces that are being pressed upon us based on the current administration that we sit inside. And to me, it sort of feels like instead of saying that we are dating, instead you're saying we're in an entanglement. What are we talking about here? I think what we need more.

Sara Lebow (26:39):

Situationship.

Marcus Collins (26:41):

Exactly. Situationship. Exactly. It's like in a time where the threat is greatest, we need more specificity, more concreteness than more abstraction.

Sara Lebow (26:55):

Yeah. And that is something that retailers that cater to maybe a more conservative client are already doing. Black Rifle Coffee, for example, is full chested saying what their values are, and that does resonate with their consumer. And then you're sort of seeing some wishy-washiness on the other side. Not universally though. We see Ben and Jerry's trying to cut itself off from Unilever.

Sky Canaves (27:20):

I think it's really that mass appeal general retailer or brand that's trying to have as wide a consumer base as possible and really becoming more bland in the process. And we see on the other side, on the more progressive side, smaller indie brands that speak directly to their customers and stick with their values. A big one is Elf Beauty. They've been a champion of DEI and a lot of other social causes, and they stick to that, and they're very vocal about that, and that's a large brand. But I think we see a lot of niche brands that are able to more directly interact with their consumer without fear of reprisal on a mass scale.

Sara Lebow (28:00):

Yeah. Marcus, you work with Elf, right?

Marcus Collins (28:02):

Yeah. So I'm really close to the folks at Elf, and you're right, they are 10 toes down their belief. And I think that the literature really supports this too. This idea of mass scale. Let's stick to the middle. The average consumer, the average American, that is-

Sara Lebow (28:20):

But an average doesn't exist. An average is a mean of extremes.

Marcus Collins (28:24):

It is the worst strategy ever because those people are practicing a risk aversion strategy. That is they're not going to be the first to buy, the first to download, the first to watch, the first to visit, the first to eat. They're not going to do anything first. They're going to look to see what everyone else does before they do anything. So trying to appeal to those people is like ... It's erroneous. It's a flawed approach. The people who are most likely to move are the people who believe, and those people then enter the discourse on your behalf to convince the people that are less likely to move. I'm far more likely to trust you, Sara, than I am to trust an ad that I see. But your conviction and our relationship is more likely to convince me than anything else, because culture moves more on the basis of one simple question. Do people like me do something like this? This is what Seth Godin constantly preaches. Do people like me do something like this? It doesn't happen in the advertising. It happens between people, the negotiation process. And the advertising becomes the manner in which we justify our stance.

Sara Lebow (29:28):

Yeah. I don't know if we're going to get a more specific takeaway to end on than that quote from Marcus appealing to the average is the worst strategy ever. Any final thoughts before we wrap up?

Paola Flores-Marquez (29:37):

Oh, yeah. I think once again, I said this in the article a couple weeks, and I'll say it again. Backtracking on your stance is worse than taking a stance. Backtracking your stance means that you don't stand for anything, and then you've alienated the people who are already on your side and you have not gained anyone new because they already don't identify with you. So don't do that. Or if you do that, apologize. Don't do it. Just don't do it.

Marcus Collins (30:00):

That's right. That's right.

Sara Lebow (30:01):

Great. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Sky.

Sky Canaves (30:05):

Thanks for having me back.

Sara Lebow (30:06):

Thank you, Paola.

Paola Flores-Marquez (30:07):

Thank you so much. This was fun.

Sara Lebow (30:09):

And thank you so much, Marcus. It was a pleasure to have you.

Marcus Collins (30:12):

I'm super grateful. Thank you.

Sara Lebow (30:14):

Thank you to our listeners and to our team that edits the podcast, who all make me feel a sense of belonging. Please leave a comment or review and remember to subscribe to Behind the Numbers. We'll be back next Wednesday with another episode of Reimagining Retail, and on Friday, join not Marcus Collins, but Marcus Johnson for another episode of Behind The Numbers, an eMarketer podcast made possible by Cint.