When I was a kid and Richard Nixon ran for president, there were lawn signs in the neighborhood. I was riding in a pickup driven by Chris Landels and I asked him why folks put the signs up. He said it was a way of telling people who you backed. Chris owned the local Chevron station, and I asked him why he didn’t have a sign there.
He was also the manager of the local semipro baseball team, and I was its bat boy and sole paid employee at $2 whole dollars a game.
He shook his head and said he would never do that; he never wanted to insult customers who might not feel the same. “That’s just bad business,” he said trying to impart wisdom in my nearly empty 12-year-old head.
I mention this because we are living in some very interesting times. I was traveling not long ago, and we stopped at a roadhouse that featured “Freedom Frys” and a large sign inside celebrating Donald Trump, while twin flatscreens broadcast Fox News in stereo.
After we got back in the car, hungry but empowered, I thought of Chris.
As a senior reporter at The Deal, I have covered companies such as Black Rifle Coffee Company (BRCC) and Public Square Inc. (PSQH) that cater to conservative consumers by design. Both these companies went public using a special purpose acquisition vehicle, an alternative investment vehicle that essentially shortcuts the IPO process to bring a company to the public capital markets. Public Square traded at $2 a share in mid-October, while Black Rifle was priced at $1.39. Both companies had share prices a little above $10 when they went public.
Both entities are focused on attracting folks looking to spend their disposable income with companies that mirror their own political views. In putting their business models together, they both made decisions to not only appeal to conservative voters but also to essentially write off left leaning shoppers.
Voting with one’s wallet has become increasingly popular as we have squared off in tribes and identity politics have grown into different parts of our lives. As a liberal I dumped my Washington Post subscription after the newspaper decided to abandon its editorial board’s presidential endorsement of the ill-fated run by Kamala Harris to curry favor with Trump.
At the other end of the political spectrum are brands like Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream (owned by British multinational Unilever) and Wisconsin-based Penzy’s Spices, which has created a formal marketing campaign around banging the GOP and Trump.
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale professor in the School of Management, told the New York Times, “It’s the job of CEOs to elevate issues and explain how it matters to them. This is permanently part of the social context of business.”
OK, so times change, and I don’t have a dog in this fight. But do I have opinions and I get paid to share them in print. Moreover, however, I would truly like to better understand the calculus of how a brand or a company looks at politics and decides how it wants to position itself and what bottom line impact it will have for them. National brands have scale, so maybe there isn’t as much pure risk for them as a small local company deciding to court business in a more blatant political manner.
Some products may lead to a logical choice. For instance, if you owned a shop that sold guns and ammo, preaching second amendment jargon and denouncing those who don’t share your politics could make sense.
But basic business practices support the idea of making it easy for patrons to buy your product or service, and drawing from the largest possible pool of customers seems to lead to a healthier bottom line.
But at the local level, the decision to use political persuasion as a vehicle to win commerce must be trickier.
Your thoughts?
Your Marin Moment
One of the truly endearing qualities of Marin is its charming downtowns. And one of the challenges is finding parking to enjoy them. Even harder is finding spots if you work downtown.
San Anselmo is trying to make life a bit easier for downtown businesses and employees. The Town Council recently made a move, changing a total of 29 spaces on both sides of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, to four-hour parking. For members of the merchants parking program, those spots are good for a full workday. The parking lot at Creek Park will also become four-hour parking.
I applaud the Town Council’s empathetic move on behalf of merchants and employees. Working retail and serving restaurant customers is hard enough without keeping an eye on the clock or feeding a meter.
