Target's Brand Buzz Is In The Toilet Over Anti-Gay Donation

What does giving $150,000 in support of a political candidate who wants to ban gay marriage and believes that gay parents are immoral get you? In the case of Target, it gets you a whole heap of negative brand buzz.

The folks over at Brandweek note a new survey out by You Gov, the Brandweek BrandIndex Report, which measures how consumers feel about a given company on a week-by-week basis. Through surveying American customers, You Gov analyzes the buzz and excitement that a certain product or brand name has. Nearly 5,000 people are interviewed daily as part of the You Gov survey, and the weekly reporting gives a pretty vivid picture of what companies have the hearts of the American consumer base, and which ones need to do some major fence mending.

Target falls into that latter category. According to Brand Week, the past month has seen Target lose more than 1/3 of its brand buzz index, indicating consumer fallout over the company's donations in support of Tom Emmer, the GOP candidate for Minnesota governor with ties to a religious group that advocates violence toward LGBT people, and who himself has tried to pass statewide legislation banning gay marriage and gay parenting.

"Target itself in political hot water in early August when it was revealed that it donated $150,000 to MN Forward, a group that supports gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, who has aligned himself with radical anti-gay groups. Despite CEO Gregg Steinhafel’s Aug. 5 apology on the company's site, Target lost one-third of its buzz score in the course of 10 days," Brand Week notes. That could be because Steinhafel's apology wasn't necessarily an apology, but rather a missive that said, essentially, "Hey, we have good corporate policies when it comes to LGBT rights. So let us support anti-gay politicians."

Brand Week goes a bit further in their analysis, noting that Target's brand buzz index has continued to stay in the toilet through the month of August.

"Although Target’s score recovered modestly from Aug. 12 through Aug. 24, it sunk again due to a rash of major newspaper op-eds, blog posts and publicity surrounding televised boycott ads from MoveOn PAC," Brand Week says.

That should be all the proof that Target needs in order to finally digest that their donation to support Emmer was bad for business. Yet despite the brand fall out, and continued calls for boycotts andprotests, Target has pledged to stay engaged in politics, and has made no pledges whatsoever about refusing to endorse candidates in the future who might hold untenable positions on gay rights.

Perhaps Target needs their brand buzz to get even lower before acting?

Check out the index image below, and the rest of the article over at Brand Week.