Will going anti-woke make you go broke?  /

For all brands, the Trump-quake has upended the world as we know it. It’s no surprise the number one challenge for marketers highlighted by Contagious’s Radar Report is navigating a geopolitical landscape full of plot twists and uncertainty. We’ve felt the tremors in the DEI space for months, and now the full seismic shift is here. We’re calling it the DEI-xit, -like Brexit, with familiar Right Wing activists behind it. In the US comes the real threat of ‘lawfare’ or legal warfare, which has meant targeted corporations are feeling the need to take a position: will they ‘remain’ or ‘leave’? 

Only 42% of respondents in this year’s Contagious Radar report said their companies are pulling back on DEI, while 58% are staying the course (out of a survey of 100 C-suite level brand and agency execs).

Here’s why holding firm matters - to your values, employees, your customers, and, as it turns out, your value.

Will brands stay with values… or lose value? / 

Some of those who voted leave are already feeling the burn. Take Target, which axed its DEI initiatives and then reported share prices dropping 22%. While the share price drop is not directly attributed to Target’s DEI rollback, consumers aren’t just watching – they’re reacting. This Easter, a 40-day ‘fast’ of Target during Lent is planned.Walmart’s shareholders have asked the company to reconsider its rollback: investors including Amalgamated Bank and Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids wrote  [in a letter to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon] that they are ‘concerned to see our company give in to bullying and pressure from anti-DEI groups’.

Customers are striking back. The People’s Union US is calling on customers to boycott specific retailers on February 28 in a 24-hour Economic Blackout. Meanwhile, independent Black, Queer, Woman-Owned, and Ethnic Majority businesses are gearing up for a boom as customers put their money into local community outlets. 

Geopolitics is US-centric (but your business doesn’t have to be) / 

DEI-xit is causing family corporate ‘rifts’. Deloitte’s UK arm is forging ahead with DEI, while its US counterpart is rolling back. Meanwhile, Apple, ever the self-sustaining economic juggernaut, was always going to stay the course. Its $200m+ Racial Equity and Justice Initiative proves that long-term commitment to inclusion is about ethics as well as products and services (as the brand’s 2022 spot The Greatest shows). In a world where consumers see a U-turn from a mile away, companies could lose out on trust, loyalty, and global market relevance. Is this impacting the UK? No. The UK has always had one of the most progressive marketing practices in the world, with the ASA’s rules on gender and racial stereotyping, and Labour government policy doubling down on gender, race and disability pay gap reporting for the sector.

Diverse customers are the future (and they keep receipts) / 

Demographics don’t lie, which is why Gen Z is watching what brands do. By 2045, the US will be a minority-majority nation, and Gen Z – the digital-first generation that is most diverse and socially aware, – already controls $360bn in disposable income, and are set to inherit trillions over the coming decade alone. This is a cohort that expects brands to walk the talk. Nearly 70% of Gen Z consumers prefer brands that back social causes, while 56% of Gen Z are unwilling to accept a job without diverse leadership, according to the World Economic Forum. Future generations care deeply about DEI and, let’s face it, they are the future workforce. 

Meanwhile, global markets are shifting. Africa’s consumer spending is projected to hit $2.5 trillion by 2030, and Asia’s growing middle class is setting new consumption trends. Brands betting on short-term political winds over long-term demographic shifts will regret-xit.

Values bring value / 

‘Doing the right thing’, as Creative Equals inclusion partner Debbie Tembo says, is also ‘the profitable thing’. A report released last year by the Unstereotype Alliance, with leading researchers from Saïd Business School at Oxford University, proved that inclusive advertising drives sales. Inclusion, it concludes, equals income.

DEI defines the war for talent /

Over 60% of job seekers say a company’s DEI commitment influences where they apply. Brands that ditch DEI risk losing top talent to competitors who understand that inclusion isn’t a box-ticking exercise – it’s a strategic advantage. The language has turned to merit-based hiring, however, as we all know, equity plays a huge role in who has access to opportunity. We see this with our career break returners, who once they have left the sector and its networks have all the merit, but no fair playing field because of hard-wired bias. The latest IPA statistics show in the advertising industry our own progress has regressed, with our pay gap at 19.7% (gender) and 33% (ethnic pay gap).

This is deeper than business - it’s about society /

Co-op’s CEO Shirine Khoury-Haq, sums it up in a Guardian interview where she said DEI was true to Co-op’s founding principles and that it would continue to champion fairness having seen the benefits: ‘Rolling back on DEI isn’t just an internal business decision, it has real-world consequences. It deepens inequality, weakens trust, and risks undoing decades of progress. It is no coincidence that the drive to reverse inclusion efforts is often led by those who already hold advantage – those who benefit from an unlevel playing field. The reality is that at some point, every one of us will find ourselves in a minority – whether due to mental health, age, disability, or other circumstances.’

Uncertainty is the new certainty / 

Every day there is a tsunami of news and protests set to challenge the new Trump administration, with a judge currently blocking Trump’s executive orders ending federal support for DEI programmes. Will a ruling prevail? So, what’s the choice?  Remain and focus on the future, values and a more diverse world, or leave and risk the loss of trust (hard to win and easy to lose). Rather than sunset, let’s focus on the horizon.