Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.

Retail Brew

Andrew Adam Newman

retailbrew.com

Foot traffic at Target fell 3.9% year over year in June, marking the fifth consecutive month of declines for the retailer since it 

 it was rolling back some of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

While June’s foot traffic decline was worse than those in April (-3.3%) and May (-1.6%), the drop was not as precipitous as February (-9%), the first full month after the company’s DEI shift, or March (-6.5%), according to data from Placer.ai.

In the 22 weeks following its ending some of its DEI initiatives, Target’s foot-traffic fell from 2024 levels for all but two weeks, posting modest increases of 0.4% in the week that began April 14 and 0.1% in the week that began April 21, per Placer.ai.

, Target CEO Brian Cornell attributed declining traffic and revenues at Target to “five consecutive months of declining consumer confidence, uncertainty regarding the impact of potential tariffs, and the reaction to the updates we shared on belonging in January.” Here “belonging” refers to DEI: The company’s now-archived 

 called “Belonging at the Bullseye.”)

Over the same five-month period, Costco, which 

 demands from the Trump administration and shareholders to dismantle its DEI initiatives, store visits by consumers were decidedly better. Foot traffic was up every month, although June represented its most modest gain, up just 1.6%, down from a 5.1% increase in May.

 on CNN in May headlined “DEI is winning with Costco, Apple and Levi’s shareholders” cites a Costco proxy investment to shareholders that states, “Among other things, a diverse group of employees helps bring originality and creativity to our merchandise offerings, promoting the ‘treasure hunt’ that our customers value.”

Reputation analytics firm Caliber bases its “Trust & Like Score” on how strongly consumers agree or disagree on a seven-point scale to two statements: “Target is a company I trust” and Target is a company I like.” The score calculates the average of the two responses, but instead of a number from 0 to 7, the score is more like a grade on a pop quiz because, as Caliber puts it, it is “normalized to 0-100.”

Target’s Trust & Like score fell from 70 in January to 65 in June, its lowest this year, according to data Caliber provided to Retail Brew.

In the wake of its DEI shift, Target has been subject to a 

 that were down 2.8% YoY, and, in its hometown of Minneapolis, 

 from the recent Pride Month festival by Twin Cities Pride, which ended a years-long sponsorship partnership with the retailer.

On June 26, four Target executives including CEO Cornell  and Kiera Fernandez, EVP and chief community and stakeholder engagement officer, met in Washington, DC, with members of the Congressional Black Caucus’s (CBC) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Taskforce.

 following the meeting, Representative Yvette D. Clarke, who chairs the CBC and represents New York’s 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, decried Target’s “unconscionable decision to end a number of its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.” She added that “the explanations offered by the leadership of the Target Corporation fell woefully short of what our communities deserve and of the values of inclusion that Target once touted.”

The CBC urged Target to “reinstate” DEI measures it curtailed or eliminated and, in a “public forum,” to “recommit the company to the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Earlier efforts by Cornell to address the DEI backlash have included 

 with civil rights leader Al Sharpton and issuing a 

Brian Harper-Tibaldo, director of media Relations at Target, declined to comment to Retail Brew about the Black Caucus’s demand that Target reinstate DEI initiatives, Caliber’s findings about its reputational decline, or Placer.ai’s foot-traffic data.

Its data about Target’s declining foot traffic has been 

, but Placer.ai also predicts that the retailer could soon turn things around.

 on its website, Placer.ai noted that monthly YoY foot-traffic declines had been progressively smaller, going from 9% in February to 1.7% in May. This, Placer.ai concluded, “signals potential recovery momentum.” (The post was published on June 24, before 

 calculated traffic falling 3.9% in June).

The post noted that, thanks to back-to-school shopping, August historically has been Target’s busiest month (behind December), while February, March, and April are among its slowest.

“This seasonal strength offers more than just high traffic volume,” Placer.ai stated. “It presents a unique comeback opportunity.”

Target foot-traffic falls for fifth straight month

Its reputation also declined over the same period, per Caliber.

Target foot-traffic falls for fifth straight month since backtracking on DEI

When you’re moderating a panel at a conference and the room isn’t even half full, most people would ignore it and proceed as if it were standing room only. But Kimberly Lee Minor, CEO of the Women of Color Retail Alliance, isn’t most people.

“Thank you for joining us today,” began Lee Minor, who was leading a panel about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for the third consecutive year at The Lead Summit in New York recently. “I’m going to just jump in to acknowledge the open seats. So last year we had this conversation, there were maybe five open seats; the year before, people were lined up against the back wall; and as we sit here today, there are more open seats than not.”

A photograph of mostly empty chairs during the panel. 

Lee Minor promised “a great conversation, whether there’s one person in the room or 100” and urged attendees to share their takeaways with friends and colleagues.

Like the attendance for her annual panel, DEI has undergone a marked shift over the last year. Once table stakes for companies, including retailers, DEI has become a culture-war battlefield. Three days after his inauguration, President Trump 

 to “abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion nonsense” in both the public and private sectors. Retailers including 

 have reversed some of their prior DEI commitments.

Panelist Lydia Smith, who until January had served as chief diversity officer and VP of inclusive marketing at Victoria’s Secret, noted that while earlier in the year retailers who were ending their DEI programs (and the ensuing 

) dominated the headlines, these days many companies are making the news 

“There was a huge response in January, that was one direction, and now we’re actually seeing more and more companies publicize that their shareholders are rejecting anti-DEI proposals,” Smith said. “So it’s like, where are we going to land?”

Smith lamented that those who’ve espoused DEI to make workplaces more meritocratic are being accused 

“In this environment of weaponizing the term ‘DEI,’ it’s been linked directly to the opposite of merit-based hiring,” Smith said, adding that longtime DEI executives “would all go out on a limb and say that’s the exact opposite of what we’ve been doing.”

It’s not the only way that DEI is being misconstrued, she continued.

“Part of what we have to combat right now is this idea that when we talk about this lack of representation…that we’re saying that we should just put people in roles, just 

,” Smith said. “We’re saying the opposite…We want to help people get the skills, the development, the coaching, the mentorship that they need. That’s what diversity, equity, and inclusion is truly about.”

“You create an even playing field, and those people who rise to the top excel,” added Lee Minor. “That’s meritocracy, right?”

To add diversity to companies, Smith stressed that delegating it to recruiters doesn’t work.

“You’ve got to start thinking about, ‘How do we expose our hiring managers and leaders, not the recruiters?’” Smith said.

“If their LinkedIn profile is all a bunch of people that look like them, and they’re only in orgs with people that look like them, then you’ve already missed the opportunity,” Smith said. “They should be…attending different events and out there meeting people that don’t look like them before a role becomes open and they have to make a hiring decision.”

One decidedly diverse group, albeit a sparse one, was the audience for the panel itself, and Lee Minor said that’s standard for the Women of Color Retail Alliance.

“What I’m most proud about the organization is that there has not been one workshop, one event, or one webinar or meeting that has been homogenous,” Lee Minor said at the end of the panel. “We have women, we have men, we have every race, creed, ability that shows up…because they know that they’ll be welcome and that they will be treated like they belong. They will meet someone that they didn’t know before they walked in, and it will make a difference.”

Kimberly Lee Minor, Lydia Smith, and April Sabral onstage at The Lead Summit.

Defending DEI for retailers at The Lead Summit.

The Lead Summit panel argues diversity and merit go hand in hand.

Amid the backlash, defending DEI for retailers 

Foot traffic at Target declined for the fourth consecutive month since it rolled back its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in January, and a reputation analytics company reports that the retailer’s reputation has suffered, too.

For the month of May, foot traffic fell 1.6% YoY, which while nothing to pop the bubbly over was less grim than previous declines in February (-9%), March (-6.5%), and April (-3.3%), according to Placer.ai. While correlation—we’ll say it again—is not causation, the traffic slump began after Target 

 it was rolling back its DEI efforts on January 24, the day after President Trump 

 he was acting to “abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion nonsense…throughout the government and the private sector.”

 calls to dismantle its DEI program, saw its foot traffic increase 5.1% YoY in May, following increases for the previous three months when traffic fell at Target, up 2.2% in February, 7.5% in March, and 3.4% in April, per Placer.ai.

Foot traffic has been down for 16 of the last 18 weeks at Target, inching into positive territory only for the weeks that began April 14, when it was up 0.4%, and April 21, up 0.1%. For the same 18 weeks, traffic was 

 at Costco for only one of them, falling 2.5% on the week that began April 14.

Reputation analytics firm Caliber, meanwhile, has found that Target’s reputational score fell over the same period on multiple metrics, according to data it provided exclusively to Retail Brew.

To the question, “Target is ethical in the way it conducts its business,” which Caliber calls its Governance Score, the retailer’s score fell 15.4%, from 65 (out of a possible 100) in January to 55 in May. Over the same period, the average for the top 30 Fortune 500 companies fell only 1.6%, from 64 to 63, meaning Target began slightly above the average and fell well below it. The scores are based on how strongly respondents agree or disagree with statements on a 7-point scale and, in the statistical parlance of Caliber, are “normalized to 0-100.”

When respondents weighed in on other statements, Target’s reputation score dropped from January to May, too:

“Target behaves responsibly,” what Caliber calls its Integrity Score, fell 10.8%, from 65 to 58.

“Target demonstrates leadership,” its Leadership Score, also fell 10.8%, from 65 to 58.

Caliber’s Recommendation Rate—based on responses to the statement that consumers “would recommend Target to others, if given the chance”—is calculated differently. It’s based on how many respondents selected 6 or 7, with 7 being “strongly agree,” and it slipped from 49% in January to 37% in May, a 24.5% decline.

Although those reputational scores are lower in April than they had been all year, Shahar Silbershatz, Caliber’s founder and CEO, noted that they have tended to rise and fall from month to month rather than steadily declining. But with Target, “the rebounds are not as fully bounced back; they just go part way,” Silbershatz told Retail Brew.

“This is concerning,” he continued. “There is a negative trend here. This is going to continue to snowball, and it’s a problem.”

In response to our request for comment about both the foot-traffic and reputational declines, Brian Harper-Tibaldo, director of corporate media relations at Target, pointed us to a passage from the company’s Q1 

 on May 21 when CEO Brian Cornell acknowledged the retailer “faced an exceptionally challenging environment that affected our performance with declines in both traffic and sales.” The company reported a 2.4% decline in both online and in-store transactions, which it refers to as “traffic,” while the Placer.ai data calculates only the foot traffic in stores irrespective of whether purchases are completed.

On the call, Cornell attributed the declines to “headwinds,” namely “five consecutive months of declining consumer confidence, uncertainty regarding the impact of potential tariffs, and the reaction to the updates we shared on belonging in January.” (“Belonging” is a reference to DEI, with the company having replaced its now-archived 

Harper-Tibaldo declined to comment on the reputational data.

Lending credence to the notion that publicity over its DEI shift led to its reputational slippage is the contrast between Democrats and Republicans.

What Caliber calls its Trust & Like score fell 5 points, to 70, among Democrats, and rose 5 points, to 67, among Republicans, for the period of January 27 to June 3 compared to the previous 127 days. (January 27 was the first Monday following Target’s announcement that it was rolling back DEI.)

Over the same period, Target’s Integrity score among Democrats fell 8 points, to 63, while remaining unchanged at 60 for Republicans; its Recommendation rate among Democrats fell 10%, to 45%, while remaining unchanged at 37% for Republicans.

, which Caliber also tracks, over Elon Musk’s (

“It was mostly Democrats that bought Teslas, not Republicans,” Silbershatz said. “Now Democrats are a lot more negative about Tesla [and] Republicans are a lot more positive, but Republicans are not buying Teslas because they’re not interested in electric cars.”

But Silbershatz noted that the shift for Target is not as dramatic—at least not yet—as what has happened at Tesla, where Democrats once rated Tesla’s reputation more highly than Republicans, but now it is the other way around.

“We’re not at that point yet with Target, but that’s where it seems to be going,” Silbershatz said. “You could say it’s net neutral, but it’s not neutral because Republicans are less likely to buy a Tesla. Same thing with Target: It won’t be net neutral if Republicans are less likely to shop at Target.”

Target foot traffic down for fourth month, reputational damage ‘a problem’

The declines began after Target backtracked on DEI.

Jeena Sharma

President Trump’s executive order seeking to end DEI programs in both the private and public sectors triggered a variety of responses among Americans.

Some supported it, while others vehemently opposed it. Brands too began taking sides. Many major retailers, including 

, significantly scaled back their DEI commitments. Most retailers have stayed out of the debate altogether, making minimal changes (at least publicly) to any existing DEI policies.

There are, however, smaller and medium-sized businesses that have instead chosen to make a statement by doubling down on their commitments.

, founder and CEO of Baltimore-based Mason Dixie Foods, for instance, said that the executive order hasn’t changed things at the company because DEI “is never and never was a ‘program’—it always has and always will be a guarantee,” she told Retail Brew via email. “We have always been committed to being certified woman-owned, shaping our team dynamic to not only be woman-owned, but woman-run, managed and operated by over 80%. As a WOC, I also believe that my team should be a reflection of me and of diverse thought and you cannot have diverse thinking without diverse people and perspectives, so we are proudly able to naturally recruit people from the most diverse backgrounds without a ‘program’ and are over 40% POC today.”

Kerry Docherty, co-founder and chief impact officer at clothing brand Faherty, echoed similar sentiments, adding that diversity and inclusion are part of the retailer’s “core values,” both internally and for the “customers, community, and partners.”

“Years ago, I switched my title from ‘president and founder’ to ‘chief impact officer’ to make it clear I was focused on sustainability, partnerships, culture, and philanthropy,” she told Retail Brew via email. “It is a part of my job description to make clear what our priorities and values are for our team and to our customers, and I take this role very seriously.”

Both Docherty and Abuelhiga pointed to programs championing DEI. Abuelhiga mentioned 

, a nonprofit to aid POC in the CPG industry facing challenges due to a lack of mentorship or financial support.

 program, which Abuelhiga said is “dedicated to supporting not just POC but economically challenged individuals seeking a second chance at personal development through an accelerated F&B culinary education and job and entrepreneurial support.”

At Faherty, a key ongoing program is Truth Talks, an internal series that brings in speakers to discuss subjects like race, culture, gender identity, sustainability, and creativity.

Both retailers are standing firm on their positions on DEI regardless of how big retailers might be handling things. But there are challenges.

Docherty noted that although Faherty consumers have been largely supportive of their stance, they have received some pushback in the past when speaking about political subjects on social media.“

In 2020, 2021, our warehouse alerted us that some customers were sending back their Faherty clothes in large boxes with angry handwritten notes: ‘You lost a customer! You woke idiots!’ Others wrote beneath our posts: ‘You lost a customer! Unfollow! Stay out of politics!’” she recalled. “I believe it is a form of conscious capitalism for people to buy from brands they align with and spend their money with companies they support; if that’s us, welcome and thank you.”

While Abuelhiga hasn’t received such resistance from customers, she also doesn’t believe in veering away from the message, not just because of her own political beliefs but because it is integral to good business.

“It is critical to create meaningful DEI programs that actually lead to economic development and growth support for diverse businesses as we are not yet in a time where there is a level playing field in business,” she said. “When done correctly, DEI programs can change not only the lives of diverse founders and businesses, they can change whole communities and consumer base perceptions for retailers long term. Everyone wins when consumers feel welcome; the easiest thing in the world is to demonstrate you have an open door and heart in order to earn their trust.”

Logo promoting diversity at Mason Dixie Foods

DEI may have gone out of fashion at big brands, but some smaller ones are sticking to their policies

Faherty and Mason Dixie Foods are among the SMBs making public statements on the issue.

Voices of Tomorrow is a recurring feature highlighting PoC who are reshaping the retail industry.

Growing up, Ayeshah Abuelhiga—a child of Asian and Middle Eastern immigrant parents—said her family “didn’t have a lot of money.” But if there was one comfort in her life, it was her parents’ carry-out restaurant in Baltimore that served a variety of soul foods.

Abuelhiga dreamed of bringing the same Southern flavors to the world through a fast-casual concept. After a successful pop-up restaurant in Washington, DC, she decided she wanted to expand her crowd-favorite biscuits and waffles to stores across the country. But one look at the modern American frozen food aisle is enough to know most items are full of preservatives and artificial flavors. It’s why in 2014, Abuelhiga decided to revamp the frozen aisle, introducing her Southern frozen treats made with clean ingredients.

“I saw a huge opportunity in the lack of comfort food options available in the growing, better-for-you food space,” Abuelhiga told Retail Brew via email. “I also saw an opportunity to make scratch-made comfort food affordable and accessible to the masses versus just doing better-for-you food in the fine dining realm by looking at the fast-casual scale and ultimately, grocery, as an even better avenue to do just that.”

Today, Mason Dixie products are available across 6,000 stores in the US, including Target, Publix, Kroger, Costco, and Whole Foods, alongside 3,000 Marriott Select Brand Hotels.

According to the company, the multimillion-dollar business has generated 87% dollar growth since 2021.

In a conversation with Retail Brew, Abuelhiga reflected on her success, and her advice to young PoC in retail.

What are some biggest lessons you have learned as a business founder?

The work never gets easier. I used to think it was so hard running the restaurant, doing demos every weekend, getting on emails to cold-call potential grocery stores, and then packaging biscuits until it was time for bed. In fact, my biggest North Star was growing big enough to where I didn’t have to do all those things anymore and somehow it would all happen easier. It’s been 10 years; while I do not do a lot of those things anymore, my days are not any easier. There are new challenges every day—both things that break and need to be fixed and opportunities that present themselves because we have built a reputation that we can solve hard problems, with no playbook. I learned that business is ever-evolving and that nothing actually gets easier; it just gets different.

What are some unique challenges in your job and also as a WoC in the industry?

Every day is new uncharted territory for an emerging brand founder, especially one in a segment like ours where there are not a lot of competitors or gold-standard playbooks for how to make the food we do.

As a WoC in the industry, the challenges are a hundredfold. There are fewer and fewer dollars being allocated to female founders—not just investor dollars, but banking dollars as well. As fewer of us exist, we continue to have the challenge of only a few of us left standing, continuing to give naysayers more data points to say WoC leads less successful businesses because there are mathematically less of us given that chance to succeed.

What advice would you have for young PoC in retail?

I would give them the same advice I give to many of the PoC I mentor whether directly, through the Baltimore CPG Collective, or through our partner nonprofit Project Potluck helping BIPOC, who are vastly underrepresented in the CPG industry, get access to entrepreneurial and career support through network, mentorship and financial programming: Start small. Start where you can impact your destiny and where you can control the most. Don’t envy the brands getting huge volumes of VC money or rolling out to 5,000 doors a year. The most important thing us PoC can do for ourselves is control our destinies, continue to grow sustainably and show off success year after year. I would also say it’s important to stay true to who you are, especially now, as there will be many who want to drag you down. Don’t sacrifice yourself, your values, your North Star, or your vision because someone doesn’t believe it, get it, wants to fund it. There are more ways to win than just the typical route. It takes time, discipline, diligence, and being receptive to the feedback that matters most—your consumer.

Founder of Mason Dixie Foods on changing the American frozen aisle

In an exclusive chat, Ayeshah Abuelhiga reflects on her biggest learnings as business owner and her advice to young PoC in retail.

In its first full quarter since rolling back its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in 

—Target announced that net sales fell 2.8% YoY and that, far from making it up over the next three quarters, it was projecting a “low single-digit decline in sales” for the year.

While CEO Brian Cornell has recently tried to address the DEI backlash, including 

 with civil rights leader the Reverend Al Sharpton and issuing a letter to employees many found 

, he studiously avoids uttering the term itself.

Try, for example, to spot the DEI reference when, after saying inflation was a factor for sales declines during the earnings call, Cornell added, “We faced several additional headwinds this quarter, including five consecutive months of declining consumer confidence, uncertainty regarding the impact of potential tariffs, and the reaction to the updates we shared on belonging in January.”

If your decoder ring didn’t catch it, when Target rolled back its diversity efforts in January, and removed (

 it with a page that doesn’t even mention “diversity” called “Belonging at the Bullseye.”

Target had more to blame than its DEI backtracking for the disappointing quarter.

“The top-line results are poor and they reflect many of the stumbles in execution, particularly in stores,” Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail, wrote in a LinkedIn 

. “The DEI debacle has also had something of an impact, although it is not the only factor driving down these numbers.”

 a week before earnings, Saunders pointed to the “mess and clutter” he’d encountered on Target visits, store associates being “stretched too thinly,” and “non-customer centric decisions” including putting so much inventory in locked display cases.

The post continued that Target’s executives “don’t own issues, they don’t speak honestly and openly, they try to mask problems, they come out with weird statements (customers 

 them for locking up products), and they’ve become way snippier and more defensive to journalists.”

One journalist with whom it might be a challenge for those execs to play nice is Brian Sozzi, executive editor of Yahoo Finance, who concluded that Target “

 on earnings” and “is giving itself black eyes.”

“Its results are likely to spark worry,” Sozzi continued, “that consumer protests of its January retreat on DEI policies, combined with Trump tariffs, have created a financial tornado destined to wallop the company.”

While the headlines don’t necessarily portend a tornado, they do suggest Target might want to hold on to its hat:

“Target’s problems are escalating” (

“Target sales slump amid tariff war, DEI change backlash” (

“Target shares fall after hit from tariffs and store boycotts.” (

“Target badly misses on earnings, slashes guidance as it battles DEI backlash and reinvigorated Walmart” (

“Target’s sales are tumbling—and its DEI moves aren’t helping” (

Sad as the news may seem, Target executives used the word “joy” no fewer than six times on the call.

“We remain confident that our strategy will allow us to continue bringing joy to millions of American families, while importantly paving the way for long-term profitable growth,” said Cornell.

Chief Commercial Officer Rick Gomez was feeling it too as he predicted a windfall for Target when the Nintendo Switch 2 is released June 5.

“We’re one of the top retailers in the US for this launch, and can’t wait to bring joy to families with this highly anticipated release,” Gomez said.

Darts missing the center of the Target bullseye

Target net sales down 2.8% in first full quarter since backtracking on DEI

Lowering expectations, the company now expects “low single digit decline in sales” for the year. 

President Donald Trump has promised to “

” of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, both in the public and private sectors, prompting companies including 

 to roll back their diversity efforts. And with the Trump administration 

 federal employees from using preferred pronouns in email signatures and vowing not to respond to reporters who do, the way that REI’s new CEO, Mary Beth “MB” Laughton, introduced herself at a recent 

 couldn’t help but sound like an act of defiance.

“I’m Mary Beth Laughton, or ‘MB,’ and I use she/her pronouns,” Laughton said on May 8 at the annual member meeting of the outdoors retailer, an incorporated consumer co-op. It is, according to Laughton, common for REI executives and employees to voluntarily state their pronouns at gatherings.

But the company’s dedication to both DEI and environmental stewardship was at the core of Laughton’s remarks.

“For decades, our core values and our impact priorities aimed at protecting a healthy planet, ensuring access to nature, and fostering an inclusive outdoors have guided our decision-making and have been a beacon for attracting great talent and have strengthened our community,” Laughton said. “In a time when our public lands and values like diversity, equity and inclusion are under threat, I want you to hear from me that REI believes these are essential to our business.”

Laughton, who took the helm at REI March 31, previously served in leadership roles at other DEI-

 brands, namely Sephora, Nike, and Athleta. But in an interview with Retail Brew, she stopped short of criticizing brands who backtracked on DEI.

“That’s a little hard for me to comment on, because I just am not in the heart of those situations to know all the factors,” Laughton told us. “For REI, it is very clear that it helps our business, and it’s actually not even separate from our business—it’s just part of what we do.”

While REI is affirming its values now, the company, by its own admission, betrayed them earlier in the current Trump administration.

Now Laughton is intent on making it right.

In January, REI was among dozens of signatories to a 

 sent to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources by the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable supporting the nomination of Doug Burgum, who was then the governor of Nebraska and had 

 to the oil and gas industries, for secretary of the Department of the Interior.

 from REI’s union, and was a head-scratcher for many. After all, since 2015, REI has 

 on Black Friday to discourage overconsumption (and give its employees a paid day off to enjoy the outdoors), and in 2024 became what it claims is the first retailer to achieve “

” status by diverting 90% or more of its operational waste from landfills. Once confirmed, Secretary Burgum quickly signed orders to encourage oil drilling on public lands and roll back environmental regulations, making REI’s endorsement look even more discordant.

In a video posted to social media in April, Laughton explained that the endorsement had been “an effort to have a seat at the table and continue our outdoor recreation advocacy,” but she hardly excused the endorsement.

“Signing that letter was a mistake,” Laughton said in the video. “The actions that the administration has taken on public lands are completely at odds with the long-standing values of REI…I’m here to apologize to our members on behalf of REI, to retract our endorsement of Doug Burgum, and to take full accountability for how we move forward.”

Kara Richardson Whitely is the founder and CEO of The Gorgeous Agency and has helped brands (including outdoor brands The North Face and L.L.Bean, but not REI) to 

When Target rolled back its DEI efforts, the retailer’s previous messaging about DEI appeared to be “total window dressing,” Richardson Whitely told Retail Brew.

She lauded REI for taking the opposite tack, not only affirming its commitment to DEI, but admitting that endorsing Burgum seemed to betray its company values.

“When the tide goes out, you see who’s swimming naked,” Richardson Whitely said. “When we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, it’s becoming incredibly apparent how many people have just used this as a marketing ploy.”

A still from a YouTube video where REI CEO Mary Beth Laughton is speaking.

DEI