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Craig Young examines Family First’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion campaign.

Some weeks ago, I did an article on Family First’s highlighting of equal employment opportunities and segment advertising to LGBTQI+ communities, recognition of Te Ao Maori, climate change and other far-right thought crimes.

My assessment was that the “Woke Up” website wouldn’t arouse particularly much attention. Sexual orientation has been included within corporate EEO policies and the anti-discrimination Human Rights Act of 1993 for well over thirty years, and Family First has only existed for eighteen. Moreover, there’s a thriving Maori business sector and in areas where Te Ao Maori can raise market share in a recession-hit economic environment, it makes sense to pursue it. Nobody denies the existence of climate change apart from a few scientific illiterates or fossil fuel corporations.

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According to Radio New Zealand’s Sue Edmunds, new research indicates that brand loyalty and market share retention are built through the continued pursuit of target markets such as LGBTQI+ communities and others. What Family First fails to recognise is that awareness of Indigenous rights, LGBTQI+ rights, reproductive rights and climate change isn’t just subjective ‘social justice ideology’ or ‘wokeness’, it’s an element of the social fabric and an element of interest within marketing and employment strategies. Metropolitan corporates recognise this and aren’t willing to listen to conservative Christians who are unwilling to recognise pluralism, diversity and business opportunities exist in this context.

What Family First was trying to do with Woke Up was clone a US Christian Right anti-DEI campaign that has had some success in persuading farm machinery companies, Harley Davidson, Ford Motors, Coors Beer and Jack Daniels to divest from LGBTQI+ activities and close down marketing directed at those market segments. Frankly, I’m not surprised at the farm machinery companies backsliding, given LGBTQI+ communities are largely metropolitan and urban. One hopes that they don’t have metropolitan subsidiaries or product lines that could suffer.

The campaign is apparently masterminded by a right-wing US conspiracy theorist named Robby Starbuck. Amongst other things, Starbuck believes that ‘toxic chemicals are turning children gay’, and that the death of the late Friends star Matthew Perry was caused by the Covid-19 vaccine, not a ketamine overdose. Clearly, those corporations that were convinced by this charlatan didn’t perform due diligence on the source of their anti-diversity campaigns.

Harley Davidson might attract some backlash given that it’s a premium status item, but it’s also problematic because it consumes excessive amounts of fossil fuels and may regret deliberately alienating LGBTQI+ senior executives, and managerial and professional personnel who might have assisted its market share. The same would apply to Ford Motors for analogous reasons

Jack Daniels and Coors Beer are going to bear the brunt of any organised LGBTQI+ corporate boycott backlash against their brands’ DEI dumping. That’s because they’re alcoholic beverages and disposable income products, and LGBTQI+ pubs and bars stock them- or did, before this foolhardy step. Both brands may now find pubs and bars won’t restock them, may cancel existing orders, and do so on a large scale that hurts both brands’ competitive market share in major US cities. Worse still for them, US LGBTQI+ consumers are in the mood to retaliate, according to the Human Rights Campaign lobby group.

All of this has probably registered with corporate communications and marketing departments outside the United States, which is why Diversity Education and Inclusion is not going to be abandoned here soon, no matter what this latest shallow and derivative Family First campaign might desire.

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