A tale of two Target boycotts
What makes Target’s DEI crisis so damaging when a 2023 boycott featuring similar themes failed to take hold? And what can brands learn from unpacking both?
Week after week, Target’s tanking foot traffic – delivered by shoppers boycotting the company’s DEI rollbacks – continues to drive national headlines. Many stories make passing reference to previous such protests in Target’s recent history, including another boycott just two years ago that was also triggered by social justice issues (a Transgender-friendly Pride collection in that case).
So I wondered: how does this boycott’s success compare to the last?
While both controversies resulted in wall-to-wall media coverage and heated debate (and hate) on social media, the two crises were quite different: a right-wing response to corporate embrace of Transgenderism in 2023, and a liberal (or perhaps mainstream) reaction to the company’s decision to cut DEI practices in 2025. And they produced vastly different business outcomes: most recently, Target’s foot traffic has dropped significantly after it dumped DEI; while Target actually saw more shoppers walk through its doors after the uproar in 2023.
Why? And what can brands learn about what kind of consumer criticism cuts deep, and which is actually toothless?
January 2025…to date: A DEI debacle
In January, citing the “importance of staying in step with the evolving external landscape,” Target announced it would end most of its corporate DEI programs and pull down a variety of DEI-related practices – provoking a boycott that gained steam with a call from Rev. Jamal Bryant, a prominent Atlanta-area pastor, to avoid shopping at Target for 40 days. Many Target fans feel they were “sold a lie,” according to one Target executive quoted anonymously by CNN. Backlash has been so severe that Target closed down the comments function on its brand Tik-Tok account, and the NAACP is tracking companies that remain committed to DEI and encouraging shoppers to spend their dollars there instead.
Business result: Rough – and ongoing. Foot traffic at Target is down nine consecutive weeks since the DEI rollback announcement. It was down 14 percent in February – and nine percent year over year for the same month – according to Puck (which also informed us that “Target boycott” is now the first result when searching for the company on Instagram). In actual numbers, that translates to 5 million fewer store visits in February compared to the year before – while top competitor Costco, which has maintained its DEI commitments, saw 7.7 million more store visits in the same stretch.
In the aftermath, Target seems set on maintaining a reputation for “finding a middle ground” on LGBTQ+ rights. It shifted corporate language and focus from DEI to “belonging” and divested from Twin Cities Pride (parade organizers subsequently banned Target from participating at all). And its departure from DEI commitments leaves it especially vulnerable given Target’s location in Minneapolis – a city now famous globally as the site of George Floyd’s murder and the origin of 2020’s racial reckoning.
Spring 2023: Transgender fever dream
In May 2023, Target’s Pride collection, which featured products specifically designed for Transgender people, became the subject of intense social media outrage and calls for boycott among anti-Trans activists, right-wing pundits, and some politicians. The heat on this issue was especially strong given a recent boycott of Bud Light in response to the brand’s association with Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, and so was the media coverage of the controversy, which raised so much anger that Target was forced to increase security at certain stores. The right-wing rapper Forgiato Blow released a song titled “Boycott Target” that reached #1 on the iTunes chart.
Business result: Neutral to…good? During the four-week period that included the majority of uproar, Target actually saw a 69 percent increase in foot traffic compared to the same time period last year. The hottest moments of controversy took place the week of May 21 – yet Target greeted 8.70 million daily visitors over those seven days compared to 8.54 million the week before. Target saw a greater boost in shoppers that week than Walmart and Costco did. To be clear, Target was recovering from a weak 2022 at the time, so gains were expected. But the boycott appears to have made little or no dent in that recovery.
Why such a difference?
It comes down to two traps to avoid when building a brand with meaning – and, on the flip side, two brand opportunities worth studying:
Trap #1 – Equating volume with consensus: Basing your actions on perceived attitudes and values among consumers, often warped by a brash minority of voices, is a common pitfall – and all too easy at a time when media often rewards volume over veracity, and our elected officials project rhetoric at odds with public sentiment.
Instead, business and brand leaders should take an extra beat (or five) to assess any and all data and means of listening available to understand the authentic attitudes and values among mainstream consumers (or, even better, assess a narrower view of the community your business actually depends on).
Trap #2 – Underestimating cynicism – even among your biggest fans: When a brand that enjoys meaningful connection and shared identity with its community acts at odds with its own worldview and brand narrative, cynicism can surface quickly. In the minds of Americans with deep-seated skepticism over corporate motives, these actions reveal all that “meaning” was a sham. (This can cut both ways ideologically – for example, when Bud Light drinkers felt blindsided by the brand’s sudden embrace of a Transgender influencer and immediately cried “woke opportunism.”)
A brand working to create or maintain depth of meaning should find a way to reinforce its worldview and brand narrative even when it might cost you financially or inflame risk in the short run. In fact, sticking with your principles in such moments is an invaluable signal to send the market – and will pay off long after a crisis subsides.
When a company falls into both traps at once, as Target did with its DEI rollback, the results can be especially ugly.
How Target built brand meaning around DEI
For more than a decade, Target positioned itself as a strong champion of LGBTQ+ rights and, more broadly, practices to build a more inclusive and welcoming company and society. Starting in the mid-2010s, the company began showing up through support for marriage equality, gender-affirming bathrooms and fitting room policies, generous contributions to LGBTQ+ advocacy groups like GLSEN, Human Rights Campaign, and Out & Equal, and high-visibility support for Pride festivals in Minneapolis-St. Paul and across the country. In 2021, the company began selling Pride month merchandise in all stores.
Target’s DEI practices, strengthened after George Floyd’s murder just miles from the company’s headquarters (and Big Future’s), included goals of boosting its Black workforce by 20 percent throughout the company and more than $2 billion spent with Black-owned businesses. In 2022, Target CEO Brian Cornell accepted an award for Outstanding Commitment to DEI from the Executive Leadership Council, a prominent global organization of Black CEOs, at a swanky gala attended by Babyface and DJ Jazzy Jeff.
Clearly, Target has worked hard to build a corporate reputation as a strong champion for social and racial justice, as well as a brand narrative to match (see Target’s many community and retail activations, product initiatives, and content and communications efforts tied into its DEI values). For many consumers, this became a source of shared identity with the Target brand – a reason to love it deeply beyond the pure commercial relationship.
Behind the 2023 boycott – what can we learn?
Back in 2023, Target customers read the Pride collection boycott as a company taking action to pursue its worldview by putting a bold assortment of gender-affirming product into the market – with obvious detractors – and rewarded Target for it (by continuing to shop). The brand’s sturdy worldview and strong shared identity with customers paid off with resilience when enemies mounted an attack.
Meanwhile, the boycott and its underlying message – which ultimately only took hold among fringe detractors – fell flat for a few reasons:
It jumped the shark. The boycott quickly grew into something far less enticing for everyday people – lies and threats of violence. The most intense outrage on social media centered on a lie that Target was selling “tuck-friendly” swimsuits for children. Mainstream news outlets quickly reported the truth, which neutralized or even damaged the boycott’s credibility. In addition, media coverage quickly turned to threats being made to Target workers’ safety, causing the company to add security measures and move the Pride collection to the back of certain stores.
It emanated from the outrage-industrial complex. The “backlash” Target experienced wasn’t organic – it’s part of a well-documented strategic effort to leverage the echo chamber of small but vocal fringe voices in right-wing media to create fear among corporate leaders and cause companies to back away from endorsing so-called “liberal” values. As Matt Walsh, a host for the far-right outlet The Daily Wire, admitted publicly just as the Target boycott was ginning up, “The goal is to make pride toxic for brands.”
Target is already “left”-coded. The Target brand is already considered “progressive” by American consumers. According to a YouGov study of how brands intersect with partisanship, Target skews very high in terms of liberal preference, with 55 percent of liberals considering Target when in-market, compared with just 26 percent of conservatives. As a baseline, this means a conservative boycott would have to work far harder to hurt Target than a liberal one.
Why is Target’s current boycott so much worse?
To start, Target’s leaders appear not to have learned the lessons above from the Pride boycott. From the outside, it seems they also misread President Trump’s election (and Robbie Starbucks’ well-publicized efforts) as a sea-change in thinking among mainstream American consumers. In reality, only about one-third of Americans actually voted for Trump in this election – and, as mentioned above, Trump voters are far less likely to be Target shoppers (Trap #1). More importantly, as Axios said recently, “There’s a big disconnect between political rhetoric and reality” when it comes to DEI (the same can be said about a whole host of issues). According to a Harris/Axios survey published after Target’s announcement, 61 percent of Americans say diverse employees have a positive impact on organizations, and 75 percent say more needs to be done to guarantee everyone is advancing.
Most crucially, since Target’s brand identity and narrative were all wrapped up in its commitments to social justice, customers – and journalists/commentators – read Target’s sudden backtrack on DEI commitments as a break from its worldview (Trap #2). This, in turn, fractured their shared identity with the Target brand.
This is the most dangerous scenario. We can only assume Target’s leaders chose to act on the perceived values of consumers, versus real data. Their decision contrasted with the company’s well-established values, worldview, and brand narrative – earned through a lot of effort and investment over the years. And they put their view of the company’s short-term business needs (including the possibility of Trump turning the bullseye around on Target) ahead of the long-term needs of its community. Target reports it was on track to meet its prior workforce diversity goals and financial commitments to Black suppliers – progress that is unlikely to continue.
(This is even more puzzling since CEO Brian Cornell has been so clear about the business benefit of DEI programs and practices – stating in 2023 that [our] “focus on diversity and inclusion and equity has fueled much of our growth… It’s adding value, it’s helping us drive sales, it’s building greater engagement with both our teams and our guests.” According to Target’s own 2022 diversity report, stores with higher diversity metrics experienced 5 percent higher customer satisfaction scores and 8 percent lower employee turnover compared to less diverse locations.)
Being a brand with meaning heightens the stakes of falling into these traps. Target’s top competitor, Walmart, also reneged on its DEI commitments; yet Target received nearly triple the number of social media posts about its DEI changes than Walmart. Along the same vein, while Target saw a 6.5 percent dip in foot traffic in March, Walmart’s was down just 3.8 percent.
It’s worth noting that part of Target fans’ feelings of betrayal by the retailer likely stems from feeling burned before. Some saw the company’s removal or repositioning of Pride products in 2023 as a capitulation to the mob, rather than about worker safety in the face of threats, as the company reported. And back when Target embraced gender-affirming bathroom policy, it didn’t change course so much in the face of criticism – but it did appease it by spending $20 million on private bathrooms.
Target employees are reportedly furious. The anger stems both from a values perspective – and from an economic standpoint, with Target forced to trim store hours in some locations, leaving workers with less income. A company looking for a compass when it comes to its worldview should start with its own workforce, especially since employee engagement and recruitment and retention power is one of the prime benefits of building brand meaning. Before January, 78 percent of Target employees felt the company was committed to fostering an inclusive workplace, contributing to employee engagement scores 12 percent higher than industry averages. It will be interesting to see if the company can maintain those levels. According to employees, Target has a history of deferring to customers over workers’ needs.
Meanwhile, Target’s financial pain continues with no end in sight.
For brands in an era of dupes, disruption, and economic destabilization, the ability to create meaning and shared identity with consumers is a vital ingredient for growth and resilience. Meaning materializes from a consistent – perhaps unshakeable – worldview plus consistent actions to pursue it. Target was on this path for years, building trust and benefitting from its industry leadership and connections with consumers that transcended commercial transactions. We’ll see what happens next with Target – and I’m eager to see which brands can learn from their mistakes.