Advertising Age reported Molson Coors is canning some of its DEIBA+ heat shields, becoming drinking buddies with other brands abandoning performative propaganda.
So, a brand that benefited from Bud Light’s backfired attempt to be more inclusive—picking up lots of beer business via the Dylan Mulvaney backlash—is moving to be more exclusive.
For advocates of true diversity, the brewer’s decision presents a lose-lose scenario.
Molson Coors joins Ford, Lowe’s and others in diversity retreat
The brewer announced it would no longer engage with the Human Rights Campaign’s corporate rankings
Molson Coors Beverage Co. is cutting back some of its corporate diversity efforts, joining a corporate retreat hastened by an anti-DEI social media campaign.
Molson Coors sent a memo to employees Tuesday saying it will stop linking executive compensation to employee representation, scrap supplier diversity goals, and no longer engage with the Human Rights Campaign’s corporate rankings. A spokesman for the firm shared the memo with Bloomberg News.
Conservative activist Robby Starbuck had posted a copy of the memo earlier Tuesday on his X social media account and said that he had been preparing to begin an attack on the brewer for its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
The maker of Coors is joining half a dozen companies including Ford Motor Co., Lowe’s Cos., and Harley-Davidson Inc. in pulling back from DEI policies.
The Molson Coors spokesman had no additional comment beyond providing the memo.
This isn’t the first time that social media-driven backlash has affected the beer market. Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and its Bud Light brand were punished for a promotion featuring a transgender influencer last year, boosting sales for rival Molson Coors’ light beer.
Starbuck, a music-video producer turned influencer, has claimed credit for changes to DEI programs at a string of U.S. companies in recent months. While other conservative activists like Edward Blum and Stephen Miller, the former senior adviser for President Donald Trump, have filed lawsuits and regulatory complaints against businesses for their DEI initiatives, Starbuck has relied on social media platform X to generate popular outrage.
U.S. companies have been scaling back DEI programs that some conservatives say discriminate against white men. The backlash follows a wave of pro-DEI policies being introduced across U.S. businesses in response to employee and customer anger over the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white policeman.
Conservative activists are telling companies to drop activism and focus on making products. DEI supporters warn that employees may be harmed by the pullback.
Tractor Supply Co., Deere & Co. and Harley-Davidson revised their DEI initiatives after Starbuck posted a stream of attacks on X complaining about what he said were “woke” policies out of step with the companies’ customers. Starbuck took credit for DEI changes at home improvement retailer Lowe’s, while Jack Daniel’s whiskey maker Brown-Forman Corp. also told staff last month it was ending DEI programs.
—Bloomberg News
There's nothing for Molson Coors to lose, because they never invested in diversity in any real way in the first place. Speaking from direct experience, the scant efforts they made were purely performative, the scant large contracts tagged as part of their diversity efforts went to white white women and white LGBTQ individuals and businesses, and everything else was simply paper shuffling and crumbs to give a sheen a diversity when there was none. It was always business and contracts as usual behind the scenes.
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