By ALLAN GLEN
Adidas could be facing its ‘Bud Light moment’ as calls to boycott the brand continue in a row over its use of a biologically male model to promote a women’s swimsuit in its ‘Pride 2023’ collection.
The sportswear giant provoked fury from fans who accused it of making a ‘mockery’ of women when it unveiled an advertisement for the swimsuit which forms part of its campaign to ‘uphold inclusive values’.
But disenfranchised fans continued to slam the ‘woke‘ firm today, with some encouraging customers to ‘burn’ their Adidas Gazelle trainers in protest.
One angry fan said the backlash was Adidas’ ‘Bud Light moment’, echoing the debacle the US beer brand faced after it launched an advertising campaign featuring a transgender social media influencer.
Sales of the beer plummeted following the backlash and its parent company Anheuser-Busch saw $3 billion wiped from its market cap value after its paid partnership with Dylan Mulvaney was revealed at the beginning of April.
Others warned firms who use similar ‘woke’ marketing tactics could be next to face the wrath of consumers.
Mulvaney had been paid to promote a challenge in which people could win $15,000 from Bud Light by sending in videos of themselves with the brand’s beers.
But the campaign sparked outrage among conservative social media personalities, who attacked the firm for turning to ‘woke’ advertising.
That followed a separate boycott of Nike earlier in April over its partnership with Mulvaney to promote its female sports clothing range.
Mulvaney posed for a series of pictures and videos promoting the brand’s sports bra and leggings. Mulvaney identifies as a woman and uses the pronouns ‘she/they’ but has not had gender reassignment surgery.
In the latest controversy over so-called ‘woke marketing’, the Adidas swimsuit is modelled by an unidentified model who is described as being 6ft 2in and with a 34inch chest.
A ‘Boycott Adidas’ hashtag began trending after the campaign launched on Monday in what has become the latest backlash against so-called ‘woke marketing’.
Adidas and Bud Light aren’t the only firms facing backlash over their woke agendas.
Target has also faced the consequences of their actions.
https://nypost.com/2023/05/28/target-loses-10b-following-boycott-calls-over-lgbtq-friendly-clothing/
By Ronny Reyes
Target has lost $10 billion in market valuation over the last 10 days as the popular retailer continues to face backlash over its Pride-themed clothing line for children.
A week ago Wednesday, Target enjoyed its stock value at $160.96 a share, but following the calls to boycott the Minneapolis-based retailer over its “PRIDE” collection, the value plummeted and closed Friday at $138.93 a share.
The nearly 14% drop in value for the blue chip stock roughly translates to a $10.1 billion loss in valuation to just $64.2 billion for Target, which has nearly 2,000 stores nationwide.
The plummet stands as the retailer’s lowest stock price in nearly three years.
Target, which has been caught in the middle of America’s culture wars over gender, moved its Pride section in some Southern stores away from the front last week after it said displays were knocked over by protesters, who also confronted workers.
The retailer also said it would remove items from the collection but did not specify which ones.
Among the ones that garnered the most attention were “tuck-friendly” women’s swimsuits that allow trans women who have not had gender-affirming operations to conceal their genitalia, as well as rainbow-themed children’s clothing.
So, as we see the far left pushing their liberal agenda, it appears the opposition has found a new weapon, the boycott.
But guess what? It isn’t new at all. It has been used before here in the US and it was tremendously effective.
How about a little history?
Now believe it or not, our forefathers did not immediately take up guns to fight the King. They were much smarter than that. They knew there was no way a handful of colonists could defeat the largest military force in the world at the time.
Yet, they came up with an amazing method of resistance that got the immediate attention of England and the British Parliament and forced the King and his Prime Minister to back off.
What was their secret weapon?
For that answer, we need a little history.
In 1651, the British Parliament, in the first of what became known as the Navigation Acts, declared that only English ships would be allowed to bring goods into England, and that the North American colonies could only export its commodities, such as tobacco and sugar, to England.
This effectively prevented the colonies from trading with other European countries. The act was followed by several others that imposed additional limitations on colonial trade and increased customs duties. Now came the secret weapon.
They called them Nonimportation Agreements, today, we call them boycotts.
Nonimportation Agreements, (1765–75), were a way to force British recognition of political rights through the application of economic pressure.
At the time, the colonists had suffered under the Navigation Acts, The Stamp Act of 1765 (a tax on cards, dice, newspapers and legal documents), and the Townshend Acts 1767, (a tax on paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea). C
Colonial nonimportation associations were now organized to boycott all English goods.
In each case, British merchants and manufacturers suffered huge reductions in trade with the colonies and they now put pressure on Parliament to lift the restrictions on the colonies.
Guess what folks? It worked! The British businessmen marched on Parliament and said, “You idiots are costing us a fortune!”
Parliament, facing a hostile electorate, repealed the acts.
Now, where did we get this term boycott?
Simply put, a boycott is a protest where the protesters do not buy a product or give money to a company.
Instead of buying a certain product, they might also buy another, very similar product from a different company.
The word boycott comes from the name of English Captain Charles Boycott.
Boycott was in charge of looking after the land of a landlord in County Mayo, Ireland (40,000 acres).
In 1880, the Irish tenants (those who rented) wanted their rent lowered.
Boycott refused, and threw them out of the land they had rented.
The Irish Land League then proposed that instead of becoming violent, everyone in the community should stop doing business with Captain Boycott. The captain was soon isolated.
No one helped him with the harvest, no one worked in his stables or his house. Local businessmen no longer traded with him, even the postman no longer delivered his mail.
The Boycott affair was big news in Ireland, England, and elsewhere in the English-speaking world.
His name’s transformation into a common term is attributed to a local priest, who suggested using “boycott” to describe what was happening because “ostracize” was too complicated a word for the local peasantry.
Boycotting spread across Ireland. The word was adopted elsewhere, including non English-speaking countries.
The new word was included in the first edition of A New English Dictionary Based on Historical Principles (1888), later known as the Oxford English Dictionary.
And so, Captain Boycott lives on, having unwillingly lent his name to a time-honored tactic.
So, let’s go back to our story:
American cities in the colonies, now implemented boycotts to resist unpopular British policies.
The use of raw materials, goods produced in the colonies, and Yankee ingenuity were the order of the day.
It was during this time the American colonies experimented with the notion of being self-sufficient and not relying on the mother country.
The merchants and traders agreed to boycott British goods until the taxes on those goods were repealed. Some critical goods were exempt from the boycott such as salt, and hemp and duck canvases. Smuggling was widespread.
This was in direct violation of the Navigation Acts. Almost every American community benefited from or participated in the smuggling of illegal goods obtained from Dutch, French, and Spanish merchants.
Smuggling was not only a cheaper alternative to taxed British goods, but also served as an effective means to resist and undermine British policies. Boston was rife with smuggled goods and smugglers.
Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere were all known as notorious Boston Patriot smugglers and were all proponents of the use of non-importation agreements and similar boycott tactics.
The Stamp Act was repealed because of joint boycotts by American colonies.
New York merchants first implemented the boycott to protest the Stamp Act and they were able to persuade the merchants of other cities to do the same.
Boston was one of the cities New York merchants persuaded to participate in the boycott agreement to combat the Stamp Act.
As a result of the successful boycott and pressure from British merchants who were losing a fortune, Britain gave in and finally repealed the Stamp Act.
The impact of the Boston boycotts, and all similar agreements, were significant.
Approximately sixty merchants and traders signed the agreement on August 1, 1768, and within two weeks, all but sixteen of Boston’s merchants, traders, and business owners had joined the boycott.
Boston tradesmen, artisans, and other business owners happily signed the agreement in hopes the boycott would generate business for them.
Within months, almost every port and region within the Thirteen Colonies adopted similar boycotts to protest and undermine the Townshend Revenue Act, although many Southern merchants and traders with Loyalist leanings refused to cooperate.
Smuggling was rampant throughout the colonies. The effects felt by British merchants who traded with the American colonies were alarming.
Merchants lost money shipping their goods to the colonies where they would not be received.
More often than not the goods were never allowed ashore. If they were, they rotted on docks or in warehouses or were looted by the colonists.
The situation was a nightmare for customs officials who could not collect taxes on goods that were either not allowed ashore or were never sold.
In response to the Boston boycotts, Parliament ultimately repealed the Townshend Revenue Act taxes on all commodities except tea.
The King insisted Parliament keep at least one tax to prove the colonists had not completely won.
The Boston boycotts of 1768 and the subsequent repeal of the Townshend Revenue Act taxes on all commodities except tea was a major cause leading to the December 16, 1773 Boston Tea Party.
With the passing of the Tea Act in May of 1773, the tea tax under the Townshend Revenue Act was still in effect.
The tea tax which was not repealed, like the other taxes under the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act repealed in 1770, was one of the fundamental reasons why the Tea Act angered and mobilized colonists to protest and boycott the shipments of British East India Company tea.
If the tea tax would have been repealed in 1770 with all of the other taxes, in all probability the Boston Tea Party would have never happened.
So folks, the boycott agreements in the years prior to the American Revolution were a very effective tactic to protest British policies and demonstrated to other colonies the potential for united action.
As a result of the successful boycott, Boston started with the 1768 Boston Non-Importation Agreement, the First Continental Congress in 1774 would pass a colony-wide prohibition against any trade with Britain.
Now I have to admit, the colonists did have a major problem.
During this period, 1/3 of the colonists supported King George, 1/3 Supported George Washington and the patriots, and finally 1/3 didn’t care one way or the other.
That is very similar to what we are facing today.
I would say that fully 1/3 of the people support the liberal agenda being pushed in our current marketing campaigns, our schools, and our society.
I/3 support the conservative agenda and are pushing the boycotts we are seeing.
Finally, I/3 of Americans don’t care one way or the other. They just want to left alone.
Our forefathers relied on economic networks that included farmers, traders, artisans, working men, and women to create a new political movement.
The nature of the movement seemed to show that ordinary free people were capable of having a stronger voice in politics.
So, there you have it folks. When faced with a government completely out of control, our forefathers turned to boycotts and it worked.
Would the same tactic work today? What if everyone refused to simply not watch certain news channels, or patronize a certain brand of beer, or eat a certain brand of ice cream?
It worked in the 1700’s, would it work now? Think about it.
Is this the answer to combatting the “Woke Agenda?”