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Major brands, such as Jack Daniel’s, are turning back the diversity clock. The anti-woke trend is indicative of the polarization in the US, which is increasingly reflected in advertising and communication. Incidentally, not only for Marketing the Rainbow, but also for other forms of diversity. The policy introduced after Black Lives Matter is also being partly reversed.

Bud Light

In the aftermath of last year’s ‘Bud Light Drama’, several American brands are not only changing their corporate diversity policy, but also their marketing campaigns. This mainly concerns brands that are traditionally seen as ‘macho’, such as: Harley Davidson, machine manufacturers Tractor Supply and John Deere and the DIY chain Lowes.

The latest defector is Ford, who announced last month that they were giving up diversity, with the excuse of “wanting to create an environment in which we can all do our best work, based on respect and inclusivity.” But loyal ally Molson Coors (beer) and retailer Target also turned the knob.

A number of marginal extreme conservatives jubilantly claimed victory for their efforts: “The business community must be freed from left-wing terror.”

But of course there is more at stake than the grumbling of influencers, because an ‘extremist’ with 11,000 followers (who was also anti-face mask, for example) does not outweigh a Taylor Swift with more than half a billion followers. The positive sound she makes is not picked up by those brands; because it concerns “13-year-old girls”, according to Mick Huckabee.

Alcohol

The Alcoholic sector has been a sector for years in which a lot of attention is paid to the rainbow consumer (see for example my article ‘Da’s Sterk’). This is also the case with the beverage company Brown-Forman, known for Jack Daniel’s, Southern Comfort and Finlandia. Where a few years ago they celebrated Pride exuberantly with drag queens, this year they are sailing along with the ‘get woke, go broke’ trend. Until recently, they were even considered one of the “Best Places to Work” on the list of the LGBT organization Human Rights Campaign.

DE&I

In 2019, they proudly launched their Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) strategy. That was very late – most companies had already woken up in the big turnaround year of 2015 – but it didn’t take long. A few great campaigns later, and the company is being influenced by loudmouths on social media. They announced last month:

We believe in incorporating different perspectives and experiences into our decisions and practices. For these reasons, and more, we launched our diversity and inclusion strategy in 2019. Since then, the world has evolved, our business has changed, and the legal and regulatory landscape has changed dramatically, particularly in the United States. With this new dynamic, we need to adapt our work to properly address the current environment we find ourselves in.

In other words, “Help, someone thinks we’re too woke.”

They announced that they will stop tying executive compensation to progress on diversity. The DEI page on the Brown-Forman website was immediately removed. All DEI trainings were halted. Participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index survey was terminated.

This is unfortunate, but also notable, because in those few years, they have been loud and colorful about their diversity side.

Jack Daniel’s

Back in 2018, before the official policy was implemented, Jack – as an official sponsor – rode in LA Pride with the #FlavorsOfPride mobile video art installation. The truck featured a spectacular multimedia experience, with video mapping, capture technology and three-dimensional mannequins. Not just any fancy car, then: time, creativity and money went into it.

The 2020 campaign was called ‘Drag Queen Mukbang’. It was supported by a series of videos of drag queens, famous from the legendary RuPaul shows, among others. Again, it wasn’t just ‘something with the rainbow’, but all the stops were pulled out with the campiest part of the LGBT community.

The campaign was also explicitly intended to support the rainbow community. They worked with no less than five LGBT charities, including GLAAD and local transgender organizations in redneck Tennessee, where Jack is based. The conservative south has the most trouble with freedom, equality, brother/sisters chap, so it was quite significant that such a campaign was suddenly being run there. And with the two most controversial topics: drag queens and trans people.

Then the argument was: “In these divided times, it’s easy to forget that we often have more in common than things that divide us. For example, who would have thought that three famous drag queens would be embraced by the people of Lynchburg, Tennessee, home of the Jack Daniel’s Brewery?”

In 2021, in honor of Pride month, Jack Daniel’s presented the series, ‘Drag Queen Summer Glamp‘, again with three extravagant drag queens planning a Pride celebration on the grounds of the distillery.

Southern Comfort

Another brand from the Brown-Forman portfolio, Southern Comfort, has also happily joined in in recent years – together with LGBT+ collective Sink The Pink. Aboard a vintage Mississippi paddle steamer, London Pride was celebrated in 2020 and 2021 with a New Orleans-inspired party. There were drag queens and Vogue dancers.

Much earlier, in 1995, and later in 2003, they did some ad hoc Marketing the Rainbow – in those cases it was advertising in relevant print magazines.

So…

Is that all going to change now? We’ll see. In any case, progress, especially in the US, is being reversed a bit. But progress is rarely linear, so hopefully we’ll see a movement forward again in a while. If Project 2025 goes ahead, that will take a bit longer. After all, politics are an important factor influencing marketing and communication. The elections in the US demanded more than their full attention from all parties, so reactions to the developments outlined are largely absent. I hold my breath.

Alfred Verhoeven is a marketer and is in the final phase of his PhD research Marketing the Rainbow.
He previously wrote for ILOVEGAY about From Representation To Respect, The Musk Effect, Pride Month, The Oldest Rainbows, The Dutch Rainbows, The Belgian Rainbows, The Chinese Rainbows, Super Bowl Ads: What Would Jesus Do?, Get woke, go broke, Spain has 6.8 billion reasons to love rainbow tourists, Everyone’s gay in Amsterdam, Gay Capital, The Ideal Traveler, Abercrombie & Fitch : The Rise & The Fall, Barbiemania, Bud Light and the 4 bln dollar woman, Pronouns, About those rainbows, Alphabet soup, M&M’s and the lesbian invasion, The Men from Atlantis, 5 Bizarre LGBT Videos, TRANSparency, Transgender persons as a target group, 5 videos that went viral, Cultural sensitivities and social involvement in marketing, and 4 reasons to practice diversity.