I'm conflicted, and I don't know what my opinion is on this. If a business has stated their opinion on an issue, can they change that? What do they need to do in order to "repent," or show they are genuine in their transition?
I got thinking about this today, when I saw Amazon's new commercial for their Kindle. If you haven't seen it, it basically has a male and a female by a pool. The female is reading a Kindle, the male is reading a tablet of some sort. He is having trouble because the sun is reflecting on the tablet, so the female is like "I have a Kindle," and basically it convinces the male to purchase a Kindle. The male then says he should buy the female a drink, for all her help. She says something to the effect of "no thanks, my husband is getting me something." And he goes, "oh mine too!" and it cuts to the bar by the pool, where two men have drinks in hand and wave at the male and female at the pool.
So this is a very casual, very innocent advertisement, that shows Amazon's support for same-sex relationships in a normalized way. Awesome, right? I love things like that. I am not sure how mainstream this commerical will go, but it's a great start.
But here's my confusion. A few years ago, I decided to stop supporting Amazon because they decided to list all of their LGBTQ material as "adult," thus not showing up in general searches on the site. This move, was to me, a blatant example of how this company wasn't supportive of same-sex relationships and individuals that identified as gay, and did not work to make homosexuality mainstream. In fact, it basically spread the message that homosexuality was to be hidden and wasn't safe for the mainstream.
I am conscious of my "economic vote," and so I decided not to purchase items from Amazon because of that. But then this happens. And I get confused.
The same thing happened with Toms shoes. The founder of Toms was slated to speak at a Focus on the Family event. If you are not aware, Focus on the Family is an organization that uses the Bible to attack homosexuality, and in my opinion, can be considered a hate group. The founder apparently backed out after there was some backlash about the situation. But it's sort of the same thing. Did the founder not care about supporting a proven discriminatory group until his business would be compromised?
Or Dr. Pepper. Remember those commercials where Dr. Pepper had so many flavors, it was only for men? But now it has changed its marketing to focus more on Dr. Pepper being for the unique people, which is all of us, apparently. Especially roller derby mothers, which I do appreciate roller derby being in the mainstream. But still.
I'm sure there are more examples of this, of businesses, or even people, making changes and changing their tune. And I'm torn on how to react to it.
On one hand, awesome for them for changing. I genuinely hope that these new changes are because they think supporting equality is the right thing to do. The educator in me is proud that they have grown, and hope that they have learned from their past actions.
But on the other hand, did they really learn from their past experiences? Or is this just a change in marketing based solely on the backlash the companies received from their past experiences? Can you ignore a company's history and support them, even when they burned you in the past? Or am I just holding a gruge that doesn't need to be held?
I think I can forgive, but not forget. I believe in growth and change, and I know that individual people can do it. In fact, I chose my career off of helping people grow and develop. So why can't larger companies and corporations? It just is an interesting concept to me, and I want to ask why. I want to sit down with the folks in charge of marketing, and understand what made the change happen, and help to understand why this shift in thinking happened.
So forgive. Yes, Dr. Pepper. I forgive you for being sexist. Amazon, I forgive you for considering me a second class citizen. Toms, I forgive you for potentially perpetuating hate. But I cannot forget, and while I will continue to buy Toms shoes, and I will start shopping at Amazon.com again, I will tread carefully. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
What are your thoughts? Do you think these changes in marketing and opinions are genuine?
