Products, advertisers drawn increasingly into the partisan fray
Once averse to politics, companies find taking sides risks blowback.
In today’s political climate, even pizza, bourbon and coffee can be partisan issues.
A year after the presidential election, a range of advertisers are learning that it doesn’t take much — sometimes just a single Twitter post — to land them in the middle of a social media firestorm that splits along party lines. In some cases, they land there even if they’ve done nothing. And it has become clear in the past month that long-used strategies for how brands should respond to the ensuing outrage might need rewriting.
This month, consumers shared videos of themselves destroying Keurig coffee machines after the company said it would pull ads from Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, a decision based on supportive comments the host made about Roy Moore, the embattled Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama. Also this month, the hashtag #BoycottJimBeam emerged after actress Mila Kunis, a spokeswoman for the liquor company since 2014, said on “Conan” that she has been donating to Planned Parenthood under Vice President Mike Pence’s name in a form of “peaceful protest.”
Papa John’s has been apologizing after its chief executive said on an earnings call that the National Football League’s handling of the national anthem controversy had hurt its pizza sales.
As the national conversation has become increasingly fractured, major brands have repeatedly found themselves in the middle of these kinds of controversies. Seeming to take sides can have business implications, and companies are still struggling to adjust to the new normal.
“What I think is constantly surprising is how polarized and divisive, certainly, the U.S. has become,” said Ken Kraemer, the chief executive of the agency Deep Focus. Brands are shifting from a world where they avoided politics at all costs, he said, to one where younger consumers want to know that their “values are aligned.”
“This is something consumers and future consumers care about,” he said, “but then again, there are very real business repercussions for expressing those points of view.”
The backlash against Keurig stemmed from a tweet by the company saying that it would pull ads from Hannity’s program after the host seemed to justify Moore’s reported conduct involving teenage girls by calling one of the encounters “consensual.” Hannity later said he misspoke.
Keurig’s chief executive stood by the company’s decision in an email to employees, but said that sharing the information in a tweet was “done outside of company protocols,” and apologized for any negativity that employees endured from the “appearance of ‘taking sides.’”
Because the public is so divided, any criticism of a brand tends to produce its own backlash.
That was apparent on Jim Beam’s Facebook page after Kunis appeared on “Conan.” She said on the show that her donations to Planned Parenthood in Pence’s name were “a reminder that there are women out there in the world that may or may not agree with his platform.”
As a clip of her appearance spread online, a #BoycottJimBeam effort began.
Jim Beam has declined to comment on its partnership with Kunis.
As the national conversation has become increasingly fractured, major brands have repeatedly found themselves in the middle of these kinds of controversies. Seeming to take sides can have business implications, and companies are still struggling to adjust to the new normal.