Brandjack News

By Quentin Langley

Disney and its Marvel subsidiary are among the companies that have led calls for boycotts of Georgia – the US state, not the country in the Caucasus – if the religious freedom bill is signed into law by Governor Nathan Deal. The bill is aimed at protecting religious business owners from prosecution or law suits over declining service to gay customers, especially in relation to gay marriages.

This matters. Georgia has invested a great deal in becoming an attractive environment for movie-making. Only California and New York are home to more movie-making. Marvel's hugely successful Avengers franchise has been filmed mostly in Georgia. There seems no doubt that Georgia will lose business as a result of this.

This blog is not the right place to explore the balance between the rights of LGBT people and religious freedoms. This blog is for exploring the reputational implications for Georgia and the companies which choose to make a stand on this issue. 

In my book, I mentioned more than once that I would generally advise companies not to take a stance on culture wars issues unless there's a good reason to do so. On the whole, people offended by the stance are more likely to shift their behaviour than people who support the stance. Most businesses would lose more customers than they would gain. If a corporation wants to sacrifice business by taking a principled stance, it should do so with eyes open.

The interesting question to ask is, why does Disney want to take this stance? The corporation is not new to the issue. Disney is definitely not jumping on the bandwagon of an issue that has recently become popular. Disney has been offering "gay days" at its theme parks for 25 years. For 20 years it has offered its gay staff partner benefits. It publicly opposed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). These were very controversial stances in the 1990s. DOMA was carried with overwhelming bi-partisan support in Congress. So why would Disney do it when it is reasonable to assume that, in the 1990s, most of its customers would have disagreed with the stance.

We can make that statement with some degree of confidence about the 1990s, even though it is probably no longer true. Disney's core audience is families with young children – though the Marvel franchise appeals more to teens and adults. A majority in the US now favor gay marriage, and this is particularly true among younger people. But in the 1990s large majorities opposed the idea. Furthermore, gay people are not highly represented in a market segment that is dominated by families with children.

The answer, I suspect, goes to the heart of a constant disagreement I have with those of my colleagues who teach marketing. They think PR is part of marketing. I think marketing is part of PR. Your marketing publics – customers and consumers – are important, but not the only publics a corporation needs in order to succeed. Disney also needs staff. Its talent base is critical to its success. It recruits talent from Hollywood and Broadway. Not every singer or dancer recruited from Broadway is gay and nor is every Hollywood actor, but you can guarantee that virtually all of them have gay friends.

Sure, Disney got criticised in the 1990s by various church groups for its stand, but most customers really don't care that much about the staff benefits a corporation provides. Staff care. A lot. If Disney had continued excluding a significant section of its staff from critical benefits, those staff members and their friends would have found that offensive.

Disney is protecting its publics. But how will Georgia fare if it proceeds with this legislation. Other movie-makers are likely to follow. Some high profile actors will take a stand, which will put pressure on other movie corporations to join the boycott. All that money invested in tax breaks could end up being wasted. 

UPDATE: Governor Nathan Deal has vetoed the bill.