Oh please. Any "hot button" issue is a hot button issue. Those who support transgender are going to be for it, those who don't will not.
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The second sentence is meaningless. The third, from a marketing standpoint, is also meaningless. The questions of “do you support trans rights?” and “how does a trans influencer impact your buying/engagement of a product?” are completely different questions.
My parents, they don’t understand the trans movement and they’d fall into the “I don’t care” or “somewhat bad” category of the above chart. However, if you ask them “would you not buy or boycott a product with a trans influencer,” they’d say they’d not boycott it and wouldn’t avoid the product. If you asked them “if a company had traditionally right-leaning ideology or made statements against the trans community, would you buy their product?” their answer would be a resounding “no.”
There is a gulf between what people support politically and what a company will do that will cause a people to change established spending habits.
It's not more complicated. And it has nothing to do with "common sense." People know a "trans woman" is not a woman. And when they see people on the news refer to a trans woman as she, what does that tell them?
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Anytime somebody says their argument doesn’t involve common sense, I skip right on down. When you need to ignore basic sense in order to make a ideology or thought work, you’re usually cultivating an answer you want, not one that represents the truth.
And no, people don’t know “trans woman” doesn’t mean not a woman. That sounds like a “you” and “subset of people” distinction, not a real world distinction. Generally when people say “I’m a woman” or “I’m a trans woman” generally people don’t see that as the gateway to telling a stranger “no you aren’t.”
"Many times the quickest and best way to grow is by cutting ties with the core customers and attracting new ones."
That is pure nonsense. A gross simplification. We're talking about beer here. If I am for transgender but don't like beer, I'm going to start drinking it?
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False. If a company is stumbling, that means their core customers are not doing enough to sustain the success of the company. Those core customers have proven that while they’ll buy the product, it’s not to a degree or fervency that will grow the brand or make them an industry leader.
The parent company in this case has been in decline since 2018/2019. Despite ceremonial cultural significance with things like the horses and such, beverage sales have been in a steady, tangible decline while smaller, midline competition has seen an increase. The narrative around the product is that it is a cheap beer that appeals to people like Kid Rock, Travis Tritt, underage drinkers, the college party crowd, and deeply conservative old people. When you look at the market, you see that portion of buyer is dwindling and the market for people looking for taste, affordability, quality, and a clear marketing story is increasing.
That means they have to make changes to stay relevant and competitive. If they have 10 core customers and they make a marketing change that loses them 4 core customers (the group that doesn’t sustain them anyway) but gains them 7, they’re still making gains that, by any metric, makes them ahead. Looking at their stock valuation, there was a huge jump in late March, when this started, and they’ve held on to all but a dollar per share of that gain, which is a sign to incredibly successful marketing change.
And, it is a gross simplification to say this is about beer. It’s not, it’s about a company. Nobody is saying “I support transgender causes but hate beer so I’d better start buying beer.” What people are saying is “ShockTop is owned by AB, that’s a bit more expensive but they support my beliefs, let’s get that.” ShockTop and Goose Island and their other “craft beers” have seen an explosion of sales. So has Corona. Why? Because people like that silly bar in Texas who stopped carrying Bud and switched to Corona. Corona is owned by the parent company to Bud and had higher margins than Bud, so AB didn’t lose any sales. The internet is full of “I’m not buying Bud, I’m getting Rolling Rock instead” and other boycott fails where people dump their Bud in favor of another AB drink.
This level of faulty thinking suggests the writer is missing key points. Points that would have been brought up in any legitimate marketing strategy meeting.
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Well, with a BA in statistical analysis and trending, I’ve sat in on a “legitimate marketing strategy meeting” or two in my life. Let me tell you, all the points I made are ones that come up in those meetings (with some points left out for complexity and to not bore people). In fact, I work in a field totally outside of what my degree is and during a meeting my new boss discovered my degree and my proficiency in the subject. I literally just gave a presentation analyzing the statistics of marketing and customer reach, response, and growth in relation to Pride Month. So discussions exactly like this have been my literal job for the last several weeks/months.
Judging by your points, it seems you have an anecdotal, at best, background in the topic based off of old marketing stereotypes that are dead, abandoned, or never existed in the first place. They’re certainly not metrics any company with billions of dollars would use to determine what’s going on with their future.
"show transparency" A piece of plastic has transparency. Most companies keep their marketing strategies close to the vest to keep their competitors in the dark about their next marketing move.
False. New products, new lines, or expansions are sometimes kept quiet to prevent competition copycats, but marketing? Absolutely not. Especially social media and influencer marketing. To be honest, it’s the least secret type of marketing that has existed in the history of commercial sales. Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY in every company knows which high ranking influencers their competition is using. Not only is it declared by the influencer and/or their agents, but often times they identify the same influencer and directly compete with them. Commercial campaigns, print campaigns, all of them are freely, easily, and widely known by each company throughout the industry. You have watched too much Mad Men if you think that when a company starts a marketing blitz, the competition is totally unaware of what it is.
