Why Chick-fil-A and Other Brands Aren't Being Bullied

If brand managers controlled the universe, big companies would glide through the culture wars with safe and steady neutrality, never taking sides. Chief executive officers at high-profile companies would never pledge $2.5 million in support of gay marriage (as Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos did in July) or speak out publicly against same-sex marriages (as Chick-fil-A’s Dan Cathy did recently in an interview with Biblical Recorder). “If you’re a big publicly held company, you don’t want to piss off anybody on any side of any issue,” says Claudia Caplan, the chief marketing officer of RP3 Agency. “You want to be Switzerland.”

In 2012, with cable-TV news producers and social media instigators constantly on the prowl for new controversies to inflame, it’s never been easier for a discontented group to launch a boycott of a brand and to recruit like-minded consumers. Yet, despite the wishes of marketing advisers everywhere, big brands are enraging consumers left and right. The website Ethical Consumer lists dozens of active boycotts targeting the likes of Adidas, Bacardi, Barclays, Burberry, Caterpillar, Estée Lauder, H&M, and on and on.