Take a breath before succumbing to the culture wars

Take a breath before succumbing to the culture wars

Another Pride Month in the books, and another pressure campaign having the desired effect.

Sigh.

Last year the pressure campaign was waged against Bud Light and Target; this year it’s John Deere and Tractor Supply. And this year, John Deere and Tractor Supply caved to the pressure, publicly stating that they’re backing away from the kind of goals related to the treatment of people that have become commonplace in corporate America. Specifically, they said:

Tractor Supply:

• We will no longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign.
• We will refocus our Team Member Engagement Groups on mentoring, networking and supporting the business.
• We will further focus on rural America’s priorities including ag education, animal welfare, veteran causes and being a good neighbor and stop sponsoring nonbusiness activities like pride festivals and voting campaigns.
• We will eliminate DEI roles and retire our current DEI goals while still ensuring a respectful environment.
• We will withdraw our carbon emission goals and focus on our land and water conservation efforts.

John Deere:

• We will no longer participate in or support external social or cultural awareness parades, festivals or events.
• Business Resource Groups will exclusively be focused on professional development, networking, mentoring and supporting talent recruitment efforts.
• We will audit all company-mandated training materials and policies to ensure the absence of socially motivated messages, while being in compliance with federal, state and local laws.
• We will reaffirm within the business that the existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification have never been and are not company policy.
• We fundamentally believe that a diverse workforce enables us to best meet our customers’ needs and because of that we will continue to track and advance the diversity of our organization.

While both companies give a nod to the importance of respect and diversity, the news headlines are, essentially, “John Deere and Tractor Supply have walked away from DEI.”

The folks behind the pressure campaigns assumed that most people in rural America are anti-DEI and anti-ESG, and since both of these brands are tied to rural America, the companies wouldn’t want to upset these consumers. Disappointingly, the companies assumed the same. But “rural” doesn’t universally equal “diversity-hating” or even “climate denialism.” As we dig into our ongoing surveys of people all across the country – we’ve been at it for 18 years – we see that:

• 79% of people in rural America say how a company treats their employees is indicative of whether or not the company is a good company.
• 60% of people in rural America believe climate change is real and caused by human activity.
• 60% of people in rural America with children describe themselves as concerned about the impacts of climate change in their kids’ lifetimes.

It’s likely that while both companies have given some of their stakeholders a reason to feel vindicated and to like the brands even better, it’s also likely that they’ve given some of their stakeholders a reason to feel worse about the companies. I’m using “stakeholders” because when companies make these kinds of decisions, they’re not just signaling to consumers, but also to their employees, communities and investors. John Deere’s statement notes that they have 80,000 employees, and Tractor Supply’s notes that they have 50,000. It would be ludicrous to assume that neither company employs non-white people or LGBTQ+ people. How do those folks feel, knowing they work for a company that’s just walked back the policies designed to make the work environment feel safe for them?

The point is, if your company or brand is going to take a strong stand in the culture wars, consider your company’s purpose and business strategy first, and deeply understand your stakeholder audiences and what they care most about and value. And consider the long-tail impacts of your decisions on affinity for your brand and willingness to buy from you. In our Good Company report we highlight perceptions of Nike for their decision to back Colin Kaepernick and perceptions of Walmart related to how they treats their employees. In Nike’s case, they made a strategic on-brand decision, determining that the reward of elevating their brand among one set of consumers was worth the hit they’d take with another set who didn’t agree with them. In Walmart’s case, the negative perceptions around employee treatment hang on like a hangover they can’t get over. So much so that CEO Doug McMillan has addressed it in his company’s annual sustainability report in the past.

I suspect the hit that Tractor Supply and John Deere take with some stakeholders won’t be worth the upside they gain with others. We’ll see.