U.S. consumers boycotting Target over the giant retailer’s latest LGBTQ+ Pride Month collection are urging one key group to join them.
Angry shoppers who want Target to get “the Bud Light treatment” are calling on women to join them in their efforts to tank the company’s profits and to stop shopping at the world’s seventh-largest retailer.
Since the beginning of April, conservatives have boycotted Bud Light over its support of a transgender influencer. Anheuser-Busch, the beer brand’s parent company, is still reeling from the backlash nearly two months later. On Tuesday, JPMorgan analysts said they estimate the brewing company, which rakes in over $450 million in revenue in the 2022 fiscal year, to suffer a 26 percent decline in U.S. earnings this year.
Some argue that the only reason the Bud Light boycott was successful is because Bud Light’s primary customers—men—participated. Now, those consumers want women to do the same to Target in response to the recently-released range of clothing and accessories.
“The BudLight boycott was so successful because men are the primary customers and we made it socially unacceptable for other men to drink it,” former Republican congressional candidate Robby Starbuck tweeted on Tuesday. “Women must do the same thing to Target now by telling friends they won’t shop there because Target pushed trans products onto little kids.”
Right-wing commentator Matt Walsh agreed, arguing, “There’s only so much men can do to defend womanhood.”
“It’s up to conservative women to make the Target boycott work. If you guys mobilize, you could crush Target. It’s up to you,” Walsh wrote.
Target generated more than $106 billion in sales in 2022—more than 200 times what Anheuser Busch pulled in. Data shows that the vast majority of Americans shop at the retailer, with nearly 8 in 10 U.S. shoppers describing themselves as Target customers.
The average Target shopper, however, is like Starbuck and Walsh point out: women. According to analytics firm Numerator, the typical Target customer is a white suburban mother between 35 and 44 years old with a household income of $80,000.
Compared to other shopping giants, the Target shopper is younger than the average Walmart shopper, a 59-year-old white suburban woman earning $80,000 a year, is both whiter and lower income than the average Costco shopper, a 39-year-old Asian American woman who makes $125,000 a year and is less regional specific than the average Whole Foods shopper, a highly educated West Coast millennial woman making $80,000 annually.
“Christian women: maybe you feel that an all-out Target boycott is infeasible. But I encourage you to at least do it for the month of June. I promise it’s possible!!”
But getting the Target shopper to put their cash elsewhere could be challenging. Numerator’s data found that Target enjoys higher than average customer loyalty, coming second behind Walmart. For every customer it loses, the brand gains a new one.
“I think it’s funny that people even think the demographics of target shoppers is comparable to that of budlight drinkers,” one social media user tweeted.
“Your boycott will not negatively affect Target’s revenue,” another wrote. “When a major corporation makes decisions like this, they take into account who their market is.”
