👉 Background: The Hershey Company is an American multinational company founded in 1894 with delicious chocolate like Reese’s and Hershey bars.
👉 What happened: Last year, Hershey’s sales jumped 12.6% in the third quarter of the financial year. But now, there have been widespread calls on social media to boycott Hersheys for its International Women’s Day Canadian campaign.
👉 What else: Its campaign features five women on their chocolate bar wrappers, including a trans woman. Many praised the campaign, but others threatened to boycott the brand. And this is the latest example of a brand generating a strong but mixed reaction to a promotional campaign.
💡 Brands often align themselves with social campaigns as a way to attract customers and demonstrate their company values. While this move receives support from some people, it often receives major backlash from others.
💡 When companies stand by their values, it often helps them attract their ideal customer. For example, Nike was the target of a boycott campaign when it featured for NFL footballer Colin Kaepernick in an ad in 2018.
💡 Following the ad, a poll found that 52% of people were in favour of Nike’s use of Kaepernick in its commercial. And Nike’s stock has gone up about 80% since 2018.
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